Contractor Evolution

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 becoming a Member, click here: https://trybta.com/EP286 

Take our five minute quiz and get a custom Contractor Growth Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL286

At just 30 years old, Riley Rivers owns a $7M dollar landscaping business, pulling in $120K in profit every month.

Multiple divisions.

Massive contracts.

Complex operations.

And he does it all in less than 40 hours a week.

In this episode, I'm talking to Riley to find out how he built his company, including the key decisions he made as he scaled.

If you're ready to step out of the day-to-day and become a real CEO, Riley's story is a must listen.

—

Riley is a Breakthrough Academy Member who has worked with his coach and contractor community to build a business he loves running. To learn more about becoming a Member, click here: https://trybta.com/EP286 

Learn more about Rivers Landscaping: https://www.riverslandscapingmt.com/

Episode highlights:

• Learn which systems enabled Riley to more than double his revenue without sacrificing profitability.
• Get insight into Riley’s hiring strategies when it comes to adding high-impact leaders into his organization.
• Discover how Riley built his team culture… by letting his team build his culture. Find out how he stepped back and let his people establish the company’s core values and the tactics used to live them out.

00:00-Intro

01:55-Journey to $3 Million 

07:12-Evolution of Roles 

09:41-Strategy for Growth 

11:49-Identifying Core Gaps 

21:01-Org Structure Strategy 

30:18-Cultivating Company Culture 

40:22-Leadership and Management

Grab a copy of Bob's Top 10 Tax Tips For Self-Employed Contractors: https://trybta.com/DL285

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP285 

Ever run out of money despite making millions of dollars?

This is the situation Bob Gauvreau has seen hundreds of contractors fall into.

Revenue is up, profit may even be up.

But they run out of cash unexpectedly and when they get hit with an unexpected bill or expense…

…they crumple. 

In today’s episode, Bob walks us through a foolproof system for managing your cash flow so financial stress becomes a thing of the past.

Episode Highlights:

• Learn why your P&L might be lying to you, and which metrics actually matter when it comes to the health of your business
• Understand where cash gets “stuck” and how to avoid accidentally spending the cash you need to pay the bills.
• Discover the foolproof system for managing your cash flow and forecasting potential issues 90 days in advance (no more being jump-scared by your bank balance)

Get in touch with Bob: https://gauvreaucpa.ca/

00:00-Intro

02:18-Cash Flow vs Profit 

08:32-Tight Cash Impact 

15:36-Optimizing Cash Inflows 

23:04-Accounts Receivable Systems 

29:38-Managing Cash Outflows 

43:57-Owner Compensation Rhythm 

47:24-Financial Process Organization

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP284

Take our five minute quiz and get a custom Contractor Growth Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL284

Joel Retherford made an extra $1.6 MILLION in the first four months of this year. 

How? By hiring for one simple role. 

In today’s episode, I’m talking to Joel to understand:

• How hiring a project manager helped him produce an entire year’s worth of revenue, in 4 months
• The hiring process he used to find a rockstar capable of driving all that value
• And why so many contractors completely botch their project management, and how to stop killing your profit as you grow.

If you’re struggling to scale and want to stop bottlenecking your operations, this episode is for you.

00:00-Intro

01:25-Overcoming Personal Operational Bottlenecks 

09:20-Hiring An External Candidate 

12:19-Managing Internal Staff Friction 

21:02-Presenting A United Front 

26:44-Unlocking Strategic Owner Advantages 

31:19-Timing The Project Manager 

36:41-Structuring Tangible ROI Goals

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP283

Take our five minute quiz and get a custom Contractor Growth Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL283

Eric Olson found a way to squeeze an extra 200 thousand dollars of profit out of work he was already doing.

His secret weapon? Change orders.

In today’s episode, Eric is going to talk us through:

- The exact strategy he used to 4X his profits on all change orders

- Why getting this wrong can leave you with angry clients, a frustrated team and zero dollars in the bank

- And how to get your team stoked about maximizing profit at all levels of the organization.

Eric Olson is a Breakthrough Academy Member and Owner of Olson Defendorf Custom Homes in Texas.

