Profit & Grit with Tyler

AI is changing how home service companies think about websites, search, and marketing. But Dan Antonelli’s message is clear: AI is a tool, not a brand strategy. In this episode of Profit & Grit, Tyler Martin is joined again by Dan Antonelli, founder of KickCharge Creative , to talk about AI websites, branding, truck wraps, customer acquisition cost, and why trades companies need to focus on be...

Growing Isaac Heating & Air Conditioning from a family HVAC shop into a scalable home service company took more than adding revenue, employees, and trucks. In this episode of Profit & Grit, Ray Isaac shares how the company became more professionally run, why bad leadership can cost more than money, and how family-owned businesses can avoid the traps of entitlement and lifestyle spending. R...

Fast growth can look exciting from the outside, but inside the business, it usually means something is being tested. Systems get exposed. Hiring standards get challenged. Pricing has to be revisited. And the owner has to decide whether the company is going to keep reacting to problems or build the discipline needed for the next stage. In this episode of Profit & Grit, Treasure Boston shares ho...

Lawrence Castillo helped grow Brody Pennell from a roughly $6 million HVAC company into a business approaching $70 million in annual revenue. In this episode of Profit & Grit, Tyler Martin sits down with Lawrence to discuss what changed inside the company as it scaled. He shares the challenges he found when he first arrived, the systems that were built along the way, and the operational discip...

For many trades owners, trucks are one of the biggest expenses in the business, but fleet decisions are often made by habit instead of strategy. A paid-off truck can feel like a smart move until repairs, downtime, fuel, maintenance, and lost production start costing more than expected. In this episode, Tyler sits down with Renee Milum, Fleet Advisor at JumpSpark, to talk about how HVAC, plumbing,...

After building and exiting a $100 million company, Dustin Marx chose a very different next move: buying a small plumbing company doing around $15,000 a month. In this episode, Dustin shares how that business grew into a company running at roughly a $10 million pace, and why the growth came from listening to the field, building around the right people, and creating a culture where the team understa...

After 40 years in HVAC and plumbing, Darren Yarbrough has built Yarbrough & Sons from a small family-run shop into a multi-trade company with more than 50 team members. In this episode, Darren shares how he started the business in 1988 with no big plan, just a need to provide for his family. He talks about growing through word of mouth, getting stuck around the $5M mark, and how the company ch...

Private equity has been buying up HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other home service companies for years. But Dillon Caraway believes trades owners have more options than they may realize, especially when financing is used as a growth strategy instead of a last resort. In this episode, Tyler is joined again by Dillon Caraway from Live Oak Bank to talk about how service business owners can use lend...

At 24, Mark Paup bought a plumbing company from a newspaper ad with four trucks, five employees, and no real plan. More than 25 years later, that decision has grown into Golden Rule, a multi-location, multi-trade business with over 150 employees. In this episode, Mark shares how he went from working two jobs to growing a company across Des Moines, Omaha, and Salt Lake City. He talks about the less...

After years of advising service businesses on growth and marketing, Mike Venidis is now stepping into the owner-operator seat with Good Golly Garage Doors. In this episode, Mike shares what it’s been like to go from giving advice to actually building a business from scratch. He talks about the emotional weight of making the phone ring, buying leads, answering late-night calls, and learning that ev...

Being busy isn’t the same as being profitable, and in a lot of service businesses, that gap is bigger than most owners realize. Jason Noel from CEO Warrior joins the show, bringing more than two decades of experience helping HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies improve performance and turn around struggling operations. In this episode, we break down why so many service businesses look successf...

Marketing in a home service business doesn’t fail because of a lack of tools or agencies. It breaks down when there’s no strategy, no accountability, and no one owning the outcome. Adam Rich , founder of Rich Ideas , joins the show to share his perspective after more than 15 years helping HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies improve their marketing performance and decision-making. In this epis...

Scaling an HVAC or plumbing business gets difficult when systems, structure, and leadership can’t keep up with growth. Brandon Saiz, owner of NCB Mechanical in Albuquerque, shares how he went from getting fired at 19 to building a multi-million dollar HVAC and plumbing company after starting during COVID with his own money. In this episode, we break down the real challenges of growing a home servi...

