1. What’s the quick origin story of your brand, and what makes your product or positioning genuinely different from other options in your niche?

Brendan Tonks: Steve Bennett Plumbing has been around for over 40 years, and I took over as Director in 2021. The brand was already well respected when I stepped in, so I wasn’t rebuilding anything from scratch. I was inheriting something that worked and making sure it kept working, which honestly comes with its own kind of pressure.

What makes us different isn’t a single thing. It’s a combination that’s pretty hard to replicate. Over 100 years of combined team experience, a Lifetime Labour Warranty on every job, zero call out fees and same-day service across our area. Most operators pick one or two of those as a selling point. We back all of them simultaneously.

But if I’m being real, the thing that separates us most is that we don’t guess. We use CCTV drain cameras and advanced leak detection technology to find the actual problem before we touch anything, so customers aren’t paying for trial and error. Over 5,000 completed projects and 198 five-star Google reviews tell me that approach resonates with people who’ve dealt with tradies who just start pulling things apart and figure it out as they go.

2. Since launch, what have been the 1-2 real turning points for your brand-specific decisions, pivots, or experiments that noticeably changed your growth or profitability-and what did you learn from them?

Brendan Tonks: The most significant turning point was the 2025 expansion of our emergency response operations. We added staff and upgraded our dispatch systems specifically to cut response times during peak demand. That wasn’t a gamble, it was a response to a pattern we kept seeing where customers were calling us after being let down by operators who couldn’t mobilise fast enough. The lesson there was straightforward — speed of response is its own form of quality in this industry.

The second was investing in advanced diagnostic technology like CCTV drain cameras and leak detection equipment earlier than most operators in our space. It changed the conversation with customers completely. Instead of quoting based on assumptions, we could show people exactly what the problem was before starting work. That built a level of trust that no amount of marketing spend can replicate, and I think it’s the main reason our Google reviews have stayed as strong as they have.

3. Which 2-3 channels drive most of your revenue right now (for example SEO, paid social, email, marketplaces, influencers), and what have you learned about making those channels work in your category?

Brendan Tonks: Honestly, the channels that drive the most for us are pretty unglamorous compared to what you hear about in marketing circles.

Google search is the biggest one. When someone has a burst pipe or a blocked drain, they’re not scrolling Instagram, they’re typing into Google and calling the first result they trust. So our visibility there directly translates to jobs booked. What I’ve learned is that in a service-based trade business, local search intent is everything and reviews feed that engine more than most people realise. Our 198 five-star reviews aren’t just social proof, they’re actively working as a ranking signal.

Word of mouth is the second and it’s probably the most underrated channel in our category. A customer who had a good experience tells their neighbour, and that neighbour calls us without shopping around. That referral dynamic means our close rate on inbound calls is much higher than cold traffic.

The third is our reputation with interior designers and other trade professionals we work alongside. Those relationships generate a steady stream of project referrals that don’t cost us anything in ad spend and tend to be higher value jobs from homeowners who are already invested in doing things properly.

4. How are you thinking about search in 2026 – Google, AI assistants like ChatGPT, and other discovery platforms? What, if anything, have you changed in your content or site to stay visible as AI search grows?

Brendan Tonks: This is something I’ve been thinking about more lately, to be honest.

Google is still where most of our direct jobs come from, and I don’t see that changing dramatically for emergency trade work in the near term. When someone’s bathroom is flooding at 9pm, they’re still going to search and call. That behaviour is pretty deeply ingrained and I don’t think AI assistants have displaced it yet for urgent service needs.

But I do think the game is shifting for informational searches. People are getting answers from ChatGPT and other AI tools instead of clicking through to websites, and that means the traffic that used to come from “how to fix a leaking tap” type content is thinning out. What I’ve learned from that is you have to be the source those AI tools are pulling from, not just the website competing for the click.

The practical change we’ve made is focusing more on content that demonstrates genuine expertise rather than content that just targets keywords. Detailed, specific, experience-based content tends to get referenced by AI tools because it actually answers questions properly rather than padding word counts to rank.

At the end of the day, the businesses that will stay visible across both Google and AI search are the ones that have built a real reputation with real reviews and real substance behind their content. That’s not a new idea, but it’s the one that keeps holding up.

5. What do you do to turn first‑time buyers into repeat customers and advocates? Are there specific experiences, content, or community touches that work especially well for you?

Brendan Tonks: The honest answer is that the job itself does most of the heavy lifting. If someone calls us with an emergency and we show up fast, fix it properly and don’t leave a mess behind, they remember that. In a category where the bar is genuinely low, reliable workmanship and basic professionalism go further than most retention strategies I’ve heard of.

The Lifetime Labour Warranty does a lot of work here too. It tells a customer that we’re not disappearing after the invoice gets paid, and that changes how they feel about calling us back for the next job. I think that ongoing accountability is what converts a first-time customer into someone who refers their neighbours.

The other thing that works is staying in the orbit of the designers and trade professionals we work alongside. Those relationships keep us front of mind for repeat project work without us having to chase it, and the referrals that come through them tend to already trust us before we’ve even shown up.

6. If you had to write a short playbook for an ecommerce founder one stage behind you, what would you double down on over the next 12 months – and what would you stop doing entirely?

Brendan Tonks: Double down on reputation infrastructure first. Reviews, referral relationships and response speed. Those three compound over time in a way that paid advertising doesn’t. Every five-star review you earn today is still working for you in three years. Every ad you stop paying for disappears overnight.

Double down on diagnostic content too. Content that actually solves a specific problem in detail, not generic advice padded out to hit a word count. That’s what gets referenced, shared and trusted.

Stop chasing every new channel before you’ve maxed out the ones already working. I see a lot of operators spread thin across platforms they half-understand instead of owning one or two properly.

And stop competing on price alone. It attracts the wrong customers and trains them to expect discounts every time.