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In 2015, Vancouver-based contractor Brandon Smith was doing about $500K a year. Along with his business partner, he was handling sales, running production and estimating his own jobs.

Eleven years later, he runs a $5M company.

The road between those two numbers wasn't a straight line.

There was a declined debit card at Quiznos, an eight-foot whiteboard that looked like a murder board, and a global pandemic that threw a wrench in the plan.

In this episode, Brandon walks through the exact zig-zagging path he took to go from operator of a 6-figure construction business to the CEO of an award-winning company with time and money to give back.

He also shares the one piece of advice from Danny he still hasn't forgotten: move faster.

If you're stuck at a lower revenue than you want to be at, this episode is for you.

Want Brandon's full sales process? Follow him on Instagram @buildwithbsmith and send him a DM that says "breakthrough." You can also catch his podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPo3hHrreDSuz6v4MhikA?si=twW4mktVTxqcH2Nec8AxHA&nd=1&dlsi=71a45319798646cc

00:00-Intro

06:01-From Laborer to Business Owner

07:48-Early Financial Struggles

11:06-Scaling to the $1M Mark

17:10-Growing from $1M to $2M

23:53-Leadership Growth for Scaling

30:49-Business Lessons Learned

40:01-What Not to Sacrifice for Business

Book an implementation call and join thousands of contractors like Jason in running a better business while working less: https://trybta.com/DI1026

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP297

Take our five minute quiz and get a custom Contractor Growth Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL297

You promoted your best salesperson to run sales. Now they are in your office three times a day asking what you would do.

That is not a hiring mistake. Perry Holley says it is a development gap, and most owners skip right past it without knowing.

Perry is an executive coach with Maxwell Leadership, and he has worked with the BTA Community at Winter Summits and retreats for years. He was on the show back in Episode 132 breaking down the 5 Levels of Leadership. He is back to tackle the level that trips up almost everyone: becoming a developer of people.

He walks Danny through seven steps that have to happen before anyone is actually empowered. Recruit, position, model, equip, develop, empower, measure. When somebody keeps coming to you for answers, Perry says go back through the first five and find the one you skipped.

The step most owners miss is development. Equipping is teaching the job. Developing is teaching someone to lead themselves: time management, priority management, emotional management, resilience. Skills your crew leads were almost certainly never taught.

Danny gets into his own version of this with the person now running BTA’s sales team, and what their January review surfaced.

Perry also covers accountability as ownership rather than blame, why the goal rarely changes but the plan usually does, and the question that tells you whether your team trusts you: are they telling you hard things, or only the good stuff?

And if your own development has stalled, his answer is irreducible minimums. Fifty words a day. Two pages a day. Small things done daily, consistently, compounding into something you could not have planned.

Follow Perry Holley and the Maxwell Leadership Podcast for more on this: https://www.maxwellleadership.com/podcast/

00:00-Intro

02:24-Executor to Leader Transition

09:43-7 Steps to Team Empowerment

15:50-Developing Self Leadership & Management

19:43-Being a Genius Maker

26:35-Accountability as Extreme Ownership

34:56-Final Takeaway

Get the free templates from this session here: https://trybta.com/DL296

Book an implementation call and join thousands of contractors like Jason in running a better business while working less: https://trybta.com/DI1026

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP296

Winter is the season most contractors brace for. These four have stopped bracing.

This is the replay of our October Marketing and Sales Roundtable, where Danny sat down with three painting contractors running between $5 and $10 million and the founder of CompanyCam.

Joe Kelly went from $3.5 million to $10 million in three years at JK Paint in Portland, and he keeps all ten crews working through December and January.

Mason Marquis runs one of the largest residential painting companies in Dallas, and his winter discount season produced a better gross margin than his busy season.

Toby Woodiwiss has been building Woodiwiss Painting in California since 2004, holds a net promoter score of 100, and runs at 46% gross profit. Luke Hansen founded CompanyCam after years in roofing.

Here is what they talk about:

• The numbers each of them watches weekly, and why every one of them named booked appointments as the earliest warning sign
• How to tell the difference between passive and active lead sources
• Which levers you can actually pull when flow dries up.

00:00-Intro

04:25-Meet the Panelists

17:06-Signs of Broken Sales Process

28:34-Winter Playbook & Data Tracking

48:18-Off-Season Crew Tactics

1:03:07-Turning Leads to Booked Work

1:28:22-Final Advice