Head Heart & Boots

Nick D’Urbano is back on the show, Chief Revenue Officer of Distance and co-founder of Porter, runporter.com, and this conversation gets honest fast. Nick’s blunt framing early on stuck with us: if your conversion rate is sitting at 50 percent instead of 70, that gap isn’t bad luck or bad leads, it’s a skill gap, and it’s fixable. We dig into what almost 2,000 field recordings have taught Floodlig...

If you’ve ever wondered what makes a great consultant actually great, spend an hour with Clinton Tierney. Clinton has been in restoration for 21 years, worked literally every role in the industry from technician to VP of sales, and has been part of the Floodlight team for a year and a half now, bringing the same intensity to our clients that he brought to two companies he helped grow to 50 and 60...

Chris's friend Jared Thayer joined us this week, and this conversation covers more ground than almost any episode we've recorded. Jared is the owner of  Thayer Design Build , a remodeling company he started in 2014, and his story starts with a hard childhood, a mom who disappeared into addiction, and a grandmother who became one of the aces in his deck of cards. From there he built a construc...

I walked into this recording annoyed about studio cables, and somehow it turned into one of the most honest conversations Brandon and I have had on this show. We talk about the pressure in modern business culture to be always on and always awesome, and why the gurus only ever talk about their struggles in the past tense. Brandon brought in Arthur Brooks' framework of the three macronutrients of ha...

Some guests walk in with a good story. JR Litehiser walked in with one of the most unbelievable stories we've ever heard on this show, and he made us laugh through the entire thing. JR is the owner of Pacific Northwest Epoxy Coatings and Supplies, PNW ECS, but before that he was a high school teacher, a police officer, and a decorative concrete contractor. In 2008, right as he was launching a mate...

This month's money talk with Jim Emerich turned into one of the most useful conversations we've had on the show, so let's get right into it. Jim breaks down what he calls the four levels of business relationships: direct, individual, ecosystem, and structural. The higher you climb, the less you're grinding one-off sales and the more you're building an asset that owns a customer relationship for ye...

First live in-studio guest in the new space, and it had to be Freddie Bosquez . Freddie worked for me back in the ServPro days, starting around 2013, and watching who he's become since then is one of the privileges of my career. This conversation goes everywhere. A lower middle class kid who wouldn't ask his parents for sports money, so he sold his PlayStation for a pawnshop bass and started a pun...

No guest this week, and I came in hot on a topic that's been rearranging my brain all summer: discipline. Here's the setup. This is my fourth year chasing elk with my bow, and for the first time my son is in the hobby with me. Between him and my buddy Olin, my prep this season looks completely different. Lift, run, shoot, every week, Cam Hanes style, with the three of us trading range photos and t...

No guest this week. Just a conversation Chris and I probably should have recorded years ago. We spend our days coaching business owners: diagnosing problems, building frameworks, holding people accountable. This episode is about the one area of life where neither of us gets to be the coach. Marriage. Chris and Kara are 25 years in. Janna and I hit 30 in December. And between his Alaska trip and a...

We say it all the time on this show: sales first. But sales without financial controls is a mess waiting to happen, and that's exactly why we're launching our monthly money talk with Jim Emerich, founder of Backbone Fractional CFO Consultants. Jim brought a story about a multigenerational contractor that doubled from 5 to 10 million and started losing money. Margins squeezed, line of credit maxed,...

  Dude. No guest this week. Just Chris and me going somewhere we've honestly been afraid to go on this show. Chris opens up about something deeply personal: his experience with a legal, facilitated psilocybin ceremony here in Oregon, and what it surfaced about rest, presence, and the gaps between who he says he is and how he actually shows up. This is not a party story. This is a guy with a d...

What if the biggest thing holding your business back isn't strategy, talent, or money... but the timeline you've accepted?   In this episode, Brandon and I unpack one of the most impactful business books we've read recently, The Science of Scaling by Dr. Benjamin Hardy. We explore how using time as a tool forces better thinking, exposes bottlenecks, and helps leaders stop chasing incremental...

