Profit & Grit with Tyler

Most home service owners think their growth problems are tactical. Laura Kelly would argue they’re psychological. She’s helped hundreds of contractors grow 30% year over year, and what consistently holds owners back isn’t effort or opportunity, it’s owner dependency, unexamined rules, and decisions that aren’t aligned with the life they actually want. Laura is the co-founder of Clover Growth Partn...

Most home service owners think their systems problem is a software problem. Bernie Ollila will tell you the real issue is messy data, unclear ownership, and buying tools before knowing what you’re trying to fix. Bernie is Head of Partnerships and a partner at Titan Pro Technologies, a ServiceTitan consulting firm that works with growing HVAC, plumbing, and electrical businesses to clean up operati...

Most home service owners think marketing problems are solved by buying more leads. Kevin LeSage will tell you the real issue is knowing what actually turns into revenue. Kevin is the founder of SearchLight Digital, a data and attribution platform used by thousands of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies to track what marketing really produces. His story starts in a very familiar place, cleanin...

Most home service owners think marketing is about getting more leads. Dave Carroll will tell you it’s really about focus, discipline, and doing fewer things better than everyone else. Dave is the founder of Dope Marketing, a software and print platform built for home service businesses that want better jobs, not just more volume. His path wasn’t linear. Dave grew up around drugs and crime, went to...

Most home service owners think growth is about getting more leads. Tyler Griffin will tell you growth is really about what breaks next. Tyler is the founder of SwiftPro, a residential HVAC and plumbing company in Northern Virginia that scaled fast in its first year. He didn’t start with a perfectly built operation, a polished brand, or deep industry roots. He started from scratch after a tough pri...

Most home service owners think they have a “people problem.” Kelly Rowlett Presgrave will tell you most of them have a speed, math, and standards problem. Kelly is the founder of Work With Your Handz, a recruiting company that hires everyone from apprentices to the C-suite for home and commercial service companies. She didn’t come out of HR. She spent nearly 30 years married to a second-generation...

Most home service owners think their revenue problem comes from not enough leads. Ryan Shank has spent years proving it usually comes from the way technicians are paid, motivated, and measured. As founder of ShareWillow, he’s helped hundreds of HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies redesign their pay systems so techs think like owners, reduce callbacks, lift average tickets, and stop leaving mo...

Most contractors think they lose jobs on price. Brigham Dickinson has spent decades proving they lose them on connection, tone, and the first sixty seconds of the call. As founder of Power Selling Pros, he’s trained thousands of CSRs and technicians to book more, charge more, and lose less by doing the simple things owners overlook. He built his company from the ground up, weathered personal and f...

Most contractors think growth just means more trucks, more techs, and more jobs. Steve Carroll knows the real risk is building a big revenue number on a weak foundation. As co-founder and CEO of Kelso Industries, he’s helped turn a near-bankrupt first acquisition into a billion-dollar MEP+ platform by protecting payroll, understanding cash, and building around the right partners instead of quick e...

Most contractors think they have a marketing problem. James Hatfield knows it’s usually a speed and trust problem. As president of LiveSwitch, he helps service companies win more jobs by getting face to face faster, qualifying on video, and turning “free estimates” into efficient, high-confidence closes. He grew up blue collar, built a painting and power-washing company, then went to business scho...

Most contractors think they have a sales problem. Danielle Putnam knows it’s usually a pricing problem. As the CEO of The New Flat Rate, Danielle has helped service companies across the U.S., Canada, and Australia add billions in revenue by turning guesswork into systems that sell for you. She grew up in the trades, handing out flyers for her dad’s company at seven years old, and later built a bus...

Most contractors think shutting down a division means failure. Teddy Slack Jr. learned it can be the smartest move you ever make. After running a $3 million environmental company that looked successful on paper but was drowning in debt, Teddy made the brutal call to close it. That decision, and the lessons that followed, became the foundation for SimpleTank, a debt-free, fast-growing tank removal...

