We recently connected with Nate Santos and have shared our conversation below.
Nate, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Well I’d have to say it started with my uncle who owns his plumbing business. He had 1st approached me right before I graduated AHS. I had helped him a on a few jobs growing up and had enough of an idea to know I did not want to be a career plumber lol. He mentioned it to me a couple more times throughout the years and i always turned him down. Fast fwd to me being 26 and trying to buy my 1st home. Im in a pinch and need to show proof of income. I reach out to my uncle for a favor. He said “Great! I’ve been telling you this for years!”. Long story short I worked with him for 2 years. I left working with him to peruse my passion for horses. I started an entertainment service involving mariachi’s and dancing horses. I was working on this project with my family. We did a few private shows at some local wineries, some family reunions and even some local public events. Atacadero Tamale Festival, Templeton Independence Day parade and the Paso Robles Pioneer Day parade. I started this back in 2018-2019. We even offered our horses for quinceñeras and wedding photo shoots. We were starting to get some decent traction and more gigs. Then 2020 and all the craziness happened. Lockdowns and no more parties. Turns out dancing horses weren’t considered “essential” lol. During the following years I was getting a lot of word of mouth referrals for my plumbing experience. Finally light bulb went on! Plumbing service and repairs are always needed! Wether the world is in some crazy lockdown situation or the economy is good or bad. Now a days no one really needs a horse. Much less a dancing horse lol. Thus Santos Bro’s Plumbing was born. We are now going into our 3rd year in business and loving almost every moment it haha. I have learned so many new things and i know i have so much more to learn. I think most people would i am a vibrant, fun and outgoing guy so I really wanted to incorporate that into my business branding. We started out completely different from the norm of what is considered a plumbing company. I wanted our trucks to stand out and pop. People will know who we from a mile away. Our trucks have a two cowboy/plumber characters. The Santos Brothers. With our cowboy hats and boots. Our overalls which are very much an AG outfit as well as an iconic plumber uniform i merged the best of the worlds im from. A plumber with a passion for horseback riding 🤠. With this branding on our trucks and the facts that we show up to work in these get up we have really stood out amongst the crowd. However what i really feel sets us aside is our top tier service. I tell my guys we are not a plumbing company we are a service company solving homeowners plumbing issues. Some of the most positive feedback we get is our professionalism, cleanliness and how friendly we are. Also how much people love seeing our trucks all over town. I actually even incorporate them in the local parades I mentioned earlier along with our dancing horses. I feel truly blessed that i have been able to combine the two in my own unique way.
Nate, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
So my parents always raised my siblings and me to responsible and hardworking. We always had chores growing up and work around the ranch is never ending. My dad always taught me to have pride in what i do and to always give it my best. These things have definitely shaped how i have been able to start and grow my business. I strive to provide the best customer service. We are currently at about 270 reviews on google with a 4.9 average. Less than 10 1 star reviews. We definitely go past 300 before end of the year. Some of the things i think have helped us is our communication skills with our clients. Always explaining the issue to them and the different way we can go about resolving the issue depending on their needs and wants. As well as the respect we have for there homes. Always keeping our work area clean and more importantly cleaning up after ourselves. Also that fact that we do things right the 1st time and mitigating any call backs.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
Yes! We recently created a video ad that involved some acting lol. Now my brand is a cowboy in overalls. Even got some spurs on my boots. However I decided to try something different. We switched up a bit. My brother and jumped into some tuxedos and acted out some secret agent plumber mission 007 style lol. We also did a foto shoot. Back to back holding our plumbing tools “Santos Bro’s Plumbing – License to Plumb”. We have that image on a billboard and it also goes out on flyers to mailboxes. Now the video on YouTube has performed really well. Avg view time for most ads is 3 seconds and our video is getting and average watch time of 25 seconds. 55 seconds total length. Now i was told from a few people this was not a good idea donto the fact that it was off brand from the cowboy theme. However we hear tons of positive feedback from locals and how much they love it.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Some of the things that i think helped build my reputation is answering the phone. So many times people are happy just of the fact that their phone call is answered. We hear things like “wow finally! You’re the 3rd company i call. Or wow an actual person.”. Another thing we strive for is same day service. People are stoked when we can get to them today and they dont have to be scheduled 2 weeks out or more. Also something i hear a lot is wow glad you actually showed up. I guess some companies dont show up haha. We always do our best to show up in the time frame we schedule. Not to mention our quality workmanship. We have many repeat clients.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.santosbrosplumbing.com
- Instagram: santosbros.plumbing
- Facebook: Santos Bros. Plumbing
Image Credits
Nate Santos(myself), Dan Santos(my brother) and Manuel Enrique(my dad when the three of us are on horseback)