Growth in a home service business doesn’t break because of a lack of leads. It breaks when communication, structure, and leadership can’t keep up. Janeen Norquist joins me, president and co-owner of Just In Time Heating, Air Conditioning, and Plumbing , a growing HVAC and plumbing company based in Illinois. After spending 16 years at 3M, she stepped into the trades and helped build a business alon...

You’re booking the job… and still losing it. A lot of home service companies think they need more leads. In reality, the leak is what happens after the phone call. The appointment gets set, but the customer keeps shopping, cancels, or never fully commits. Brigham Dickinson joins me, founder of Power Selling Pros , a company that helps contractors improve how they handle calls, coach their teams, a...

The biggest missed opportunity in most home service businesses isn’t leads, it’s what happens after the lead comes in. Ryan Fenn joins me, founder of Chirp, a platform built to help contractors improve follow-up, communication, and conversion without increasing ad spend. Ryan comes from a sales background and built Chirp out of his own frustration with inconsistent follow-up. Today, his team has a...

Most contractors think they have a sales problem. In reality, it’s usually a process problem. Drew Cameron joins me, a longtime trainer and consultant who has spent more than 25 years helping home service companies build better sales teams and stronger customer experiences. Drew grew up in the trades, helped run and sell a family HVAC business, and now works with contractors across the country on...

Building a $20M HVAC company didn’t start with investors or private equity. It started with a family taking a chance. Cody Martinez joins me from Cowboys Air Conditioning and Heating in San Antonio, a family-owned business that has grown to more than $20 million in revenue.  The company began after Cody’s father was laid off on Thanksgiving. Cody’s mom and uncle started the business with his mom c...

Going from rock bottom to revenue growth isn’t a marketing tactic. It’s a mindset shift. Justin Judd is the VP of Partnerships at Chirp and one of the most respected voices in lead conversion inside the home services space. But before sitting in rooms with industry leaders and speaking on big stages, Justin was a recovered heroin addict who hit absolute rock bottom, including a stroke that left ha...

Going from $600K to $10M didn’t require moving cities. It required changing how they led. Alyssa Rogers is the Vice President of Rogers Heating and Cooling in South Boston, Virginia, a town of under 10,000 people. When she and her husband took over the family business in 2018, it was doing about $600,000 in revenue. Today, it’s an eight-figure company with multiple locations and a clear path towar...

Revenue looks stable when you’re buying a trade business. What’s unstable is everything underneath it. Ryan Williams is a longtime operator and co-founder of DivvyShares. After reviewing more than 100 deals, he acquired a residential plumbing company and stepped straight into what most buyers only discover after closing: year one exposes everything. In this episode, we talk about why most home ser...

Keeping great people gets harder as your business grows, especially when wages stop being enough to hold everything together. Chris Buttonham is the co-founder and CEO of Reins. He grew up inside a small contracting business, watched firsthand how retention and succession issues limit freedom and value, and later built a platform that helps owners give key employees real skin in the game without g...

Growth gets harder after $5M because effort stops being the constraint and leadership, systems, and financial clarity start to matter more than hustle. Lance Bachmann has built, scaled, and sold multiple companies across home services, technology, and marketing. Today, he partners directly with business owners to help them break through growth plateaus, install real operational structure, and buil...

Most family-owned trade businesses don’t struggle because they lack opportunity. Growth exposes cracks in systems, roles, and communication that were never an issue when the company was smaller. Chris Mazzini is a co-owner of Aspinwall Baystate Plumbing, a 50+ year family plumbing, heating, and HVAC business in Massachusetts. He’s lived the shift from paper calendars and day-to-day decision making...

Most home service owners think their tech problems are about tools. Jenny Benbrook would argue they’re about structure and intention. She’s spent years inside contractor tech stacks, and what consistently creates chaos isn’t bad software, it’s under-utilization, single-point failure risk, and buying tools without a plan. Jenny is the founder of Powerhouse Consulting Group , where she helps HVAC, p...