Most home service owners think branding is just a logo or wrap, but Dan Antonelli knows it’s the difference between being invisible and unforgettable.  Dan started painting signs by hand at fifteen, learning how clarity, color, and layout decide whether someone even notices your business. That passion grew into KickCharge Creative, a 60-person agency that’s built thousands of home service brands a...

Most home service owners chase growth by adding trucks, techs, or new territories. Patrick Lange learned that more isn’t always better, and sometimes growth hides real financial cracks. Patrick started in the pool industry, growing his service company fast before realizing that bigger often meant less profit. Long routes, callbacks, and overhead ate into margins until he sold the business and turn...

Most home service owners think growth means opening new markets. Matt Pozda proved you can scale to 100 million without adding a single zip code. When he bought Sky HVAC, he thought it was a 50/50 mix of service and new construction. It was 98 percent construction. That painful surprise forced him to rebuild everything from the ground up, separating divisions, learning capacity management, and eve...

Most owners think profit comes from endless growth. Mike Andes says profit comes from clarity, knowing your close rates, raising prices with intent, and building systems that work without you. Mike built Augusta Lawn Care into 190+ locations across three countries, all while creating a pay-for-performance model that rewards A-players and keeps crews accountable. After a near-death accident with a...

Most owners think growth is the prize. Chris Lee says growth without discipline is what bankrupts you. Chris went from six locations in his first year to bankruptcy and $2.2 million in debt. Ten years later, he built Solgen, a solar and roofing company, and sold it for $233 million in just five years. In this episode, he shares how ego nearly cost him everything, why designing a five-year roadmap...

Here’s a draft in the exact format you want, using Katy Higgins’ transcript: Most people think HVAC growth is all about marketing. Katy Higgins says it’s about grit, culture, and building around what you know best. Katy went from being a single mom selling furnace tune-ups to launching True Pros in her garage, where she was $800 short of workers comp. In less than two years, she’s pacing $10–12 mi...

Most home service owners think they have a sales problem. Ryan Fenn says it is a follow-up problem. Ryan went from knocking on doors fixing windshield chips to building a seven-figure online course, then turned that same funnel thinking into Chirp, a lead conversion platform for the trades. In this episode, he walks through the two levers that changed everything for him, speed to lead and consiste...

Most trades business buyers expect a rough start. Jack Carr got a full-on fire drill. He bought an HVAC company across the country, packed up his life, and drove 32 hours, only to find out his entire team had quit. No techs, no support, no HVAC experience. Just a dispatcher, a wrench, and the middle of summer in Tennessee. In this episode of Profit & Grit , Jack shares how he went from scrambl...

Most contractors think of branding as a nice truck wrap or a catchy logo. But what if the real gap costing home service owners millions is invisible to customers and hidden in the numbers? In this episode of Profit & Grit, Sarah Ghirardo, marketing leader at ServiceTitan and former head of marketing at Service Champions, shares how she helped grow a $21M HVAC company into a $55M powerhouse. Sh...

Click below to book a complimentary intro meeting and learn how to get control of cash flow in your business while scaling with confidence. How do you take a family plumbing shop from $1M to over $30M in less than a decade? In this episode of Profit & Grit , John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Plumbing & Heating and host of Owned and Operated , shares his raw journey of scaling through acquisitions...

Door-to-door sales expert Lenny Gray shares his proven six-step sales system for home service businesses that works for even shy reps and maintains ethical standards. He breaks down why most sales teams fail before they start and how owners can build systems that produce consistent results without sacrificing margins or reputation. • Most businesses fail at door-to-door by outsourcing to third par...

Jim Penman transformed a lawn mowing side business into an empire of 5,500 franchisees across three countries by obsessing over service quality and putting franchisees first. His journey from history PhD student to founder of one of the world's largest franchise networks demonstrates how character, consistent improvement, and unwavering standards create sustainable growth. • Started with just...

After a near-death experience being shot and left for dead in a park, Mike Venitas found his superpower in genuine gratitude and turned it into a thriving career helping home service businesses grow and scale. • Marketing strategies differ dramatically based on company size and stage • Businesses under $1 million should focus on building networks and finding "who" rather than figuring ou...