Roger Peugeot:
|
When Franklin Peugeot left his home in Paris in the late 1800s and emigrated to America to manage a cotton plantation, he didn't intend to start a familial business lineage focused on customer care. But that's what occurred—and Roger the Plumber is the latest and perhaps best-known person in that line.
Today, at 66, Roger Peugeot has a three-years-and-out plan that he probably won't succeed in implementing, and is still in the thick of a business that has served Johnson County residents for 60 years this month. His customers and his employees are very glad.
Peugeot talked with The Best Times at his shop, at 7723 W. 81st St. in Overland Park.
Best Times: How did this business heritage start, Roger?
Roger Peugeot: It started with my grandfather, who came from Paris in the late 1800s, settled in Louisiana, and managed a cotton plantation that burned down. Eventually he hopped a train to Kansas City to look for a job.
He settled here, and among his children was my dad, Arley Peugeot, who married and had four children by the time World War II began. Dad was working at the Kansas City Board of Trade, but he was drafted at age 35—something he felt bitter about, because shortly afterward the government forbade the drafting of married men of a certain age who were supporting a family.
After he completed military service, my dad used the GI Bill to complete his education, then returned to the Board of Trade to seek customers for the new business he had decided to undertake. And that's an interesting story: Dad had lived for a long time in a house that his mother had built by herself. It was kind of on the shacky side, and lacked gas, heating, and an indoor bathroom. Dad decided he could remedy all that if he learned to be a plumber. That's how he chose the trade!
BT: And you were soon part of things?
RP: In 1950, I was 7 years old when my dad started the Arley Peugeot and Son plumbing business in Kansas City, Kan., where we lived. Some of my earliest memories are of working on faucets and pipes, helping my dad on the job. In 1958, he renamed the business Westwood Plumbing and Heating.
In '61, when I graduated from Shawnee Mission North, I started working with Dad. He assigned me Mission Hills and the territory south of 75th Street.
Dad died in 1972, at age 65, and I took over the business. Because of Dad's reputation, it took me only about a year to establish myself, with no advertising. It was a dream! If I hadn't already had a territory, I'd have been scared to death.
My dad only wanted a small company, but I had visions of a bigger company so I started right away to expand and train employees. Within a year we had three trucks going. Now we have 13 trucks in operation and a full-time staff of 14 people. To my knowledge, we're the largest plumbing service and repair business in Johnson County—although some bigger businesses do plumbing in addition to other work.
BT: Your shiny red trucks are familiar all over the county.
RP: We designed our trucks to be able to carry all the most popular plumbing supplies needed for Johnson County homes. They're big trucks; we call them our do-it-now trucks! We even designed a special compartment with its own door for storing drain cleaner, which can stink up a truck!
BT: Your storeroom here is stacked high with bins organized into little compartments.
RP: We implemented a complicated number system for organizing parts. Those boxes are the heart of the system. Our trucks are each stocked with over 12,000 parts that are specially profiled to meet the plumbing needs of the community. Here's Box 17, for example, and each compartment in it holds a specific part with a labeled code. Every truck has a master book with a key to the coding. Any plumber could start today and find any part he needs.
Through the numbering system, we always have needed parts right on the trucks, which usually means same-day service. It's not easy, and it's very expensive, but that's important to people.
BT: Another key to your success has been "up-front pricing."
RP: Yes. One of the things we learned early in the business is that our customers wanted to know what the job was going to cost. That's hard when you bill by the hour; all you can do is give an estimate that may or may not be close.
So we adopted the idea of up-front pricing. Whatever the job is, we have a price to take care of that need. Some plumbers are speed demons, some are slow and meticulous. So, whether it takes us two hours or eight, the bill will be the one we agreed upon. It's a worry-free policy we like to offer our clients, and it's one of best things I ever did.
BT: How would you describe the plumbers who work for you?
RP: The way I look at it, we have two sets of customers: the residents who need a plumbing service, and the employees who want to work at a job they love and look forward to. We try hard to create a work environment our people can be happy in.
We have 14 plumbers, who range from 25 to 64 years of age. We like to have some seasoned vets to coach the younger guys about working in older houses.
When I'm hiring, I look for someone who's interested in being of service and has a desire to please people. That matters most. I can teach someone plumbing, but I can't teach good customer service to somebody who just doesn't have it in him. Our employees have to be people who don't mind rules and structure.
