Contractors Toolbox

In this episode, CCN Director of Member & Partner Experience Drew Barto is joined by Opal Enterprises Co-Owner and long-time CCN member Tara Dawn.

Tara shares how she’s doing more with what she has and how she uses a mix of traditional and modern marketing vehicles with an ever-growing tech stack to improve sales processes and increase lead flow. Drew and Tara discuss what’s working today and which types of offers and promotions are making the phones ring at a higher rate.

This episode is a must-listen for any home improvement contractor looking for marketing and technology takeaways that they can implement immediately.

In this episode, CCN Director of Member & Partner Experience Drew Barto talks with MicroMeshGutterGuards.com (MMGG) President & CEO Karen Sager.

Karen unveils the benefits of adding low-ticket, high-margin product lines that can be installed quickly to inject consistent cash into any contractor’s business. You’ll learn details of her fast-to-cash concept and how to take advantage of this approach, indications of positive cash flow that you can track, how to become more efficient with labor costs as a percentage of your business, and much more.

This episode is ideal for home improvement contractors—especially roofing companies—that have considered adding new product lines to their business but have been afraid to take the leap. 

In this episode, CCN Director of Member & Partner Experience Drew Barto talks with Renoworks Contractor Channel Partner Manager Jenni McMorran.

The discussion is centered around employing effective email campaigns that result in booking more appointments and closing more sales. You will learn best practices for capturing email addresses, creating unique email messages for leads at different stages of the buying cycle, which types of emails are most likely to generate responses from homeowners, and how busy contractors can automate their email marketing process to ensure it gets done regularly.

This episode is perfect for contractors who are looking for ways to generate low-cost leads.

Contact Renoworks here!

In this episode, Gary talks with CCN’s new Director of Member and Partner Experience.

The discussion will address many of the new initiatives at CCN, including some changes to our Contractors Toolbox podcast. Other topics will be strategic partnerships, The new L&D branding of CCN University, and changes coming to our financing program, all of which will continuously improve our member experience at CCN.

This episode is perfect for members of CCN as well as contractors who would like to learn more about all that CCN has to offer.

In this episode, Gary talks with Neal Christensen, Assistant Vice President and Relationship Manager at Enerbank.

Neal discusses the benefits of financing and various payment options.  He talks about the impact it has on cash flow, the financing process, how it increases viable leads for contractors, the positive impact on close rates, and more.  He also explains the PreQualify and application process, and considerations when choosing a lender. 

The vast majority of your jobs should be financed because of all of the benefits Neal discusses, so this podcast is one every contractor should listen to and gain benefits for their business.

In this episode, Gary talks with Brad Finck, Senior Vice President at Renoworks Software.

Renoworks is a market leader in providing various visualization tools for a more professional and sophisticated demo in the customer’s home. Brad talks about how these visualization tools can also be utilized on your website, in social media marketing, home shows, and in other marketing and sales activities.

This is a great episode to learn how to raise the bar in your sales and marketing with visualization tools.

In this episode, Gary talks with Isaac Barlow, the Founder of BusyBusy. 

BusyBusy is a technology solution that raises the bar on field labor management and job costing.  Isaac talks about how he created the BusyBusy solution for his own contracting company and the results were so strong after 4 years that they began offering the solution to the industry.

Isaac also talks about the positive impact the software has on field labor management and job costing, enabling the team to focus on revenue and profits.  He also discussed joining forces with another great tech solution company, ToolWatch, and is on the Board of Directors of the combined company.

There will be a joint webinar between BusyBusy and CCN on February 15, 2024 that is focused on job costing and here is the link to register.  This is a great episode for any contractor who wants to improve efficiency and accuracy in the field.

In this episode, Gary talks with Pete Scudder, owner of Scudder Roofing in Marino, CA.

Pete talks about how he got his start in the industry at 18 years old and launched his own company at 24. With a family to feed, Pete talks about what it took to get his business off the ground, how he learned to become a strong business leader, and how he successfully scaled his business to a $29M roofing and solar business.

Pete has some great advice for listeners and his messages will be powerful for all of those who listen to this episode.

In this episode, Gary talks with Jon Qualls, President and Co-Owner of Bo Lacey Construction.

Jon talks about how he forged a close friendship with his business partner, Kevin Lacey, after they played football together in college. He talks about how their first 3 years in business were focused on storms and they came close to going out of business in 2015.

Jon explains how they learned about CCN while attending a CertainTeed event and they became members. By 2018 they became more active in CCN by attending trainings, roundtables, and masterminds, and this helped them discover and embrace the systems and processes they needed to put in place across their business. From there they continued to grow and expect to exceed $15M in Revenue with a 14.5% net profit this year.

This is an incredible success story that will be inspiring to all contractors who listen to this episode.

In this episode, Gary talks with Steve Rennekamp, founder and CEO of Energy Swing Windows and Doors.

Steve has a fascinating background. He talks about how he earned an Engineering degree and was recruited right out of school to work for Alcoa. He spent 33 years at the company in various roles and truly learned many functional areas of business during those Alcoa years.

He talks about how he and his son, Donny, started Energy Swing from nothing and how they struggled for a while until the business finally turned the corner and started growing profitably. Steve talks quite a bit about the importance of hiring the right people and how this became a game-changer for Energy Swing.

This is a fantastic conversation with an industry veteran.