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 giving up ownership or control.

In this episode, we talk about why most retention problems aren’t really about pay, how alternative equity and profit sharing actually work in practice, and why owners who wait too long to think about incentives and succession usually end up with fewer options, not more.

This conversation is for home service owners who are growing, feeling the weight of people dependency, and starting to realize that alignment, not effort, is what unlocks the next stage.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• Why higher wages alone rarely solve retention problems
• How misaligned incentives quietly increase owner stress
• What “alternative equity” really means in a small business
• The difference between phantom equity and real ownership
• How profit sharing can improve margins instead of hurting them
• Why simplicity matters more than complex bonus formulas
• Who your true “key employees” usually are and why timing matters
• How incentives can improve profitability and exit readiness
• Why even owners who never plan to sell should think about succession
• How aligned teams create leverage instead of dependency

More From Profit & Grit

Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:

http://cfointrocall.com

Learn more at http://cfomadeeasy.com

Follow the show for weekly interviews with HVAC, plumbing, and home service owners and experts who share what it really takes to grow, scale, and profit in the trades.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we’re sure you’ll love ours too! To The Point Home Services Podcast, Toolbox for the Trades, Masters of Home Service, Home Service Business Coach With David Moerman, BlueCollar.CEO, The Home Service Expert Podcast, Next Level Pros, Blue Collar Business Podcast, Home Service Millionaire with Mike Andes, The Contractor Fight with Tom Reber, and Blue Collar Success Group.

🎙️ Profit & Grit by Tyler Martin
Real stories. Real strategy. Real results for service-based business owners.

🔗 Website: ProfitAndGrit.com
📍 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thinktyler
📸 Instagram & TikTok: @profitandgrit

Tyler Martin, a fractional CFO for home services and the trades

📅 Want to grow your business with smarter financial strategy?
Book a free intro meeting

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 build companies that can scale quickly and profitably.

In this episode, we talk about why so many owners get stuck between $5M and $10M, the leadership behaviors that quietly cap growth, and why financial literacy is often the missing link between effort and results.

This conversation is for owners who are growing fast, feeling the pressure of complexity, and realizing that working harder isn’t solving the problem anymore.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• Why growth feels heavier after $5M instead of easier
• The leadership mistakes that silently limit scale
• Why most businesses struggle with the same fundamentals
• How fear-based leadership hurts teams and results
• The difference between revenue growth and operational control
• Why financial literacy creates real freedom for owners
• How personal spending inside the business slows growth
• Why clean systems matter more than new tactics
• What actually changes when a company moves toward eight figures
• How disciplined execution beats complexity every time

More From Profit & Grit

Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:

http://cfointrocall.com

Learn more at http://cfomadeeasy.com

Follow the show for weekly interviews with HVAC, plumbing, and home service owners and experts who share what it really takes to grow, scale, and profit in the trades.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we’re sure you’ll love ours too! To The Point Home Services Podcast, Toolbox for the Trades, Masters of Home Service, Home Service Business Coach With David Moerman, BlueCollar.CEO, The Home Service Expert Podcast, Next Level Pros, Blue Collar Business Podcast, Home Service Millionaire with Mike Andes, The Contractor Fight with Tom Reber, and Blue Collar Success Group.

🎙️ Profit & Grit by Tyler Martin
Real stories. Real strategy. Real results for service-based business owners.

🔗 Website: ProfitAndGrit.com
📍 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thinktyler
📸 Instagram & TikTok: @profitandgrit

Tyler Martin, a fractional CFO for home services and the trades

📅 Want to grow your business with smarter financial strategy?
Book a free intro meeting

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 to real systems, structure, and scale, without losing the culture that built the company.

In this episode, we talk about what actually makes scaling a family business hard, where friction really comes from, and what it takes to modernize operations while keeping trust inside the business and with customers.

This conversation is for owners running family or legacy trade businesses who want to grow without breaking the culture that made them successful.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• Why family businesses hit friction as they scale
• How growth exposes weak systems and unclear roles
• Why money creates the most tension in family companies
• The importance of defining lanes inside the business
• Why scheduling discipline builds customer trust
• How reputation compounds over time
• When ServiceTitan makes sense and what implementation really requires
• The pros and cons of property management work
• Why COD work changes technician conversations
• How to scale without losing culture or legacy

More From Profit & Grit

Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:

http://cfointrocall.com

Learn more at http://cfomadeeasy.com

Follow the show for weekly interviews with HVAC, plumbing, and home service owners and experts who share what it really takes to grow, scale, and profit in the trades.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we’re sure you’ll love ours too! To The Point Home Services Podcast, Toolbox for the Trades, Masters of Home Service, Home Service Business Coach With David Moerman, BlueCollar.CEO, The Home Service Expert Podcast, Next Level Pros, Blue Collar Business Podcast, Home Service Millionaire with Mike Andes, The Contractor Fight with Tom Reber, and Blue Collar Success Group.

🎙️ Profit & Grit by Tyler Martin
Real stories. Real strategy. Real results for service-based business owners.

🔗 Website: ProfitAndGrit.com
📍 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thinktyler
📸 Instagram & TikTok: @profitandgrit

Tyler Martin, a fractional CFO for home services and the trades

📅 Want to grow your business with smarter financial strategy?
Book a free intro meeting