Award Winners: Heath and Heather Vickers received Mr. Rooter Rookie of the Year award in 2010. The Vickers are one of top sales teams for the national plumbing company.
photo by Mr. Rooter
In high school, Heath Vickers cleaned the mat with nearly everyone who donned the singlet and dared enter the squared circle and has two state championship medals to prove it.
Fourteen years later, he and his wife, Heather, are among the best at cleaning up peoples plumbing problems – they own a Mr. Rooter franchise in Macon, Ga. – with a long list of satisfied customers, plus national awards and hefty gross sales figures as proof.
“The way I see it, there are a lot of similarities between being a success in wrestling and business,” said Vickers, the former Northwest Whitfield High School state wrestling champ (1997, 1998).
“It comes down to how hard are you willing to work to reach your goals,” “It’s perseverance, putting the time in and out-working the competition.”
Evidence of the Vickers’ smart marketing plan and perseverance is seen in gross sales over their first three years in business going from zero to a million ($350,000 in 2008 …$650,000 in 2009 and more than a million in 2010). The projection for 2011 is 1.4 million.
Don’t worry, the company (and the Vickers’ local banker) has noticed and selected the thirtysomething couple as Rookie of the Year in 2010 for business sales the previous two years.
“Earning Rookie of the Year was a big deal for us as we set that as our goal and achieved it,” said Heather, who played varsity softball at Southeast Whitfield High School while Heath was across the county winning wrestling matches.
After receiving the Rookie of the Year award, the couple then earned the company’s Top Gun Award, a sales benchmark award (the Vickers were in the top 2.2%) for 2010 and the Personal Achievement award, which acknowledges outstanding achievement in sales, manpower or personal growth, or franchise development.
“The key to success in this business is for us to train our people in the field on customer service,” stated Heath who prior to going into the business world wrestled for two years at Ohio University followed by another two years at Mercer University in Macon. “Our company has an excellent customer relations plan and we want our people in the field to not only fix the customers problems, but to sit down with them and educate the customer on their plumbing needs.
“Our workers treat people the way they would want to be treated and that philosophy comes back to us many times over. Our plumbing business is so much more than putting a bandage on a problem.”
A four-time state wrestling medalist at Northwest Whitfield under then head coach Stan Stewart (currently the Westside Middle School principal) and assistant coach Eric Phillips (now the head coach at Cleveland High School), Vickers placed second in the state as a ninth grader and fifth as a sophomore before winning it all his last two years at 160 and going undefeated in Georgia’s largest classification.
“I am not sure what happened my ninth grade year as I took fifth in the region, but in the state I beat a couple of guys who had beaten me just the week before and then wrestled a close match in the finals,” Vickers stated.
Very few opponents could recall what happened either, especially during his last two years, as he beat state champions from Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, won Dalton High School’s Carpet Classic and was a two-time outstanding wrestler at the McCallie Invitational, receiving the award in Dec. 1996 and 1997.
“Heath had a drive unlike any athlete I have ever coached,” said Stewart.
“He would force his will on the other wrestler, especially in the big matches. In the state finals his junior and senior years, the opposing wrestler was taken down time after time until both were hesitant to get up after he was trying to let them up, to take them down again. He will always be one of my
favorites.”
Coach Phillips stated, “Heath is the toughest kid I've ever known. In four years he never had a bad practice.
“He was actually out working everyone in the room on the day he was sick and throwing up. I made him stop practicing and I almost had to fight him, as he was so angry that I wouldn't let him practice. His work ethic made him a tremendous wrestler, and I loved coaching him.”
As a teenager, Heath chiseled in granite a wrestling legacy for others to strive for and remember.
As business owners, the Vickers are building a rock solid legacy far greater than state medals; a company and reputation based on fairness, dedication and hard work for others to emulate and one in which customers can trust.
Contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comcast.net