Some guests just drop bombs for an hour straight, and Griffin Brand is one of them. Griffin is a former 75th Ranger Regiment special operator who, at 26, found himself as the lone military advisor to the U.S. ambassador in Kabul, wrangling 20 different three-letter agencies into one room. Now he's in private equity with High Ground, working deals across the restoration industry. If you caught last...

Every once in a while you record an episode and you know, before you even hit stop, that it's a top-tenner. This is that one. Chris and I sat down with Dan Casey and Griffin Brand  - a football coach turned historian and an Army Ranger, to talk about their book Bring Your Own Pencil , the leadership playbook of the legendary Bill Walsh. But this isn't a football episode. It's a masterclass fo...

Family businesses come with incredible opportunities, but they also come with unique challenges. In this episode, I sit down with Keri Jones , whose family built Utah Disaster Kleanup into one of the most respected restoration companies in the country. We talk about what it was like growing up in the business, learning from industry pioneers, and eventually helping lead the company through rapid g...

Mentorship gets talked about a lot in business, but what does it actually look like in practice? In this episode, Brandon and I unpack the difference between teaching, coaching, and true mentorship, and why most leaders struggle to develop people effectively. We explore the two ingredients every great mentor needs: experience and visibility. It's not enough to know what good looks like, you have t...

In this episode, I sit down with former NCAA champion and Olympian Les Gutches for one of the most fascinating conversations we’ve had on the show. What started as a conversation about wrestling quickly turned into a masterclass on resilience, discipline, business, leadership, and life. Les shares stories from his childhood in Southern Oregon, growing up fast while helping care for his sick mother...

In this episode of Head, Heart and Boots, Brandon and I sat down with J. Brad Britton for one of the most meaningful conversations we’ve had on the podcast. J. Brad spent decades leading inside the Cutco and Vector organizations, but this episode centers on something far deeper - his relationship with his son Sam and how that journey completely changed the way he thinks about leadership, communica...

In this episode of Head, Heart, and Boots, Brandon and I sit down with our teammate Clinton Tierney to talk sales, leadership, and the mindset it takes to win in today’s restoration market. Clinton’s story is incredible—college athlete turned mold technician turned multi-million dollar producer and sales leader—and you can hear how every season shaped the way he approaches business development tod...

In this episode of Head, Heart and Boots, Brandon and I sit down with Nick D’Urbano again- this time not to talk AI, but to dig into branding. And honestly, this one hit different. Nick’s built and scaled multiple 8- and 9-figure brands, and what stood out is how clearly he sees something most of us miss: brand isn’t your logo, your colors, or your website- it’s how people feel when they interact...

In this episode of Head, Heart, and Boots, Brandon and I sit down with Rocky Hensley to break down his latest exit and what actually drove the valuation behind the deal. Rocky shares how private equity approached the opportunity, why he chose his partner, and what most owners misunderstand about timing a sale. We dig into the simple framework he uses to build valuable companies, centered around st...

In this episode of Head, Heart, and Boots, Brandon and I sit down with Chris Matts , founder of Marketing Ninjas, to talk about what actually drives growth in restoration and why most marketing misses the mark. Chris shares his path into entrepreneurship, how he found the restoration industry, and why he chose to focus on helping companies generate more opportunities through outbound and relations...

In this episode of Head, Heart, and Boots, Brandon and I sit down with Sam Chapman , owner of Merit Restorations and partner in CaseCo and 1-Tom Plumber, to talk about building businesses, leading people, and the real work behind growth. Sam shares his journey from a blue collar upbringing to building multiple companies, and how he’s approached scaling through partnerships, culture, and intentiona...

In this episode of Head, Heart, and Boots, I sit down with Lane Larsen , founder of Clean Claims, to unpack what is happening at the intersection of restoration, technology, and insurance. As the industry continues to evolve, Lane brings a unique perspective on how software, data, and process are reshaping the way claims are handled and how contractors can position themselves to win in a more comp...

In this episode of Head, Heart, and Boots, Brandon and I sit down with Nick Rahn , founder of Warriors Next Adventure, for one of the most intense and powerful conversations we’ve had on the show. Nick shares his journey from a turbulent childhood and multiple combat deployments in the Air Force to hitting rock bottom after leaving the military, battling addiction, and nearly ending his life in th...