How Plumbers Sell Water Treatment by Testing in Front of the Customer

Quick answer: How do plumbers sell water treatment? They stop pitching and start showing. Sit down with the customer and go over their own city water quality report first, the one every community water system has to send out each year by July 1. Then test the water at their sink while they watch, so the recommendation comes from their water, not from you.

In this short clip from Trade Talks Live, Roger Wakefield sums up the whole method: don’t sell the filter, pull up the customer’s own city water report, read it with them, then test their water right in front of them.

What does it mean to sell water treatment by showing instead of selling?

Water treatment is equipment that changes the water after it reaches the house, like a water softener, which takes out the minerals that cause hard water, or a whole-house filter, which treats all the water coming into the home. Selling it by showing means the customer sees the proof before you recommend anything.

Roger puts it plainly in the video: “The water sells the system. You just show it.” Most homeowners have never seen their own water quality report. When a plumber does that with the customer’s own numbers, the visit stops sounding like a sales pitch and starts sounding like a diagnosis.

What is a city water quality report?

It is the yearly report your customer’s water utility publishes about the drinking water it delivers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls it a Consumer Confidence Report (CCR), and it requires every community water system to send one to its customers each year by July 1.

According to the EPA’s information page on Consumer Confidence Reports, the report has to cover:

• Where the water comes from: the lake, river, aquifer or other source. An aquifer is an underground layer of rock, sand or gravel that holds water.
• The risk to that source: a brief summary of how the local water source could become contaminated.
• What was found: the regulated contaminants found in the local drinking water. A contaminant is anything in the water besides the water itself, and a regulated one is something the EPA sets a legal limit or treatment rule for.
• Health effects: the possible health effects of any contaminant found in violation of an EPA health standard, and what the water system did to restore safe water.
• Who to call: contact information for the water system and for the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline.

The CCR is free, it is specific to that city, and the EPA’s website has a tool for looking up the local one. For a closer look at each part, read Roger’s guide on how to read a water quality report.

Why go over the water quality report before you test?

Because the report is their city’s numbers, not yours. When you open the customer’s own report and read it with them, nobody at the table can call it a sales trick. The utility wrote it, and you are the person helping them understand it.

Roger says it this way in his short on the subject: “Read it with the customer first. Then test. Now they’re looking at their own city’s numbers, not hearing a salesman.” The order matters. The report raises the questions, and the test answers them in their own kitchen.

Going over the report first also gives you time to listen. While you read, the customer will tell you what bothers them: spots on the dishes, a smell, stains in the tub, soap that won’t lather. Those complaints tell you exactly what to look for when you test.

Why test the water if the city already published a report?

Because the report covers the water that leaves the treatment plant and travels through the city’s water mains, the big pipes under the street. It does not cover what happens after that.

Before water comes out of your customer’s faucet, it travels through the service line, which is the pipe that carries water from the city’s system to the house, and then through every pipe inside the home. A test at the sink shows what is actually arriving at the tap in that house.

Not every report lists every number a homeowner asks about, either. Hardness is a good example. Hardness means the dissolved minerals, mostly calcium and magnesium, that leave white spots on glasses and scale inside fixtures. When the utility does not publish it, the test in the house is the only answer you have.

How do you test water in front of the customer, step by step?

Roger’s order is simple: read the report, run the test, recommend what fixes it. On a real service call, that looks like this:

1. Sit down with the customer and pull up their city’s water quality report on your phone or tablet.
2. Read it together. Show them where their water comes from, what the utility found and whether anything was in violation.
3. Ask what they notice at home, like spots, smells, stains or scale on the fixtures.
4. Run your water test at the kitchen sink where they can watch every step.
5. Put the test results next to the report and explain what matches and what does not.
6. Recommend only what fixes what you both saw, and say plainly what the equipment will not do.

The test itself takes a few minutes. The skill is everything around it: reading the report out loud, explaining each result in plain words and answering questions without guessing.

What should a plumber never say during a water test?

Never tell a customer their water is safe or unsafe to drink. That is not your call to make on the spot, and anybody who says it without the report and a test in hand is guessing.

Instead, show them what the utility is required to test for, what it found and what your test found in their home. Then let them decide what they are comfortable with for their family. The same goes for the equipment. Explain what a system removes and what it does not. Knowing where a product stops is what makes your recommendation sound like advice instead of a pitch.

Why does showing beat a sales pitch?

Because the customer reaches the answer on their own. Roger’s line on it is short: “You haven’t sold anything. They’ve seen it.” A customer who watched the test happen at their own sink does not need to be talked into believing the result.

It also changes how your company gets known. A plumber who can read water and explain it is not just another truck in the driveway. That is a specialty, and specialists get asked for by name. Roger digs into that idea in why specialists get paid more.

Do you need a license to sell water treatment?

It depends on where you work, so check before you add the service. The rules for installing water treatment equipment are set by your state, and sometimes your city, not by the company that makes the equipment.

If you work in Texas, start with Roger’s guide to the Texas plumbing license and water treatment. Outside Texas, check with your own state plumbing board before you install anything.

Where can plumbers learn to read water and test it?

Start tonight with practice. Pull up your own city’s water quality report and read it from top to bottom, then read the report for the next town over and compare them.

The HALO Water Tour’s guide to becoming a water quality expert says a utility report “takes about five minutes to read once somebody shows you how.” Plumbers who want to learn water quality from the ground up can start at halowatertour.com.

For the business side of the trade, from your skills to your brand, see Roger’s training programs, and find more posts for plumbing company owners on Roger’s blog.

Frequently asked questions about selling water treatment

These are the questions plumbers and owners ask most about selling water treatment the right way.

What is a Consumer Confidence Report?

It is the yearly drinking water quality report a community water system must send its customers. The EPA requires it, and it shows where the water comes from and which regulated contaminants were found.

When do water utilities send out their reports?

The EPA requires community water systems to send the report each year by July 1. If a customer cannot find theirs, the EPA’s website has a tool for looking up the local report.

How long do the report and the test take?

Not long. Reading the report goes quickly once someone has shown you how, and the test at the sink takes a few minutes. Spend the rest of the visit listening and explaining.

Should a plumber tell a customer their water is safe to drink?

No. Show them what their utility tested for and found, show them your test results from their home, and let them decide what they are comfortable with for their family.

Do you have to recommend equipment after every water test?

No. Recommend only what fixes what the report and the test showed. If the water does not need treatment, tell the customer so.

Who is Roger Wakefield?

Roger Wakefield is a Texas Master Plumber with 45 years in the trade, a blue-collar keynote speaker and one of the most watched trades educators in the world, with 1.7 million followers and more than 160 million YouTube views.

About Roger Wakefield

Roger Wakefield has spent 45 years in plumbing. Today he teaches the trades to 1.7 million followers across social media, on his YouTube channel and on The Trade Talks podcast. Read Roger’s story, or watch his videos on YouTube.