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 DivviShares. 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 service acquisitions don’t fail because of the market. They fail because of overpaying, owner dependency, rushed decisions, culture problems, and cash flow strain that shows up fast once the deal closes.

Ryan shares what it actually looks like to buy a $5M trade business, miss projections, fire a top producer, slow growth intentionally, test AI answering, and overhaul fleet safety, all in the first year.

This conversation is for trade business owners thinking about buying, selling, or trying to push past that $3–$5M ceiling without breaking their business.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• Why many home service acquisitions quietly underperform in year one
• How overpaying for SDE or EBITDA puts buyers behind from day one
• The hidden risk of “hands-off owner” deals in the trades
• Why so many owners stall out around $5M in revenue
• How personal income dependency keeps owners from hiring leadership
• What really happens when you fire a top-producing salesperson for culture
• Why moving a billable tech into supervision immediately impacts revenue
• How to think about durability versus aggressive growth projections
• Why cash flow discipline matters more than headline revenue
• How booking rate data exposed a six-figure mistake
• What went wrong with AI answering in a 50+ Southern demographic
• Why speed-to-lead still wins in aggregator-driven markets
• How truck cameras exposed serious safety and liability risk
• The mindset required to survive the first 12 months after buying a trade business

If you’re considering buying a plumbing, HVAC, or electrical company, or you’re building one with the goal of selling someday, this episode gives you a realistic look at what happens after the ink dries.

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

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

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, plumbing, and electrical businesses actually get ROI from the software they already pay for. Her background spans marketing, data, and field service operations, giving her a clear view into why most contractors only use about 30% of their core systems.

In this episode, we dig into the “super user” risk that can cripple a business overnight, shiny object syndrome in contractor tech, and why technology often becomes a silent profit killer. Jenny breaks down how to think about tech like a business plan, not a collection of subscriptions.

We also talk about tech budgets, license waste, adoption resistance from technicians, and why explaining the “why” matters more than forcing compliance. Jenny shares how to build an intentional tech roadmap that supports growth instead of creating overwhelm.

This conversation is for owners who feel buried in systems, frustrated by software spend, and want technology to actually make the business easier to run.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• Why most contractors only use ~30% of their software
• The “super user” risk and how it exposes your business
• Why shiny object syndrome drains profit
• How tech quietly becomes a productivity killer
• What a real technology plan looks like
• Why license waste is more common than owners realize
• How much contractors should budget for tech
• Why adoption fails without explaining the “why”
• How to reduce resistance from technicians
• How to turn technology into leverage instead of noise

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 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 Partners, where she works with HVAC, plumbing, and electrical businesses to drive revenue, profit, and quality of life at the same time. Her background in psychology shapes how she approaches growth, leadership, and performance, focusing on systems that reduce burnout, increase accountability, and create momentum without chaos.

In this episode, we dig into why knowing your numbers isn’t enough if you’re not acting on them early, how daily scorecards force better decisions, and why missing goals repeatedly creates cultural damage. Laura explains her DP Report framework, why teams should see the scoreboard, and how leaders should pivot quickly instead of hoping the month fixes itself.

We also get into the real reason owners stay stuck in the field, how unconscious rules and identity traps keep them there, and why defining a “rich life” is the first step to breaking owner dependency. Laura shares how values and rules shape behavior, why most people make fulfillment harder than it needs to be, and how changing the rules can change everything.

This conversation is for owners who are growing but feel more trapped than free, want better performance without burnout, and are ready to build a business that supports their life instead of competing with it.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• Why growth problems are often psychological, not tactical
• Why knowing your numbers without action still leads to missed goals
• How daily scorecards force faster, better decisions
• Why missing targets repeatedly damages culture
• The real reason owners struggle to get out of the field
• How unconscious rules keep owners stuck
• What defining a “rich life” actually means
• How values and rules shape leadership behavior
• Why venting kills performance and resolution builds it
• How to build systems that grow the business without burning you out

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 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 operations, pricing, and reporting. He spends his days inside real contractor accounts, seeing exactly where data breaks down and how those breakdowns quietly crush margins.

In this episode, Bernie explains why ServiceTitan isn’t for everyone, and why rushing into it without clarity often makes problems worse. He breaks down the most common onboarding mistakes, why contractors buy features they never use, and how “garbage in, garbage out” data leads to bad pricing, bad decisions, and internal finger-pointing.

A big focus of the conversation is the pricebook. Bernie walks through why the pricebook is the engine of the business, why it must be treated as a living system, and why someone in accounting usually ends up owning it. He also explains why trying to keep pricing “perfect” can be just as damaging as never updating it at all.

This is a practical conversation for owners who feel stuck between growth and tech overwhelm, and want systems that support profit instead of complicating it.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• Who ServiceTitan is actually built for, and who should wait
• The most common ServiceTitan onboarding mistakes contractors make
• Why buying too many features can be worse than buying too few
• How messy data quietly destroys margins
• Why the pricebook is the engine of the business
• Why the pricebook is never “done”
• Who should own the pricebook and why it’s rarely the owner
• The danger of obsessing over perfect pricing
• How clean data eliminates internal blame and confusion
• Why building systems that can scale matters even if you never plan to sell

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 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, cleaning copper pipes in his dad’s plumbing business. That early exposure shaped how he views marketing today, not as clicks or impressions, but as jobs booked and dollars earned.

Before launching SearchLight, Kevin spent years in the automotive world analyzing massive advertising budgets at companies like Dealer.com and Autotrader. He watched how data could either reveal the truth or be manipulated to tell a comfortable story. When he came back to home services, he saw the same problem everywhere. Contractors were spending heavily on marketing but couldn’t answer a simple question, how much revenue did that money actually produce?

In this conversation, Kevin breaks down where contractors are leaking revenue, why cost per lead is one of the most misleading metrics in the industry, and how booking rate and follow-up matter far more than cheap clicks. He explains how marketing and operations often point fingers at each other, and how clean data ends those arguments fast.

What You Will Learn in This Episode

• How cleaning pipes in his dad’s plumbing business shaped Kevin’s approach to marketing
• Why most contractors can’t tie marketing spend to real revenue
• Where the biggest revenue leaks actually happen in home service businesses
• Why estimate follow-up matters more than buying more leads
• How booking rate became the true north star metric
• Why cost per lead creates bad decisions and false confidence
• The difference between bookable leads and wasted leads
• How data removes emotion and finger-pointing between teams
• Why marketing can work even when the business is still broken
• How small monthly improvements compound into major growth
• What separates five-million-dollar shops from ten-million-dollar shops
• Why building fast and failing fast beats waiting for perfect

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