A former beauty queen finds success getting her hands dirty

Tips from a plumber and CEO

Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. That’s how you learn how to fix what needs fixing.

Bring the right tools: education, enthusiasm, energy, thoroughness.

Don’t be too stubborn or proud to get help. One option: a nearby Small Business Development Center.

Do the little things right, consistently.

Roll up your sleeves. Be prepared to work hard and late.

Get a good banker. Also a good accountant (not a bookkeeper), who can tell you how to keep more of what you make.

When Mitzi Moore’s marriage fell apart, the stay-at-home mom and former Miss Georgia Southern needed to reinvent herself.

She started working for her dad’s plumbing business, answering phones. She liked the atmosphere and possibilities so much that she became a master plumber, then launched a new plumbing business after her dad sold the first venture. Now, Moore’s Marietta-based Sundial Plumbing has 38 employees. It generates $3 million in revenue, down a third from pre-recession days. Here’s how Moore, now 53, nurtured the business and hunts for innovation.

(My dad’s plumbing business) had several hundred employee. Growing up I hadn’t thought anything about plumbing. Girls didn’t do that. They still don’t — there’s not very many that do. I got married. I went to college. I got my bachelors in management. I had a child. Then couple years later had a second child and went through a really bad divorce. When that happens you have a lot of healing to do physically and emotionally. My daughter she was a baby. Job offers I had gotten with my degree were to move to different states. I just felt like I couldn’t leave here for the stability of the children. I thought I would just work for my dad for a little while answering the phone. I really liked it. There was a lot of building. People were coming and going. It was exciting. I approached (my dad) and said I think I would just like to stay here. I’d just want to run the whole business. He said you can, but it would be hard and you’d have to get your plumbing license. You have to go out on the trucks for three years and take a test. Then you have to continue working for two more and take a test. I started going out on the trucks. I put in water heaters. Cleaned sewers, installed plumbing, did everything you could think of.

Soon after she became a plumber, Moore’s dad decided to retire. He asked his daughter if she wanted to take over running the business. She said no: she didn’t think she was ready to lead such a large operation. So he sold the business to another plumbing company. Moore stayed on with the new company as a manager. But eventually she and her dad launched a new plumbing venture. It would be her business, backed by his money and advice.

We started in his garage. We spent really all of our money buying all the things you need for your business from a copying machine to scissors to Sawzalls (a rotating saw) to trucks. One thing we didn’t think about: We had not allocated enough money for accounts receivable. So cash flow was a really big issue. You need several hundred thousand dollars just to live on until the money comes in from the work that you’ve done. We tried to bill fast and collect fast. I tried to buy things where I could put it on a credit card and have 30 days to pay it. We juggled.

Eighty percent of her business had been serving builders, with the remainder providing service to consumers. But in 2005, builders cut back sharply. Moore talked to employees about the problem.

People perceive in business that when things get slow you just let them go; you can just rehire them later. You can’t. They get gone. It takes years to build a team like we have. I went in and declared to everyone that no one was going to have to lose their job. But that they were going to have to do whatever we had to.

She had employees remodel and rebuild the company’s plumbing office, a project that got bigger and more expensive as the recession lingered.

It was one of the best decisions I ever made in business. It sent a big message to everybody that I was invested in this community and this industry and these people and this business and that we intended to be the best.

It could have been disastrous. Moore’s father correctly warned that the project’s cost could soar. And he cautioned his daughter about how she planned to pay for it.

I had all my bills paid down. We’ve always been conservative. But when we got into remodeling, I said, “Well I’m going to use that line of credit.” He said, “Mitzi, you cannot go into debt on a recession because the bank may call that loan in on you.” I said, “No they would never do that. We’ve always paid our bills. He said, “Mitzi, it isn’t about you. It’s because all of the other customers haven’t been good and they need the cash.” I had never heard of that: a bank calling in a loan on a good customer.

She used her own savings and credit cards to help pay for the project. During the company’s long lull, she also retrained workers on how to better serve homeowners rather than builders.

We changed our lens to look at the services through the customers’ eyes. We revamped our mission. We try to make it the best experience that you have ever had. You can’t talk about being the best if you don’t look like the best and act like the best. We retooled lots of things. The average consumer has a plumbing need every five years. Even if we do a good job, it is a challenge for people to remember who we are.

Office workers were given cue cards on how to talk with customers. Plumbers were told to shine their shoes every day.

When we send a technician out to your home, we will send you a short 15-second video introduction that we have of the technician, so you can see who will be at the door. We take photos with our iPhones before the work is done and then after the work. So he doesn’t have to write down a long serial number. He can just take a picture of it. So he can focus on communicating with the customer. Plumbing can often be traumatic for people. Every day we get calls from people crying or screaming and cussing. Because nice people tend to be stressed if they have sewage up to their ankles in their home.

A lot of the men (plumbers) are large physically. They are trained not to get in your space. If they are going over a job, they will squat down so their eye level is lower than yours when they are speaking. They ring the door bell and then step back three steps.

I changed the men’s pay. They make hourly. When they come to your home, it doesn’t matter if your ticket is $200 or $2,000, but it does if you are happy with the service. We follow up with phone calls and a handwritten letter. Our goal is to get you so happy that you will tell others. Based on the customer feedback, that’s how the men are bonused.

I always tell people here: we are a small business, but we make a difference. I think they (staff) like the idea of something bigger than themselves, an idea of helping others. It’s enjoyable to see just how many satisfied customers you can get.

Moore said she initially resisted when an adviser pushed her to put her picture on the company’s fleet of trucks, showcasing a woman.