Growing a plumbing company isn’t just about getting more jobs.
At some point, the challenges change. The owner has to stop thinking only about completing the next service call and start thinking about employees, management, processes, communication, profitability, and expansion.
Max Hicks, owner and founder of Reliant Plumbing, knows that transition firsthand.
He started in the plumbing trade at 16 years old and eventually built Reliant into a multi-location plumbing company serving markets across Texas. In Episode 27 of Home Service Headquarters, Max sits down with host Jack Schnettler to talk about how it happened and the lessons he learned along the way.
Start With What You Have
Max didn’t launch Reliant Plumbing with a huge team or a sophisticated business plan. He started with the basics.
After being laid off from the union, he knew he couldn’t simply wait for another opportunity. He had his daughter full-time and needed a way forward.
So, he created one.
He posted his plumbing services on Craigslist, started spending about $500 a month on Google advertising, built a basic website, secured insurance, and got the vehicles and tools he needed.
The early business was simple. But Max understood that getting customers was going to be just as important as doing the plumbing work. He spent a significant amount of time learning marketing and figuring out how to generate business.
That willingness to learn outside of the trade became an important part of Reliant’s growth.
Get the Business Out of Your Head — and Out of Your House
One of the biggest early turning points came when Max moved the business out of his home and into a leased space. The first space cost approximately $2,000 a month.
It may not sound like a major milestone, but Max describes it as the point where Reliant started to feel like a legitimate business.
Eventually, the company reached around five or six trucks, and growth began accelerating.
That’s an important lesson for any plumbing company owner: growth often requires making the business bigger than the owner. That means creating structure, hiring people, developing processes, and building something that can operate beyond one person’s capacity.
Rapid Growth Can Expose Problems
Reliant’s growth took a dramatic turn in 2023.
An employee who had previously left the company returned and brought along about 20 people from another plumbing business that was struggling.
Max suddenly had the manpower to take on significantly more work. Reliant went from around 10 trucks to nearly 30 in a remarkably short period of time.
But rapid growth came with problems of its own.
Max admits that the company didn’t have enough structure or management in place to absorb that many people smoothly. The experience forced him to confront issues with management, compensation, processes, and training.
And that’s where one of the biggest lessons from Max’s story emerges:
Growth doesn’t automatically make a plumbing company better. It exposes whether the company is actually prepared to grow.
Build Structure Before You Need It
As Reliant grew, Max learned that the management structure that works for a small team doesn’t necessarily work for a larger one:
- A manager who is effective with five employees might struggle with 20.
- Processes that work with a handful of technicians may break down when dozens of people are involved.
- Compensation structures may need to change.
- Communication becomes more important.
- Problems that were once easy for the owner to solve personally have to be handled through a larger organizational structure.
For Max, the solution wasn’t pretending those problems didn’t exist. It was identifying them and fixing them.
He describes the process as essentially learning through experience: something goes wrong, figure out why, determine how to prevent it from happening again, and keep moving.
Your Employees Need to Trust the Business
Max also has a clear perspective on employee retention.
People need consistency.
They need to know that the company’s structure isn’t going to change constantly. They need to be paid correctly and on time. And they need to know that when they sell a job, the company has the systems and people necessary to fulfill it.
That’s particularly important in a plumbing company. A technician can do everything right in the field, but if the office doesn’t answer the phone or can’t coordinate what happens next, the employee is left frustrated.
The same is true for customers.
Operational problems in the office eventually become field problems, employee problems, or customer problems.
The solution isn’t complicated: communicate, identify the roadblock, and fix it.
Growth Is About People, Too
One of the most compelling parts of Max’s story is his approach to developing employees. He isn’t just interested in keeping good plumbers on the payroll. He wants them to grow.
That mindset helped Reliant expand into San Antonio.
Max had a master plumber who had been with the company for a long time and demonstrated that he was ready to take on more responsibility.
Instead of viewing that ambition as a threat, Max saw it as an opportunity. The result was a new branch and another step forward for the company.
For Max, helping people reach their potential is part of building a strong business.
Employees don’t necessarily leave because they have an opportunity to grow somewhere else. Sometimes they leave because they don’t see a path to growth where they are. Create that path, and you give talented people a reason to stay.
Don't Expand Just Because You Can
Today, Reliant Plumbing operates across Austin, San Antonio, Waco, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The company has approximately 60 vehicles and 80–85 employees, and did about $26 million in revenue across its locations last year. But Max isn’t treating those numbers as a reason to blindly accelerate.
Instead, 2026 has been about restructuring and making sure the business is profitable and sustainable.
That’s an important distinction.
There is a difference between growing a plumbing company and building a plumbing company that can handle growth.
Max wants Reliant to be ready before opening its next location. Houston is the next major target, with expansion planned for 2027. But before making that move, Max wants to make sure he has the right management and leadership structure in place.
He’s learned enough from previous growth to know that expanding too early can create problems that are much harder to fix later.
Keep Moving Forward
Max’s path to building Reliant Plumbing wasn’t a straight line.
He didn’t start with a perfect business plan. He learned on the job, figured out marketing, hired people, made management mistakes, dealt with unexpected growth, changed processes, and kept adapting.
That’s what makes his story especially valuable for plumbing company owners.
You don’t need to have everything figured out before you start. You need to be willing to identify what’s not working and do something about it. You need to communicate with your team. You need to create opportunities for good employees to grow.
And as the company gets bigger, you need to build the systems and management structure that allow that growth to continue without becoming chaos.
Reliant Plumbing’s story is ultimately a story about momentum. Start with what you have. Solve the problems in front of you. Build the team. Create the structure. Then take the next step.
Listen to Episode 27
Want to hear Max Hicks tell the Reliant Plumbing story himself?
Tune in to Episode 27 of Home Service Headquarters for the full conversation with Jack Schnettler, including Max’s early days in the trade, Reliant’s explosive growth in 2023, lessons in management and communication, and what’s next for the company.
Connect with Max Hicks, Reliant Plumbing
🌐 Website: https://reliantplumbing.com/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReliantPlumbingTx
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reliant_plumbing_tx/
🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/reliant-plumbing-tx
📺 YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@reliantplumbing
This episode of Home Service Headquarters is sponsored by Project 2 Payment. Project 2 Payment helps home services businesses manage CRM, scheduling, estimates, invoicing, payments, and customer management from one platform.
