Contractors Toolbox

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.

In this episode, Gary talks with Jeff Nunham, Owner and CEO of Precision Roofing Services.

Jeff talks about how he started his roofing company in 2001 and it took him 14 years to surpass $1 million in revenue in 2015. As he sharpened his business skills and surrounded himself with the right talent, he was able to 11X his revenue in 8 years.

Jeff now has his sights on $20M in revenue, while continuing to generate strong net profits. It is interesting to hear Jeff talking about his thirst for knowledge and learning to be better with each year. He offers fantastic advice to small contractors who aspire to grow their companies profitably, and he has been able to do this with humility.

If you are a contractor who wants to grow your business, this is a great episode for you.

In this episode, Gary talks with Jaron Rice, founder and CEO of Magothy Payments.

Jaron talks about how he got into the payments industry specifically focusing on home improvement and home services contractors. He then gets into "effective rates" and how to properly calculate them. Jaron discusses funding delays and the ways to avoid them.

The conversation then moves to chargebacks, how long a contractor is liable, some things contractors can do to prevent a chargeback from happening in the first place, and what a contractor merchant can do to increase their likelihood of winning if they do happen.

Finally, Jaron talks about the workarounds when a contractor merchant's CRM has their own processing or an exclusive partnership with a merchant services provider. This is a great episode for all contractors who accept credit cards.

In this episode, Gary talks with Anson Martin, the founder and CEO of Valley Roofing and Exteriors based in Harrisonburg, VA.

Anson talks about how he only has an 8th-grade education and started working for a builder when he was 17 years old. He was drawn to roofing and favored that trade over all other trades within the construction umbrella.

Anson decided at 21 that he wanted to start his own roofing company; his focus from day one was servant leadership. He was 100% committed to pleasing his customers and taking good care of his employees. Everything Anson does in his business is based on prioritizing everything for the greater good.

Listen to Anson talk about his success story and how he will reach $15M in revenue this year with a strong bottom line and is targeting $30M by 2030. This is a fantastic episode for all home improvement contractors, and you will see how Anson's humility has been a driving force in his fantastic journey.

In this episode, Gary talks with Danielle Jones, General Manager of Hutcherson Construction in Michigan.

Danielle shares the Hutcherson Construction story and speaks about their rapid growth over the past several years. She discusses the importance of implementing formal systems and processes and how that transformed their company.

With a longtime background in Human Resources and specifically recruiting and retaining top people, Danielle wrote a book called, "Recruiting a Winning Team: Strategies for Building High-Performance Organizations." The book is available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback formats.

This is a great episode for those contractors who want to hear a success story about rapidly scaling a home improvement contracting business and learn more about recruiting and retaining top talent to help scale your contracting company.

In this episode, Gary talks with Derrik Shakespear, Chief Revenue Officer for BusyBusy, a technology company focused on improving profitability for home improvement contractors.

Derrik talks about the company's founder who owns 5 contracting companies and how his passion for technology, math, and data led him to start BusyBusy to solve job site challenges with payroll and job costing. He discusses the gaps in the areas of time-tracking and job costing on-site and how embracing technology to address these gaps will often lead to a well-run home improvement contracting company seeing significant improvements in their net profits.

Derrik went on to share a few case studies of contractors who saw significant improvements in their bottom line and in employee relationships. This is an interesting episode for any home improvement contractor looking to improve their efficiencies at job sites.

In this episode, Gary talks with Greg Bloom, Vice President of National Strategic Accounts for Beacon Building Products.

Greg talks about the state of the building material distribution industry, how it was impacted during the pandemic, and how it has fared post-pandemic. Greg also discusses the consolidation in the distribution space and his view of consolidation going forward.

He also discusses the impact of Private Equity on distribution and contractors.

Finally, Greg talks about the impact technology has had on distribution and the contracting/remodeling space in general.

Greg's 41 years in the business give him a unique perspective and all contractors will enjoy listening to Greg speak on these topics.

In this episode, Gary talks with Megan Beattie, an industry veteran who specializes in face-to-face marketing.

Megan discusses the various ways contractors are effectively engaging in face-to-face marketing and she zeroes in on 4 of the common ways contractors can effectively engage in this type of marketing. Megan also talks about the importance of creating a lead mix from multiple sources and how face-to-face marketing offers a lead source where a contractor can exercise more control of their destiny.

She used the example of today's environment where inbound digital leads are down significantly from where they had been, and with a strong face-to-face marketing plan, contractors can still bring in the leads they need to keep sales reps busy with demos.

This episode is great for contractors of all sizes and has some actionable takeaways that can be put in place immediately.

In this episode, Gary speaks with Peter Ingraham, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Ingage.

Peter and Gary talk about the initiative Ingage and CCN have been building out together, by marrying CCN's proprietary 5P Sales Process with Ingage's proprietary presentation and analytics software. The result is a highly professional presentation that sales reps can learn and follow to drive up close rates and ticket value. The back-end analytics helps sales managers provide meaningful feedback to reps in the spirit of continuous improvement.

This episode is for any home improvement contractor who would like to scale their revenue through higher close rates and ticket value.

Don't miss it.

In this episode, Gary talks with Jonathan Weinberg, the Founder and CEO of Builder Prime.

Jonathan talks about how he was introduced to the home improvement contracting industry and how he initially set out to use his Computer Science degrees to create tech software that supported contractors with solutions for estimation and production, however, he ended up infusing that into a broad-based CRM solution with all-in-one capabilities that offer contractors an option for consolidating multiple tech solutions into their one comprehensive solution that is fully integrated for ease of use.

Jonathan talks about his perspectives on the sales funnel that he calls, "The Happy Path." This is a great discussion that should have takeaways for any contractor who listens to the episode.