Brian and Mike McMullen are Committed to Providing a Personal Touch for Their Customers

McMullen Septic used an intelligent growth strategy and a strong family reputation to build a diversified and thriving business in southwest Delaware.

Brian and Mike McMullen are Committed to Providing a Personal Touch for Their Customers

The McMullen Septic team (from left, wearing masks during the pandemic) includes C.J. Jester, Chad Taylor, Norman Heim, Cliff Benton, Jason McConnell, David Craft, Eric Nichols, Shelly Wolfe, Nicki Dupas, Dave Gillespie, Brian McMullen, Justin DeShields, Pam Turner, Mike Montague, Jay Porter. The truck is a 2010 Freightliner with an NVE pump and built out by House of Imports. (Photos by John Boal)

I consider a bad bottle of Heineken to be a personal insult to me,” said the Dutch brewer Freddy Heineken.

Brian and Mike McMullen take a similar personal interest in the service their company gives to customers of McMullen Septic Service in Sussex County, Delaware.

“We’re a family business that takes pride in what we do,” Brian says. “I’m in town every day, and I don’t want people coming up to me saying, ‘You guys did a poor job.’ It hurts me if I hear any kind of complaint.”

Complaints are rare for McMullen Septic, a company with a solid family reputation that goes back nearly seven decades and three generations. Brian and Mike took over their father’s business in 2005 when it focused solely on septic system pumping and had no employees outside the family. Today they have 17 team members and thriving business lines in pumping, inspection, repair and installation.

Slow and steady growth has been the company’s hallmark. That along with sharp marketing and branding has enabled the company to expand and diversify without becoming overcommitted and putting quality customer service at risk.

 

FAMILY TIES

The family’s roots in the business reach back to 1953, when Brian and Mike’s grandfather, Norman McMullen, began pumping septic tanks. Their father, Jack, started riding in the truck and helping out at age nine.

In the 1970s, Jack McMullen was a line worker at a DuPont facility and later an employee of the Safeway grocery chain. He bought a vacuum truck and began pumping septic tanks after work; by 1980 he had built enough business to leave his day job. His two sons attended what is now Salisbury University in Maryland, Brian earning a degree in business management (1994) and Mike in economics (1997). Afterward they joined the family business.

For a time Jack McMullen had offered system installations and portable restroom rentals, and he had as many as seven employees. But by the time his sons came on board, he had scaled back to pumping only. “At that time it was just my dad, my brother and me, with our mom (Patricia McMullen) answering the phone and dispatching the jobs,” Brian recalls.

NATURAL GROWTH

Once Brian and Mike took over, broadening the business wasn’t too difficult. “Our dad spent years building a good name,” says Mike. “While Brian and I worked for him, people constantly asked us to do repairs, inspections and installations, but we referred that work to other companies in the area. After taking ownership, we took advantage of demand that was already there and the reputation our dad had built.”

To get all the work done, McMullen maintains a varied inventory of trucks and machines. They run five vacuum trucks: a 2010 Peterbilt with a 4,000-gallon aluminum tank and National Vacuum Equipment pump; two 2007 Macks with 4,000-gallon steel tanks and NVE pumps, all from House of Imports; a 2007 Peterbilt with a 4,000-gallon aluminum tank and NVE pump; and a 2000 Sterling with a 2,800-gallon steel tank and NVE pump. They also run a 2005 Mack with an Ox Bodies dump body, and a 2014 Nissan NV service van.

For earth moving, they have three Takeuchi machines, TL6 and TL130 skid-steers and a TB250 mini-excavator; two Cats, a 259D skid-steer and 305.5 CR mini-excavator; a 2006 Bobcat 435 mini-excavator and a 2005 Komatsu PC 100 excavator.

Brian and Mike started doing inspections on weekends for a reverse mortgage company. At first there was no state-mandated format for inspections, but in time the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control developed an official form and established licensing.

The inspection business paid big dividends by driving two other sectors of the business.

“The inspections drove a need for repairs,” Brian says. “Then some of the inspections detected failures so that the system had to be replaced. At first we had a partner in the installation business. We would work on installations, and when a repair call came in, we’d leave the job and take care of it.”

When the repairs reached sufficient volume, they hired someone to work that side full-time. And after about five years they bought out the installation partner and took that work in-house.  

Another side of the business is maintaining aerobic treatment units; the system must be inspected every six months.