He has worked Breakthrough Academy coaches and community members over the years to create bulletproof systems in his business that have significantly improved his profit, cash flow and personal life.

Learn more about Olson Defendorf Custom Homes: https://www.odcustomhomes.com/

00:00-Intro

06:17-Incentivizing Project Managers

12:18-Pricing Logic

16:55-Profit Sharing Expansion

24:06-Collection Process Timing

28:48-Tracking Change Orders

34:14-Schedule Management Updates

40:58-Systems Optimization Change

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP282

Ready to build smarter? Meet Breakthrough Academy at Build Show Live in San Antonio, Sept 10–12. Use code BTA26 for 25% off. Click the link to register: https://www.buildshowlive.com/

Take our five minute quiz and get a custom Contractor Growth Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL282

Most contractors struggle to build four to ten homes a year. Today’s guest, Charlene Barrett sold six hundred. That's hundreds of millions in sales.

Today we're going to go through:

- What contractors get wrong about scaling from 1 to 10 million,

- How to use referrals and reviews to supercharge sales,

- And how to deliver world-class services that customers love, at scale.

Charlene is a Breakthrough Academy coach and former Director of Sales and Marketing for a top North American builder, where she worked for over 12 years.

She is a true expert in customer experience and sales, so don’t miss this episode if this is something you’re interested in improving.

00:00-Intro

04:59-Service vs experience

06:25-Creating wow moments

11:57-Negative customer experiences

15:00-Systemizing customer experience

23:02-Driving five-star reviews

32:55-Generating customer referrals

40:37-Insights on coaching

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP281

Ready to build smarter? Meet Breakthrough Academy at Build Show Live in San Antonio, Sept 10–12. Use code BTA26 for 25% off. Click the link to register: https://www.buildshowlive.com/

Take our five minute quiz and get a custom Contractor Growth Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL281

When most contractors think about disaster planning, they picture insurance policies, backup equipment, and emergency contacts.

But what if the real question is this:

Would your team know what to do if you weren't there?

BTA Members Curt Janzen and Kevin Boschee from Beyond Foam got an answer to that question when they found themselves in the worst case scenario:

Their shop burned down. While they were on a business trip. Hundreds of miles away.

In a matter of hours, their team had to make decisions, communicate with customers, protect equipment, coordinate next steps, and keep the business moving forward—all without waiting for the owners to swoop in and save the day.

The result wasn't luck.

It was the outcome of years spent building a business that didn't depend on them for every decision.

00:00-Intro

02:03-Operational Impact of a Fire

09:27-Initial Team Response

13:08-Enabling Structural Systems

18:45-Supporting Team Emotionally

24:21-Insurance Process Lessons

30:08-Overall Key Takeaways

Ready to build smarter? Meet Breakthrough Academy at Build Show Live in San Antonio, Sept 10–12. Use code BTA26 for 25% off. Click the link to register: https://www.buildshowlive.com/

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP280 

Take our five minute quiz and get a custom Contractor Growth Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL280

Most contractors become leaders by accident.

You start a business because you're great at your trade. Then suddenly you're managing crews, handling conflict, giving feedback, and trying to keep good people from walking out the door.

And if you're like most owners, nobody ever taught you how to do any of it.

That's why this week's Contractor Evolution episode with leadership expert and former Head of Storybrand Dr. J.J. Peterson is worth your time.

In this conversation, Dr. J.J. breaks down a simple approach to leadership that helps you:

- Keep your best people longer

- Reduce costly mistakes and miscommunication

- Build a team you can actually trust

- Create a culture people want to be part of

The best part?

You don't need to become some hard-nosed manager or abandon the "nice guy" you've always been.

Strong leadership isn't about being tougher. It's about creating clarity, accountability, and trust.

00:00-Intro

04:41-Guide Versus Hero

11:28-Formulaic Collective Communication

22:20-Badass Softy Philosophy

30:45-Empathy and Authority

40:45-Three Leadership Pillars

49:53-Modern Leadership Era

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP279

Download Rob’s AI Opportunity Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL279

AI is exposing everything that's broken in your contracting business…

…before it fixes anything.

