When Brady Jolly steps into the office each morning, he’s carrying more than the responsibility of running a nearly 60-person business. He’s carrying forward the legacy of a company his parents founded back in 1979 — a company that has reinvented itself more than once, and today is on a mission to “reimagine how the world experiences home services.”

Jolly became CEO at just 21 years old, and the road is anything but smooth. “When I took over the business, I was 21. I had a ton of energy and was ready to put my foot on the gas and grow the business — but I really didn’t know what I was doing,” he recalls. “We made a ton of mistakes. At one point, we were down to 10 employees. It was scary. But looking back, it was one of the best things that ever happened to us, because it forced us to rebuild the team the right way.”

Today, Jolly Plumbing, Drains, Heating & Air operates with 58 employees and 27 technicians across the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area. The company has grown revenue fivefold over the past decade. And while the fleet of clean, branded trucks looks sharp, what really drives the growth is a culture of accountability, investment in employees, and an unrelenting focus on serving both customers and the community.

From business school to the trades

The Jolly story begins with Brady’s father, a business school graduate who never planned to enter the trades. “There was nobody in his family in plumbing. His dad sold insurance,” Jolly says. “After college, he couldn’t find a job. Finally, he took a job with a plumbing company just to pay the bills — and ended up really liking it.”

Only a year later, he decides to start his own business. “He looked around and saw a lot of plumbers who weren’t great communicators, weren’t clean cut, didn’t have uniforms or clean trucks,” Jolly explains. “He thought, ‘There’s an opportunity here.’ He wasn’t the world’s greatest plumber at the time, but he was great communicator and focused on making the customer happy.”

That customer-first philosophy becomes the foundation for Jolly Plumbing. Decades later, the mission statement evolves, but the spirit remains the same. “Our mission now is reimagining how the world experiences home services,” Jolly says. “Back then, my dad reimagined it just by showing up sharp and communicating well. Today, we have to do a lot more — but that’s still what we’re working toward.”

Major pivot: From primarily commercial to over 90% residential

For much of its history, Jolly Plumbing has operated as a commercial contractor. By the time Brady Jolly takes over in 2014, 70% of revenue comes from commercial work. But as he and the leadership team take a closer look, cracks begin to show.

“We wanted to always be the best service anyone has ever experienced,” he says. “And we found that when we were working for people who weren’t the end customer — a maintenance guy at a factory, for example — that was hard. The people paying the bill weren't the ones experiencing our five-star white glove service we strived to deliver.”

At the same time, residential customers often took a backseat when commercial calls came in. “We’d drop everything for a commercial account, and our residential customers suffered. We realized that’s our core customer,” Jolly says.

From a business perspective, the model makes sense too. “When I took over, our accounts receivable was about 20% of annual revenue. Now it’s less than 1%. Cash flow is much easier with residential, and that allows us to reinvest in advertising, our people, and our customer experience.”

The shift was by no means an easy pivot. “The people who excelled in the commercial market weren’t always the same people who would succeed in residential,” Jolly explains. “We had a lot of turnover during that time. But it forced us to get the right people on the bus.”

Scott Sharrock, a longtime leader at the company, points to another turning point: joining Nexstar in 2018. “We used to say yes to everything, and it stretched us thin. Nexstar gave us the processes and connections to run residential successfully. Things like one-to-ones, daily huddles, and ride-alongs — it helped us understand margins, profitability, and what it takes to scale a residential business.”

Today, 99% of Jolly’s work is residential. And the move sets the stage for rapid growth.

Building a people-first culture

Ask anyone at Jolly what makes the company different, and the answer is the same: culture.

“When I first took over, it used to be all about the customer, no matter what,” Brady says. “Middle of the night, drippy faucet, we’d go. But that meant we burned through employees. Now, we’ve flipped that. We focus on building a place where employees are extremely happy and engaged, and when that happens, they take care of customers.”

Jeff Vatron, manager, facility, inventory, process management and fleet, and a longtime team member, describes it this way: “It’s like a puzzle-solving atmosphere. We get a ton of autonomy, but we also collaborate and lean on each other. It’s team-oriented.”

Paige Newman, accounting manager, and Mollie Luken, employee experience manager, who oversee people operations, explain why the company doesn’t strive to be “like a family.”

“We don’t call ourselves a family, because families can be messy. We’re relationship-minded,” Luken says. “It’s about empathy, about serving each other, about being a support system.”

That mindset shows up in daily practices:

• Weekly one-to-ones between every employee and their manager.
• Quarterly town halls for transparency.
• Weekly training in each department, led by licensed plumbers and seasoned techs.
• Monthly events — from yoga to brewery tours to the “Fourth of Jolly” company picnic.

