The 2x2
Posts
Pipe Dreams: Achieved

Pipe Dreams: Achieved

Lauren Wambold Patel
May 27, 2025

Welcome back to The 2x2 - the ultimate newsletter for executive consultants!

This week, we invited Deborah Whitby of Austin Plumbery to share with us how she built a boring business based on trust, not upsells.

Read on…

⏰ Today in 5 minutes or less:

Consulting businesses can learn from “Boring Businesses”: leading with value and delivery with quality will drive growth.
Good branding is worth the investment. It signals trust and attracts your target customer.
The simpler the model, the faster clients convert. Don’t overcomplicate.

How Deborah Whitby Re-Built a Family Business

Can your pricing model attract the market on its own?

Deborah Whitby proved it’s possible by turning Austin Plumbery into something rare: a home service business that runs lean, builds trust, and scales without chaos.

When she took over her father’s business, she didn’t just keep it running.

She rebuilt it with clarity – operational discipline, smart branding, and simple pricing becoming the foundation for something stronger.

In this interview, we unpacked how she built a business customers flag down in traffic – and why her approach offers smart lessons for operators across the home services space. From brand-led growth to efficient systems, her playbook is quietly scalable.

I’m also joined by Rebecca McDowell – founder of meego, a home service referral startup.

With a sharp eye for operational blind spots, she’s the perfect person to break down what makes Deborah’s model resonate.

Check out the full episode here:

You took over your dad’s plumbing business, but you also built something from scratch. What was your first move, and how did you think about building your own business?

Deborah: It started with a mix of timing, necessity, and trust from my dad.

He had been a plumber his whole life so knew a lot of people in Austin. I was teaching high school at the time, but after I had my son, I started looking for something that gave me more income and flexibility.

At first, I wasn’t thinking about plumbing. I considered opening an eyelash studio or a boutique.

My husband suggested helping my dad with invoicing, but I said I wasn’t going to leave my career unless there was a real opportunity. That’s when my dad told me I could do whatever I wanted with his business if I took it.

When I took over the business in 2016, it didn’t have a brand or structure. I started from zero, so I opened a new business bank account with $500 and created a new business line and name.

What I didn’t want to do was inherit his client base. He was charging way below market – like $75 for a job that should’ve been $200. I knew I couldn’t build a sustainable business off those expectations.

So instead, I focused on home warranty companies instead of the residential clients.

He already had one contract, so I followed that lead. I signed up with as many as I could, filled out vendor applications, got insurance in place, and started taking jobs through those networks.

It was an immediate stream of work. Once we were inside homes, homeowners would eventually cancel their insurance policies, but they remembered us and called us directly. That’s how we grew – house by house, relationship by relationship.

At what point did you feel ready to invest in branding and operations?

Deborah: I had a number in my head – $50,000. That was the amount I needed to see in our business checking account before I felt comfortable making any big investments.

For some people, that’s too high or too low. But for me, that was my safety net. I started with $500, so reaching that number gave me the confidence that we had enough traction.

Initially, I was just going to update the logo on Fiverr. But one day, I was in the conference room of my building downtown looking at sample logos when a neighbor – who owned a chain of salon lofts – walked in. I told him I was working on a rebrand, and he told me that I needed an actual brand and not just a logo.

That led me to a designer who charged $20,000, which was a huge investment at the time.

But she didn’t just create a logo. She did research on how our target customer makes decisions. She gave us a full brand identity: color, logo, wrapped vans, tone, and a brand Bible that I still use today.

The ROI was almost instant.

A week after one of our vans was wrapped in the new branding, someone saw it in a parking lot and called us for a $14,000 job. That branding opened the door to better business. It made us look legitimate and local. Our vans went from white with sticker logos to a distinct, memorable look.

People trusted us more.

All three of us use some form of flat rate pricing model, which goes against the usual hourly billing or commission-based market. Why did you choose that approach?

Deborah: It started as a brand decision. I didn’t want our customers to feel like they were being haggled or upsold every time someone showed up to fix their sink.

Flat rate pricing helped us build trust. We created a simple tiered model with add-ons for complexity – like if accessing a water heater is difficult – but everything is transparent.

We also coach our plumbers to educate customers, not sell to them.

If someone’s replacing a faucet, they’ll hear about upgrade options. But the goal isn’t to push a higher-ticket job – it’s to give them clarity and let them choose.

I did try a commission model once, with my husband who was also a plumber.

He was motivated, so I let him test it. But tracking commissions and profitability added complexity fast. And hiring is hard enough. Adding another layer to manage just wasn’t worth it.

Flat rate keeps it simple, and it makes performance easier to monitor.

Rebecca: As for me, I’ve been looking at pricing models for meego. But the goal is the same: keep it simple and value-aligned.

We’re in beta right now, so we’re not charging yet, but I’m building toward two models – monthly subscriptions for individual vendors based on referrals, and a seat-based model for brokerages.

The clearer it is to understand, the easier it’ll be to sell, and the better the experience for both sides.

Lauren: I also started flat-rate pricing out of pure necessity – I didn’t have time to track hours or explain custom scopes. It was just me at the beginning, and I needed something I could quote in one sentence.

Now, I price consultants based on seniority and time commitment. It’s scalable, transparent, and honestly, easier for clients to say yes to. Complexity has a cost, and in consulting, that cost is often your time and sanity.

The simpler the model, the faster people understand what they’re buying.

And when you're running lean, simplicity isn't just a preference – it’s your competitive advantage.

What We Can Learn from Deborah Whitby:

Start with a clean slate, not just a clean P&L. Deborah didn’t inherit her father’s business to try and patch it up. She rebuilt the client base with intention, walking away from underpriced, low-margin work. That decision gave her the foundation to scale on her own terms. We see this mistake often: operators try to scale before fixing the model beneath it.
Branding isn’t a luxury, it’s a lever. When her business account hit $50,000, Deborah spent $20,000 on brand. It immediately paid off in stronger positioning, better-fit leads, and higher-ticket jobs. She used brand to signal operational quality and attract the right kind of volume. Too many home service businesses overlook this. Strategic branding increases conversion and pricing power.
Keep operations simple and scalable. Deborah's model runs lean: flat-rate pricing, no commissions, and minimal layers. That clarity lets her grow without sacrificing control or customer experience. It’s the kind of structure that expands cleanly – whether through geography, acquisition, or replication. We’ve helped operators strip down bloat like this – and watched profit follow.