EP #59 – The Growth Strategy Most Gas Engineers Have Never Considered w/ Dan Giles

Overview

There’s a faster way to grow a heating business than hiring one engineer and hoping it all works out.

Three years into running Phoenix Gas Home Care as a sole trader, Dan acquired the customer base of another local gas business, brought their engineers over, and used it to fundamentally change the shape of his company overnight.

In this episode, he explains how it actually worked, what he’d do differently, and why more engineers should be thinking about it.

Highlights

Dan’s journey from SSE to buying another business

• (1:50) – Various roles Dan had at SSE, and being made redundant.
• (5:18) – Hitting his ceiling as a one-man band: turn customers away, or take on an engineer.
• (6:08) – The problem with hiring first — you carry that engineer at a loss until the work catches up.
• (6:30) – Why the deal only worked because Darren came across with the customers.

What are you actually buying?

• (6:57) – What changed hands: mostly the customer base, plus a few service contracts, no property or kit.
• (12:48) – If you’re just buying a customer base, you’re essentially buying goodwill and depending on the customers staying.

The handover, and the customers you lose

• (8:53) – Ringing round customers who hadn’t been told the business had changed hands, and trying to build their trust.
• (11:08) – A handover can be smooth, but it had to happen fast in Dan’s case, as he explains.
• (22:01) – Day one on Andy Gas’s phone line: 11am, a house full of rads to fit, not one radiator on the wall, and a phone call to his wife.

Systems, and taking on someone else’s engineers

• (8:13) – Moving a paper-based customer base into Gas Engineer Software, one service at a time.
• (14:21) – Integrating Darren and Ellie, and why it felt more like Dan joining their team.

Thinking about your own exit

• (16:05) – Engineers who retire and just shut the doors, wasting years of reputation.
• (17:22) – Dan’s plan for Phoenix: hand it to his son, or build something saleable — either way it has to run without him.
• (20:15) – Why picking the right buyer matters as much as the money.