In This Episode, We Discuss:

• The Career Pivot: How 9/11 forced Chuck out of aerospace and into home improvement—and why he never looked back.
• The "COVID Hangover": Why the easy market of the last few years created "soft" sales teams and how to fix it.
• Activity vs. Results: Why you must manage the activity to ensure the results happen.
• The Sales Manager Trap: Why promoting your top sales rep to manager is often a recipe for disaster.
• Building a Training Culture: The secret to getting your team to buy into daily training and discipline.
• Personal Branding: Why your personal social media is the most powerful (and free) recruiting and marketing tool you own.

Key Topics & Takeaways

• Why Contractors Distrust Marketing
  • “Set it and forget it” agencies, no accountability, no trade knowledge
• The Power of Niching Down
  • Specializing in home services = faster onboarding, better results
• Marketing Isn’t a Black Hole
  • Track real revenue, not just leads or vanity metrics
• SEO That Drives Revenue
  • Google Business Profile, reviews, citations, and long-term planning
• Yelp, Apple Maps & Review Diversity
  • Why Yelp still matters and how AI search pulls local data
• Local SEO Ranking Factors
  • Business name keywords, seasonal categories, 2026 insights
• Omnichannel & Brand Growth
  • OTT/CTV, radio, brand search, and credibility marketing
• CSR & Call Performance
  • Speed-to-lead, call monitoring, and CSRs as sales reps
• Guerrilla & Community Marketing
  • Job-site signage, door knocking, events, and local backlinks
• Lifetime Value Over New Leads
  • Retarget existing customers to keep the call board full

In this high-energy episode, we dive deep into the mindset shift required to move from being a "technician in a truck" to a sophisticated business architect. We explore why the home services industry is often misunderstood as "salesy" when it’s actually about education and trust. From the psychology of pricing to the "The Witcher" method of building rapport, this conversation is a masterclass in modernizing your trade business for the next generation of homeowners.

• The Vet Clinic Analogy: Why nobody feels "sold" at the vet, even when they spend thousands, and how to mirror that trust in HVAC.
• Marketing vs. Process: Why investing in marketing before you have a sales process is like pouring water into a leaky bucket.
• Exchanging Knowledge for Trust: Moving fast "technician babble" to help customers understand the why behind a repair.
• Performance Pay vs. Hourly: How to sell your team on a pay structure that rewards opportunity rather than just time.
• Game Theory in Sales: Shifting from a "Zero-Sum" (I win, you lose) mindset to a "Non-Zero Sum" mindset where both the tech and the customer win.
• The Witcher & Pokemon Cards: A wild story about how obsessive rapport-building turned a "stonewall" customer into a $50,000 job.
• Modern Metrics: Why the "Millennial Homeowner" buys differently than the Boomer, and how to adapt your digital presence.
• Accounting for Growth: The difference between "Bank Account Accounting" and true job costing.