Design Your
Culture
“If it wasn’t for plumbing, I wouldn’t be in the position I am in today in life. Plumbing has provided me with the opportunity to be able to provide, not only for myself, but my family and other families as well.”
Culture Spotlight:
Alphalete Plumbing & Heating
Design Your
Bringing Innovation
At Alphalete Plumbing & Heat, providing a top rated service is an avenue for founder Diego Lujan to make an impact in the area that matters to him the most; his community. Alphalete Plumbing & Heat has developed a company culture that embodies the characteristics of Diego Lujan’s personality, and by the looks of it, things are just getting started. Displaying great pride in areas such as education, opportunity, and quality performance, the team at Alphalete Plumbing & Heat has earned themselves a reputation that translates into raving reviews and a loyal customer base.
Providing a great service is a staple in doing good business, but Diego Lujan’s team does not stop there. Alphalete Plumbing is making a push to advance their clients’ experience by using tech to bring a new wave of services to a long-standing industry. What was the big addition? A virtual plumbing service that allows Alphaletes’ experienced plumbers to help diagnose your plumbing problem over video chat. Beyond the innovation, when we spoke with Diego, he undoubtedly had passion and respect for the plumbing industry. His integrity shines through his community work, and sitting down one-on-one with him was truly a pleasure. Let’s dive into the interview below
Professional & Respectful
"Diego was outstanding, professional, respectful, and very knowledgeable. His response was unbelievable and he took care of the job in no time. Anytime in the future whenever we need a plumber he will be the one that i will call."
-Five-Star Review: Roberto S.
One on One With Diego Lujan
Question: “As the trades become a more and more important part of the US economy, what is your suggestion for people who would want to learn a skill such as plumbing?”
“My suggestion would be to really take a look in the mirror and really ask yourself if you’re mentally capable of jumping into a trade that is going to challenge you and give you adversity every single day you’re in the trade. I tell people to look at the trade like life. Life is really hard, life is full of pain but life is also very giving and good. That’s exactly how plumbing is.”
Question: “Being the owner, outside of owning a business, how has plumbing affected your life?”
“I tell everybody plumbing has saved my life because I come from the streets, I come from poverty. If it wasn’t for plumbing, I wouldn't be in the position I am in today in life. Plumbing has provided me with the opportunity to be able to provide, not only for myself, but my family and other families as well.”
Question: “We hear that you are bringing innovation to the plumbing industry with a new virtual service, can you tell us more about that?”
“We’re doing something completely different with the virtual service. I actually posted it on Facebook that we launched this on a few of the plumbing forums just to get honest opinions from other plumbing companies and the negative feedback that I got back on this really showed me that we are being innovative out here in the industry and we really are changing the industry. The reason that I say that is because 80% of these plumbers are stuck in their ways about serving their customers. Why not cut out steps to connect virtually with these customers because I truly believe that technology is here to stay, this type of communicating is here to stay from this point on. So why not be the leader of being a virtual world when it comes to plumbing opposed to not being a part of it and being against it? So we’re really the leaders when it comes to virtual service and it just saves so much time and so much money, not only for us as a business but also for customers as well. With the economy falling into a near recession and people out of work, we just really care more about people in the long haul. Money comes, money goes, money is just a tool but we really care about being able to contribute to our community through the services we offer. We’re still working bugs out but it’s like anything you do in life, it’s all about growth. We’ll continue to grow with it, if it works for us which I have no doubt in my mind that it will help, then we’ll keep it and if it doesn’t then we’ll have to reassess, readjust, readapt.”
Question: “Do you foresee software becoming a big part of the plumbing industry?”
“We are the newer generation of up and coming plumbing business owners. The average plumbing business owner is some older guy that’s stuck in his ways of how he’s always done business. Technology is the way to go and it’s actually saved us so much money by investing money into technology within our business. So i'm an advocate for being innovative and creative, through technology is how we can do that. So technology is the only way to go to operate a business in my opinion.”
Question: “How has your experience been as a business owner through Covid-19?”
“I would probably say the first 2 weeks when they declared the State of Emergency everybody's mind was affected and everybody's stress level was up and that’s being real, that’s just human nature. The first 2 weeks I had gotten sick, so I did self-quarantine myself in my house. Luckily it wasn't Covid, I was just taking precautions because I have a newborn kid in my house. I fell into a slump. I was depressed the first 2 weeks and I literally had to slap the shit out of myself (excuse my language) and lace up my boots and say, ‘Diego, you got not only your family depending on you, but you got so many other families depending on you to make things happen.’ Ever since I did that, I turned off the news and I just began to concentrate on what I could do to be innovative and creative for the way the economy was going. So the first month was super slow for us which it was expected for everybody. Self, social distancing, nobody wanted to really be social especially let a plumber in their house. But after the first month of the State of Emergency we’ve been booming, business is booming. Business is great! I think it's gonna really progress to be busy and to create new opportunities for people. To add to that and how Covid has affected my business in a very positive way simply because it opened my eyes to create opportunities for the community. There’s going gonna be a lot of jobs that existed prior to the Corona virus that will no longer exist after the virus and that’s just the truth. I believe that. I’ve been sitting on an idea of creating a plumbing trade school for a very long time. So I actually launched that idea in hopes to give those people that are out of work that are going to turn to the trades, give them a place to educate themselves. Not only that, if anything this Coronavirus has done for the trades really solidifies our place in this world. I’m an advocate to bring respect back to my trade and I think through this Covid and I think through everything we’ve got going on it’s going to be great. We got great things in the works.
Quality Work
“Quality work, excellent service and competitive price! Alphalete is on my top list!”
-Five-Star Review: Scott N.
