Time-tested Wisconsin pumper, onsite system installer and excavator John Laudolff has a bit of advice for contractors looking to keep pace with new technology and regulations: Don’t stop getting schooled.

An easy way to keep education on the front burner is to join a statewide or national trade organization, says Laudolff, the owner of Laudolff Excavating and Septic Service Inc. in Fond du Lac, Wis. As an example, he points to his membership in the Wisconsin Onsite Water Recycling Association.

LEARNING CURVE

“Our membership in WOWRA has been invaluable over the years,” he says. “We’ve made good use of its classes and instruction in new technology. It’s helped one of our employees obtain a master plumber’s license and two others become journeyman plumbers.

“Being part of an organization exposes you to new technology and the people selling it and designing it,” he adds. “If I wasn’t a member, I’d have to rely on finding out about those things on my own.”

A good example, Laudolff says, is the use of aerobic treatment units to downsize septic systems on smaller building sites.

“Pre-treatment systems allow you to make use of soil that would otherwise be unacceptable, like a lot with high groundwater, for instance,” he explains. The customers with small lots and poor soils in Laudolff’s territory never like the alternative. “Without the aeration, homeowners in those situations would have to use a holding tank and get pumped out every two to four weeks.”

There’s another benefit to belonging to a professional trade organization: It offers better opportunities for pumpers to provide legislative agencies with input about rules and regulations. In short, there’s strength in numbers.

“It gives us the chance to be proactive rather than reactive about writing code for the onsite plumbing industry,” Laudolff says. “Over the years, we’ve become very well respected by the Wisconsin Department of Commerce (which regulates onsite sewage) … We’re both on the same page. We don’t want to pollute groundwater, so we work hand-in-hand with government to help prevent that. We’re environmentalists. We have to overcome the image that septic systems are a bad thing.”

In addition, business owners who join professional groups generally are interested in doing things the right way and promoting a positive image for their industry, so there’s intangible value to rubbing elbows with such colleagues, he says.

STARTED OUT SMALL

Keeping up with education is just one of several strategies that have paid dividends for Laudolff, who along with his wife, Mary, established their business as an excavating outfit in 1978. After working for five years for a utility pipeline contractor in the early 1970s, Laudolff decided to get into excavating after meeting a contractor who’d just started out in the same field.

“That’s what gave me the idea,” he says. “Along with that, my job was taking me farther and farther from home, so the thought of being my own boss started to look very appealing.”

The Laudolffs began their enterprise with a 5-yard, 1962 Chevrolet dump truck, a 580B Case tractor/loader backhoe and a 24-foot trailer.

“It was pretty risky at the time, having never been in the building industry,” he says. “We had to advertise to get work, and I also visited a lot of companies in person. Fortunately, local residential builders were very receptive and encouraged me.”

Over the years, Laudolff’s business slowly grew, largely through word-of-mouth referrals. He started out doing mostly plumbing excavation work for new homes until 1980, when he earned a master plumber’s license.

“My goal was to install (septic) systems, which requires a license,” he says. “I had no formal business plan, other than to get a license. Without a license, you can’t take out sanitary permits. But once you’re a master plumber, you can advertise for work, design plans and do installations.”

Today, Laudolff’s sons, Nick and Jason, are among the company’s seven full-time employees, making the operation a true family affair.

GROWTH PLAN

Growth didn’t occur without challenges. First, it meant hiring young employees that tended to get married and require benefits for growing families.

“You’re kind of responsible for them — they’re like extended family,” Laudolff says.

More work also generated greater pressure to finish projects on time, lest they delay the next day’s project, and so on. To avoid a negative domino effect requires working even longer hours to get work finished on time.

Then there was the matter of setting prices low enough to gain business but high enough to make a profit. As an inexperienced excavator, it initially took Laudolff a while to figure out how long it would take to do certain things; miscalculations reduced profit margins.

“I learned by doing — from the school of hard knocks,” he says.

In the late 1980s, Laudolff realized that pumping out septic tanks would be a logical extension of his company’s septic installation service.

“Generally, when people have something wrong with their septic system, it has to be pumped out,” Laudolff says. “That, in turn, can lead to new installations. I figured I was missing out on a business opportunity.

“Diversifying into pumping gave me access to septic systems that needed work and ongoing maintenance. It generates regular work.”

In addition, if work goes slack in one area, the other business segment can keep things going, says Nick Laudolff, who’s been working with his father for 10 years.

“One side of the business helps the others,” he says. “If one is slow, we’ve been fortunate that the other one balances it out. One year, for example, we had a lot of rain and couldn’t do much excavation work. But the pumper truck kept the cash flow going.”

ADDING EQUIPMENT

To take a stab at this new endeavor, Laudolff bought a used vacuum truck: a late 1970s International with a 3,000-gallon steel tank. Today, he says he tends to buy new equipment if it’s vital to the business’s operations and is going to get used heavily every day.

Breaking into the septic-pumping field was a little easier than Laudolff’s entry in excavation work, because his company was already well known in the community. He obtained job leads by sending out letters to all holding-tank owners in Fond du Lac County; those owners are registered with the county, so their names are on file as public record. He says he generated about a 3-percent response rate, which is considered good for direct-mail advertising.

He also advertised 24-hour emergency service and made sure his truck promoted his company as a rolling billboard.

“It’s like anything else,” he says. “You’ve got to be visible in the community.”

Today, Laudolff is leasing (with an option to buy) a 2008 Mack truck with a 4,200-gallon, stainless-steel tank that he’s used on several different trucks. He’s leasing the truck from Fond du Lac Truck Sales.

“I’ve used the same tank for 14 years,” he says. “Mild steel rusts inside and eventually buckles, but stainless steel lasts forever.”

Laudolff opted years ago for a tank large enough to handle two or three septic tank pumping stops per load, or one large holding tank. It’s more economical for Laudolff to provide one-stop service for holding tanks, and it saves customers money by stretching out the time between pumpings, he says.

Septage disposal hasn’t been a major issue for Laudolff, thanks to 100 acres of farmland he purchased in 1994. He trucks holding-tank waste to a nearby municipal treatment plant, but land-applies septage (except for waste pumped during emergency service calls in winter). After balancing pH levels by adding lime to the tank, Laudolff surface-applies the waste with a spreader plate off the back of his truck.

“Disposal can be one of the biggest problems, but we’ve been lucky overall,” he says.

EDUCATING CUSTOMERS, TOO

One potential problem Laudolff successfully fends off is customers who don’t understand how septic systems work. Dispelling myths and correcting disinformation is all part of the company’s emphasis on education.

“We hand out brochures to our customers that tell them things such as what not to put into their septic tanks,” says Nick Laudolff. “And after installations, we have a walk-through with the customer to explain what they now have — basically, a small treatment plant in their back yard.

“We tell them what each component does and why it’s there. That saves us panic phone calls down the line when a customer might, for instance, hear water running in the tank and doesn’t realize what’s going on,” he says.

It’s just another example of how education benefits the company — and its customers, too.