Everyone's racing to adopt AI right now. But here's what nobody's saying: if your workflows are messy, AI doesn't clean them up. It accelerates the chaos. This episode is your filter; a practical, no-hype walkthrough of where AI for contractors actually fits, where it makes things worse, and how to know if your business is even ready.

If you're running a contracting company and feeling the pressure to "do something with AI" before you fall behind, this is the episode to listen to first.

In This Episode:

• 🤖 The AI Trap: What contractors are believing about AI that's dead wrong, and why owners are wasting money on tools they don't need
• 🔍 The Real Problem: Why AI exposes hidden workflow chaos before it saves you a minute, and where contractors have the most mess
• ✅ The AI Readiness Test: The 3 things that need to be clear before you even look at a tool, and the signs your company isn't ready
• 🎯 The Opportunity Filter:  A simple scorecard for evaluating AI ideas (so you stop confusing "cool" with "valuable")
• 🏗️ Where AI Actually Fits: Sales follow-up, SOPs, job handoffs, client communication — and where it should stay far away
• 👤 Human Review: What AI should never decide by itself and how to stop your team from treating AI like the final answer
• 👥 Team Adoption: Why your crew will ignore new tools (it's not the tech — it's the conversation you haven't had)
• 🛠️ Build Your First AI Workflow: If you're a $3M contracting business, here's exactly where to start this week

00:00-Intro

05:06-Decision-Making Hierarchy

08:26-Effective Workflow Documentation

14:59-Privacy and Security

20:13-Custom Business Models

25:16-High-Impact Contractor Cases

35:31-Internal Team Adoption

43:01-Future Contracting Trends

54:51-Starting with Friction

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP278 

Get a copy of Ryan’s Lead Follow Up Formula (The Revenue Engine) here: https://trybta.com/DL278

Most contractors assume the sale is dead after two ignored messages. The data says otherwise, and the money you're leaving on the table is staggering.

Ryan Fenn, founder of CHIIRP, has analyzed massive volumes of real customer conversations to find out what actually gets replies, what kills deals, and what the best follow-up systems do differently. In this episode, we break it all down into the three elements that matter most: words, cadence, and channel.

You'll learn: 

• Why the words most contractors use in follow-up are silently killing deals — and what to say instead 
• The data-backed timing and cadence that turns cold quotes into signed contracts 
• Which channel (text, phone, email, video) actually converts — and when to use each one 
• A simple dead quote reactivation system to bring stalled deals back to life 
• Where AI is genuinely helping follow-up right now — and where it's hurting

If you've ever wondered why your quotes go cold or how long you should really keep following up, this one's for you.

00:00-Intro

10:44-Follow-up in contracting 

14:30-Effective sales language 

29:57-Ideal follow-up cadence 

44:13-Choosing communication channels 

52:01-Risks of AI voice 

56:05-Increasing lead conversion 

To learn more about Breakthrough Academy, click here: https://trybta.com/EP277 

Take our five minute quiz and get a custom Contractor Growth Scorecard: https://trybta.com/DL277

Your crew isn't lazy. Your processes are broken. In this episode of Contractor Evolution, process strategist Moustafa Moursy breaks down why most business systems collect dust, and introduces the OPTIMIZE Framework: a step-by-step method for building SOPs that your team actually uses, so you can stop running every decision through yourself.

If you've ever written a process doc that nobody followed, this episode will show you exactly where you went wrong (and how to fix it).

In this episode:

• Why "people problems" are almost always process problems in disguise
• What you need to define BEFORE touching any software or templates
• The OPTIMIZE Framework: Observe → Picture → Tailor → Implement → Memorialize → Zoom/Evolve
• The real balance between owner direction and team input when designing processes
• How to know when a process is ready to roll out (instead of endlessly perfecting it)
• What separates a process that gets followed from one that gets ignored (the triangle)
• How great processes give your team independence, not just more control

Check out Moustafa’s TedX Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SemHh0n19LA

00:00-Intro

02:21-Successful vs. Failed Processes

07:21-Defining the Optimize Framework

10:14-Step 1: Observe

15:43-Step 2: Picture

21:58-Step 3: Tailor

34:18-Step 4: Implement

45:54-Step 5: Evolve