About one fourth of the company’s new installations include ATUs; the preferred brands are Delta ECOPOD units (Infiltrator Water Technologies), and MicroFAST ATUs and RetroFAST septic system upgrade units, both from BioMicrobics. These are installed mostly where required due to closeness to Chesapeake Bay and the Nanticoke River.

BIG PUMPING BUSINESS

Meanwhile the pumping business thrives, largely on quality service. Customers who call don’t get a recording — they speak to a team member who’s knowledgeable about the business. Most times either Mike or Brian is there to answer more difficult questions.

“We find out what area the caller is in so we can charge properly,” says Mike. “Our office staff has been with us a good while, so they can answer most of the questions without having to transfer the call. Some people call because their alarm is going off and they don’t know if they need their tank pumped or if they need something fixed mechanically. We figure out what they need and send the appropriate person.”

Prompt service counts, says Brian: “We try to be quick getting there. In the pumping business, we aim for same day or next day. Rather than just showing up in the yard, pumping the tank out, giving the customer a bill and pulling out, we encourage the drivers to engage with the customers, so that they’ll remember us. Many times they remember who the driver was and ask for the same guy the next time they need service.”

Branding plays a big role and includes flashy bright-green lettering on the trucks and various marketing materials. Mike says, “When Brian and I started working with our dad, we’d go to somebody’s house to pump their tank and they’d say they called us because they couldn’t remember who they called the last time. That was a common theme. We wanted to find a way to stick in their minds.” Toward that end, drivers leave each customer with a magnetic fridge-door business card marked with a future service date.

The pumping business includes some grease trap service, mainly for customers who also receive septic tank pumping. Because local wastewater treatment plants do not accept grease, McMullen applies it to company-owned land. Several area treatment plants take in septage.

DIVERSE ADVERTISING

While keeping customers is essential, so is finding new ones. “Over the last 10 years we’ve had an influx of people from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York who don’t know us, and that’s what the branding and marketing are for,” Brian says.

Phone directory advertising still works well because the local population is older — Brian estimates that 80% of homeowners are over age 40. It’s expensive to run prominent ads in nine regional directories, but they provide a substantial share of contacts. McMullen insists on placement in the first spot in its category. That adds to the cost but also to the impact. The company also relies on its website and internet marketing.

CDL SCARCITY

An ongoing challenge for the business is finding and keeping CDL-licensed drivers for the vacuum trucks. They recruit using Indeed and run ads in a local publication called The Guide. “We also encourage our drivers to recruit others who they know, so we have an idea who they are before we hire them,” Brian says. “On the other sides of the business, that works pretty well; we get a lot of team members’ friends and family who come into the business.”

But keeping a full complement of drivers is difficult, Mike observes. “Probably because of the economic environment we’re in, people with CDLs are bombarded with job opportunities. They tend to jump around quite a bit, thinking they’re going to find the next best thing.”

Brian adds, “We’re trying to pay a little more to keep drivers. Our big problem is people leaving for benefits. A lot of the commercial driving places are bigger companies that are able to offer benefits. We try to combat that by being easy to work for. We make sure they’re not just a number. Mike and I are here every day. We talk to the drivers. We know their families. We try to make it a hard decision for them to leave.”

A retirement plan that consists of a SIMPLE (Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees) IRA with a company match has been a good addition: “The employees seem to like it. We have 90% participation in it.”

SLOW AND STEADY

Looking ahead, Mike and Brian have no plans for aggressive expansion. “We’re slowly growing and that’s by design,” Brian says. “We don’t want to get much bigger than we are.”

Sewer systems are starting to replace septic systems on the eastern fringes of their service area, but that’s a long-term concern, more likely to affect the next generation of McMullens, if any should decide to enter the business. For now, both owners are grateful for the legacy their father left them and the lessons he taught them.

“I can’t remember anybody saying anything bad about my dad,” Brian says. “When we pulled into someone’s yard, the people always said good things. He was always happy, smiling. Work ethic was a huge thing. He worked very hard and built a top-notch reputation. We built off of that. We didn’t want to be the kids whose dad turned the business over to them and they ran it into the ground. We wanted to make something that dad would be proud of.”

To Mike, working in the business before taking ownership was essential: “For a number of years, we were on the trucks as employees, just doing the job. That helps when you take over the business — you actually know how to do the work. That time in the field was priceless.”

Adds Brian: “You know what the employees are going through. You can say, ‘Hey, I used to do this.’ You know what needs to be done.”

A milestone in company history will arrive soon. Says Brian, “We have a 15-year note on the purchase of the business. This is our last year paying on it.” It’s just another reason to celebrate a long history of jobs well done.  



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