We have a strict appearance code with a uniform, and we don't allow long hair or facial hair. The plumbers put cloth booties over their shoes or boots in homes. We insist that our plumbers be punctual and communicate back to us how their jobs are going if there's any chance they'll be late.
Our staff are all certified and bonded and are required to obtain continuing education three times a year. We do extensive background checks and continual drug testing. We also train our employees through Dale Carnegie courses so they're able to work effectively with customers who are under stress—which is often the case in plumbing.
I think one of the reasons we've been very successful is that we have a structure that our employees can live up to and live into. In return, we pay them highly, with great incentives and benefits.
BT: Has plumbing hardware changed over the years?
RP: The basic plumbing systems being installed are pretty much the same as they were in the 1950s. But we've seen lots of changes in the codes; in fact, when my dad started the business, there were no codes in Johnson County—so there definitely were some corners cut! When cities began incorporating, that changed.
What's evolved a lot is the focus on beauty and style, which started in the 1950s and continued into the late '60s with color. There were bright, exciting colors—pinks, blues, harvest gold, avocado, even "raspberry puree." People don't like to commit to those colors now; they choose "biscuit" and white because they're easier to decorate around.
In the 1970s, we started seeing more flair in faucets. By the early '90s there was a demand for multi-head showers and whirlpool tubs. Now the focus seems to be on fixture finishes. We've gone from polished brass to stainless steel to today's oil-rubbed bronze. What's next?!
There was a time when the most common thing people told us was, "I don't want to ever have to replace this!" Now we often hear, "I don't like the look of this anymore," or "I saw such-and-such in Chicago and I want it." It's quite a change for us to be replacing perfectly good items for style reasons!
BT: You're a big cheerleader for Johnson County as a place to run a small business.
RP: My dad's vision was always to concentrate his business in one area, and he chose Johnson County. If you're going to run any business at a high level, it makes sense to do it where people appreciate it. The people who've chosen to live in Johnson County are highly educated. They recognize good service and they have high expectations.
At Roger the Plumber, with lots of employees and fully loaded trucks, it costs more for us to operate. A high-quality product, coupled with fast service, equals a higher cost. But to our customers, it's worth it. We serve billionaires and some of the poorest people in the county, but they all call us because they all want the same quality.
The truth is that any good company that focuses on service will be successful anywhere.
BT: What have been some of your greatest business joys?
RP: I'm so proud that we've developed a family business with high standards—and as a result, we're serving a lot of third-generation customers and even some to the fifth generation! I'm proud that we have a good reputation in the community and that we contribute to community projects.
BT: How about some of your challenges?
RP: This recent economic cycle has been tough, because people try to do plumbing themselves or put it off. So we've been focusing on marketing to our current customers. There's also been growing competition. And we face the daily challenge of living up to the reputation we've established.
BT: You don't look or act like a guy who's thinking about retiring.
RP: I'm involved in everything—marketing, answering phones, giving advice to our guys who're out on the job, coaching customers over the phone (how to push the reset button on the garbage disposal, that kind of thing). In terms of plumbing, mostly I deal with the oddities, the cases where something's really quirky.
My son Ryan is the heir apparent. He's buying the business and is poised to take over, and I have a plan to be completely out in three years. I'm working with a psychologist who advises family businesses. I really believe this business coach was placed in my life to ask questions and to provide help. He showed up at exactly the right time.
Assuming Ryan sticks with it, the Peugeot business could get to be 100 years old!
BT: Last fall, The Wall Street Journal featured you in a story about small-business owners and their life satisfaction. The paper quoted you as saying, "Even when things are out of your control, as they are with this economy, you're still in control of your relationships" with customers.
RP: You know how you hear people say, "Do something that you'd love even if you didn't get paid to do it"? This is truly one of those jobs. It's all about making people happy.
BT: You seem to have a strong drive to give back to the community.
RP: I do believe in that, and we have a lot of involvements—some from the business, some from me as an individual. If money is involved, it's the company behind it; if time is involved, it's me!
Our philanthropies include Challenge Air, which helps children with a disability get a chance to fly; Theatre for Young America, which we've supported for 18 years; youth sports, because I didn't get to do that when I was a kid; the Johnson County Arts Commission STARS program for youth, for 20 years; the Overland Park Downtown Business Association, and the Overland Park Heritage Foundation.