“Those aren’t just fun perks,” Jolly says. “We plan, budget, and execute them as part of the employee experience.”

The company also rewrites its core values in 2024 — six principles that guide hiring, recognition, and accountability. “We live them every day,” Sharrock says. “In daily huddles, in one-to-ones, in our recognition board. If someone closes a big job, it’s ‘win the day.’ If someone gets a five-star review, it’s ‘here to serve.’ Everyone knows them, and we coach to them.”

Hiring now leans heavily on referrals — nearly 90% in the past year. “When people love where they work, they want their friends to join,” Luken says. Retention is reinforced with stay interviews, 90-day check-ins, and annual anonymous engagement surveys. “We always want a pulse on how people are feeling,” Brady adds.

Training for today and tomorrow

Training is a cornerstone at Jolly. Weekly sessions cover not just technical skills, but service and soft skills. “We use the Nexstar service system, and it’s all about putting the customer first,” Jolly explains.

Journeyman prep courses, led after hours by licensed plumber and Jolly’s Director of Plumbing, Daniel Nash, have produced more licensed plumbers than at any point in the company’s history. “It’s a huge point of pride,” Jolly says. “We’re developing our own talent pipeline.”

Sharrock add that training isn’t just about tools and products, it’s about communication, customer experience, and living the company’s core values.

Investing in the community

Just as Jolly invests in employees, it invests in the community. The company pledges to put $1.5 million back into local causes by 2027.

One example is the “Unclogged for Dogs” campaign, where every drain unclogged translates into dog food donations. “It’s fun, it’s memorable, and it makes a difference,” Brady says.

Other initiatives range from sponsoring high school stadiums and local youth teams to supporting causes important to employees. “If an employee cares about it, we support it,” Mollie explains. “That could mean a billboard, a sponsorship, or just showing up.”

The approach also reflects a deliberate marketing strategy. “Our competitors are backed by private equity, with dollars leaving the market,” Brady says. “We want our dollars to stay here. When you hire us, your money goes back into Cincinnati.”

Leveraging technology

Jolly may be 47 years old, but the team thinks like a startup. Nowhere is that clearer than in technology adoption.

“We use ServiceTitan, but we also built our own reporting tool called Service Jack,” Jolly says. “It gives us custom dashboards and accountability.”

The company also uses Discord as an internal communication hub, automating tasks like purchase orders. “We’ve taken a lot of the grunt work out, so our people can focus on customers,” Jolly explains.

On the dispatch side, ProBook streamlines scheduling, while Avoca provides AI-powered after-hours booking. Chiirp supports marketing campaigns.

Customers feel the difference too: real-time tech tracking, SMS communication, tap-to-pay, and instant Google review requests.

Adopting new tech wasn’t always easy. “When we first rolled out iPads and electronic time clocks, there was pushback,” Jolly recalls. “Now, our people are resilient. They know change is part of growth, and they embrace it.”

Vatron adds that building trust within the team has been vital to technology adoption. “Since our people trust us to have their best interest in mind, they know we aren’t rolling out tech for no reason; we’re doing it to make their lives easier and better serve our customers.”

Going above and beyond

When asked what sets Jolly apart, employees don’t hesitate: it’s the willingness to go the extra mile.

“We operate with radical accountability,” Jolly says. “If something goes wrong, we make it right, period.” He points to a recent example: when something went wrong on a job, the team made it right and gave the client – who is a huge Bills fan - a signed Josh Allen helmet.

“That’s who we are,” he says. “It’s not about the helmet. It’s about showing customers we truly care.”

Sharrock adds that leadership presence matters too. “Brady and the management team are here every day, in the trenches. That connection to employees makes a huge difference.”

Looking ahead

After nearly five decades in business, Jolly is still in growth mode. HVAC, launched just four years ago, already accounts for a significant share of work. Electrical services may be added in the next three to five years.

But expansion doesn’t mean spreading thin. “We’re not chasing new cities,” Brady says. “There’s so much opportunity in Cincinnati. We want to keep serving this community better and better.”

The company’s long-term goal: grow revenue another fivefold in the next 10 years.

It’s a bold vision — but for a company that survived near collapse, reinvented itself from commercial to residential, and built a thriving culture in the process, it’s a vision rooted in experience.

“We’ve been around 47 years in plumbing,” Brady says. “We’re like a legacy company. But in HVAC, we’re only four years old — so we’re also like a startup. That’s the fun part. We get to honor our past while building the future.”