Scorecards and the Golden Toilet Award | Luke Waters, Smooth Waters Plumbing

Guest: Luke Waters, owner, Smooth Waters Plumbing (Lexington, South Carolina). Host: Cole Kline.

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Summary

Luke Waters owns Smooth Waters Plumbing, a residential plumbing company in the Midlands of South Carolina. He and Cole Kline talk about the move from winging it to a weekly scorecard: counting service hours sold per plumber, tracking closing and efficiency on a tech performance sheet, and recognizing the week's leader with a homemade trophy. Luke also explains why he meets with his techs every Monday and Friday morning and why booking rate and repeat customers tell him whether the business is winning.

Key takeaways

  • Pick one unit of work and count it: for Luke's team, service hours sold per plumber each week.
  • A tech performance sheet keeps the conversation on numbers, not opinions.
  • Recognition works alongside pay; a simple weekly award gets attention.
  • Short, fixed meetings twice a week keep a young team consistent.
  • Look past revenue: booking rate, conversion and returning customers.

In their words

"We call it the Golden Toilet Award."

Luke Waters

"The structure comes from scorecards. And people do what you inspect, not what you expect."

Cole Kline

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