Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast

By John Wilson

Owned and Operated is the podcast for home service entrepreneurs who want to build larger, more profitable businesses.

Hosted by John Wilson and Jack Carr, each e

... more

4.8

8080 ratings

FAQs about Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast:

How many episodes does Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 413 episodes available.

Best of Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast

The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

Number 1: Why Roofing Is a Beautiful Business: Marketing, Sales & $20K Jobs
What does it actually take to buy and grow a roofing company? Nicholas Riley left Deloitte to buy Driftwood Builders Roofing, a 20-year-old roofing company in Austin, Texas. After reviewing roughly 2,000 businesses, he finally made his first home service acquisition. In this episode, John Wilson and Nicholas break down the economics of the roofing business, including $20,000 average roof replacements, cash vs. insurance margins, roofing marketing, direct mail, referral partnerships, and competing in a market with more than 1,000 roofing companies. They also cover Nicholas' biggest mistakes during his first year as an operator, what buyers should look for when acquiring a home service business, and why roofing ultimately comes down to two things: marketing and sales. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Buying your first home service business • The economics of running a roofing company • $20K average roof replacements • Roofing marketing and direct mail • Building referral partnerships that generate leads • Why seller integrity matters when buying a business • Competing against private equity and local roofers • Why roofing is a marketing and sales business ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The Military Veteran (TMV) Hiring a VP, GM, or C-suite leader? The Military Veteran (TMV) specializes in executive search for home service businesses, connecting you with proven veteran leaders who know how to execute, build teams, and drive growth. Select Owned and Operated as your referral source when you schedule a consultation: https://themilvet.typeform.com/to/BDwkmCU0?typeform-source=www.themilvet.org Big Reputation Get more from your Google Business Profile with Big Reputation. Automate reviews, improve local visibility, and turn more Google searches into inbound calls. Learn more: https://www.bigreputation.ai/oao?utm_source=oao&utm_medium=paid ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Nicholas Riley https://www.instagram.com/nickriley2/ https://driftwoodbuildersroofing.com/ Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAOStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.
September 10, 202651min
Number 2: Ismael Valdez: How I Built a $108M Home Service Company & What I’m Building Next
Ismael Valdez built NexGen Air Conditioning & Plumbing from $0 to $108 million in just 6.5 years. Now he’s back on Owned and Operated to share the blueprint for his next $100M home service company. John Wilson and Ismael break down what worked at NexGen, the mistakes he would never repeat, why most HVAC and plumbing contractors stall below $2M, and why sales and marketing are the real engines behind rapid growth. Ismael also shares what he’s building next. After investing more than $22 million of his own money into Nuve, generating $15.2 million in first-year sales, and selling more than 110,000 units, he’s turning his attention back to home services. His vision: an AI-powered, hyper-efficient HVAC and plumbing company with almost no traditional back office, lower prices, higher close rates, and the potential for 40%+ EBITDA margins. In This Episode: • How Ismael Valdez built NexGen from $0 to $108M • What he learned from a nine-figure home service exit • Building Nuve to $15.2M in first-year sales • Why most contractors stall below $2M • NexGen’s biggest wins and mistakes • Why sales and marketing drive growth • Building an AI-powered home service company • Ismael’s blueprint for his next $100M company Connect John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Ismael Valdez https://www.instagram.com/nuveceo/ Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ Sponsors Quick Staffers Hire trained HVAC and plumbing CSRs without the overhead of traditional hiring. Save $500 on your first placement with Quick Staffers: https://www.quickstaffers.com/ Avoca See how Avoca helps home service companies book more jobs with AI that handles calls, texts, follow ups, and dispatching without adding more chaos. Book a demo: https://www.avoca.ai/partners/oao Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAOStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.
September 08, 202658min
Number 3: How We’d Start a Plumbing Company From $0 in 2026
If John Wilson and Jack Carr lost everything and had to start a plumbing company from scratch, what would they actually do? In this episode of Owned and Operated, John and Jack break down exactly how they’d build a plumbing business from $10,000 to $1 million in revenue using everything they’ve learned as home service operators. They compare two different paths: staying extremely lean by subcontracting work and proving demand before spending money, or hiring early and building the operation one truck at a time. They cover how they’d land their first customers, where they’d spend their first marketing dollars, when they’d hire, what jobs they’d target, and how they’d build toward four productive trucks. John also explains why he’d eventually use a small acquisition to accelerate the business, including examples of companies he’s previously acquired with very little cash down. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • How to start a plumbing company with $10,000 • Getting your first customers without a big marketing budget • Subcontracting vs. hiring your first plumber • Why John would prioritize revenue before investing • Using Facebook, Nextdoor, referrals, and LSAs to generate leads • The plumbing jobs Jack would target first • When to add your first truck and technician ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Service Scalers Get more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcast Yelp Looking for more qualified leads beyond Google? See how contractors are using Yelp to reach homeowners who are ready to book and diversify their lead generation. Learn more: https://business.yelp.com/campaign/ownedandoperated/ Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAOStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.
September 01, 202648min
Number 4: How We’d Turn $5M Into $10M in 12 Months
How would we turn a $5 million home service business into a $10 million company? In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down how they’d invest $1 million to double a profitable home service business. They cover where they’d invest first, finding the next high-ROI marketing channel, hiring salespeople ahead of demand, expanding the balance sheet, and building the capacity to scale. Could they reach a $10M run rate in just 12 months? This is the playbook they’d use. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • How to grow a $5M home service business to $10M • Where they’d invest $1 million for growth • Finding your next high-ROI marketing channel • Why one marketing channel could double the business • Branding, radio, LSAs, and commercial sales • Hiring salespeople ahead of demand ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Yelp Looking for more qualified leads beyond Google? See how contractors are using Yelp to reach homeowners who are ready to book and diversify their lead generation. Learn more: https://business.yelp.com/campaign/ownedandoperated/ Comfort Connect Turn one installation into years of repeat business with Comfort Connect. Give homeowners flexible payment options, stay connected after the job, and create new recurring revenue opportunities. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4wGXqSX FieldPulse Ready to ditch the whiteboard and spreadsheets? See how FieldPulse helps home service companies simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more. Book a free demo: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operated Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAOStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.
September 03, 202642min
Number 5: Why Everyone Is Buying Home Service Businesses (And You Should Too)
Home service businesses are getting more attention than ever. But are they really as good as they look? In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr talk about why HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other home service businesses have become so popular; and why they’re still incredibly hard to operate. They break down what makes home services attractive, the mistakes people make when buying into the trades, and where there’s still opportunity as more buyers enter the space. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Why more people are getting into the trades • What makes home services such an attractive business model • Why fragmentation creates so much opportunity • The reality of staffing, seasonality, and competition • Why running a home service business takes more than being smart • The biggest mistake people make when buying a home service company • The difference between buying a business and buying a job ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Catalyst https://www.ownedandoperated.com/catalyst ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Quick Staffers Hire trained HVAC and plumbing CSRs without the overhead of traditional hiring. Save $500 on your first placement with Quick Staffers: https://www.quickstaffers.com/ Profit & Grit Running a $3M–$15M home service business? Profit & Grit helps contractors improve cash flow, pricing, forecasting, and profitability with guidance from an operator who's built and sold a $25M service business. Book your free 20-minute strategy call: https://www.profitandgrit.com FieldPulse Ready to ditch the whiteboard and spreadsheets? See how FieldPulse helps home service companies simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more. Book a free demo: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operated Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAOStart HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.
August 20, 202631min