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More revenue does not always mean more cash or fewer problems.
In this episode, I sit down with Ismael Valdez, founder and CEO of Nuve and former founder of NexGen Air Conditioning. Ismael helped grow NexGen from zero to more than $100 million, but at around $32 million in revenue, he was still dealing with cash flow pressure, vendor calls, and concerns about payroll.
We talk about what pushed him to better understand the P&L, balance sheet, gross margin, labor, and other key financial metrics. Ismael also shares how an owner’s role needs to change as a home service company grows, when to bring in stronger leadership, and what to understand before considering private equity.
We also get into customer retention, why he created Nuve, and why strong numbers and strong people both matter as you scale.
My biggest takeaway is that every owner eventually reaches a ceiling. Breaking through it means knowing what the business needs next and being willing to change with it.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
More From Profit & Grit
Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:
http://profitandgrit.com
Learn more at profitandgrit.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
Brennan Bleile started Suck It Up Furnace Cleaning during one of the hardest seasons of his life, eventually growing the company from one truck to six while building a strong reputation in his local market.
In this episode of Profit & Grit, I talk with Brennan about growing the business through word of mouth, memorable branding, repeat customers, and a customer experience that has helped the company earn more than 2,000 reviews.
We also get into delegation, hiring, managing margins, handling unhappy customers, and Brennan’s perspective on growing a company without losing sight of family and the life he wants outside the business.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
More From Profit & Grit
Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:
http://profitandgrit.com
Learn more at profitandgrit.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
A lot of home service businesses think they need more leads when the bigger opportunity may be converting more of the ones they already have.
In this episode, I sit down with Josh Crouch, founder of Relentless Digital, co-host of Service Business Mastery, and co-founder of PhoneTap. We talk about one of the biggest revenue leaks in the trades: what happens after the phone rings.
Josh explains why booking rates are often lower than owners think and how missed calls, pricing objections, and weak follow-up can cost companies significant revenue. We also break down how small improvements in booking rate, technician conversion, and average ticket can create meaningful growth without increasing marketing spend.
We also cover Google and AI, choosing the right marketing channels and agency, and how AI call analysis can help uncover lost revenue opportunities.
The big takeaway is simple: growth is not always about getting more leads. Sometimes it starts with getting more from the opportunities already inside your business.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
More From Profit & Grit
Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:
http://profitandgrit.com
Learn more at profitandgrit.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
Going from a $130,000 one-man operation to a nearly $12 million company takes more than just selling more jobs.
In this episode of Profit & Grit, I talk with Carmen Reino, owner of Anchor Pest Control, about leaving a Wall Street IT career to buy a one-man pest control company and building it into a 65-person operation on pace for around $12 million in revenue.
Carmen shares how his willingness to take risks shaped the company, why moving toward more residential revenue improved margins and cash flow, and what he learned when top-line growth started outpacing bottom-line profitability. We also get into building a leadership team, using EOS and measurable accountability, and creating a simple dashboard that gives him a daily pulse on the business.
For trades owners and home service company owners, this conversation is a practical look at what has to change as a company grows, from hiring the right leaders and protecting margins to stepping away from day-to-day problems and using technology to make better decisions.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
More From Profit & Grit
Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:
http://profitandgrit.com
Learn more at profitandgrit.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
Josh Kelly has spent years building, operating, and advising home service companies, helping multiple businesses reach nine figures while learning what it takes to scale beyond the point where everything depends on the owner.
In this episode of Profit & Grit, I talk with Josh about his path from struggling to make payroll to owning HVAC, plumbing, and electrical businesses across the country that are on pace to generate around $150 million this year.
Josh also shares why many home service companies get stuck around the $8 million to $10 million range, why developing strong middle managers is so important, and why he focuses on consistent momentum instead of chasing massive long-term revenue goals.
For HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and multi-trade owners, this conversation covers leadership development, pricing, sales systems, vendor negotiations, daily reporting, profitability, and how AI and automation are changing the way owners can monitor and manage their businesses.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
More From Profit & Grit
Book your complimentary Financial Insight Session with Tyler Martin, fractional CFO for home services and the trades, here:
http://profitandgrit.com
Learn more at profitandgrit.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
A growing trades business can still feel chaotic when too much depends on the owner. Al Levi knows that firsthand after helping grow his family’s plumbing, HVAC, and electrical company to more than 70 employees and roughly $17 million in revenue.
In this episode, Al Levi joins me to share what he learned as a third-generation trades business owner, author of The 7-Power Contractor, and longtime industry consultant. We talk about how stronger systems, technician training, career paths, and leadership development helped build a company that could operate without constant owner involvement.
We also discuss Al’s Top Five approach to priorities, why practical playbooks go beyond basic SOPs, and why developing technicians and leaders from within can create a stronger company. We get into private equity, acquisitions, ethical sales, org charts, training, and what it takes to build a home service business that can keep growing without everything depending on the owner.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
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 profitandgrit.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 in the trades has never been just about booking more calls for Keith Flores. It is about understanding the numbers, earning customer trust, building the right team, and creating a company people remember long after the service visit.
In this episode of Profit & Grit, I sit down with Keith Flores, CEO of HVAC God, HG Home Services, and Home Guardian. Keith shares what he learned from growing quickly before fully understanding the P&L, walking away from a business partnership that went wrong, and building a highly local HVAC company that operates within roughly a five-mile service area.
After more than 35 years in the industry, Keith has worked nearly every side of the business. He started in crawl spaces at 12 years old, built an HVAC company from zero to $4.5 million in its first year, helped other companies improve their sales and operations, worked with private equity groups, and eventually developed a sharper perspective on growth, profitability, hiring, branding, and customer retention.
We also discuss why Keith believes branding matters more than weather, how professionalism shapes customer trust, why he prefers developing younger technicians, how private equity is changing the trades, and why customer retention may be one of the biggest opportunities home service companies are overlooking.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
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 profitandgrit.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
Bob Beall has spent about 40 years in plumbing, building companies, selling businesses, surviving difficult growth periods, and learning what it takes to move from working in the trade to leading a larger operation.
In this episode of Profit & Grit, Tyler Martin talks with Bob about his path from learning plumbing with a visual impairment to building and selling BNC Plumbing, starting over with Mr. Rooter, and eventually growing across multiple territories with roughly 40 trucks.
Bob also shares some of the harder lessons behind that growth, including what happened when he added equipment and employees too quickly, why he now believes strongly in pricing for profit, and why knowing your numbers becomes even more important as the company gets bigger.
For plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and multi-trade owners, this conversation covers growth, profitability, technician training, marketing, financial management, family business, customer service, and the numbers Bob watches to keep the operation moving in the right direction.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
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
Building a multi-trade company is difficult enough when experienced technicians are available. Austin Blanchard and his business partner took a different route by building much of their talent from the ground up.
In this episode of Profit & Grit, Tyler Martin talks with Austin Blanchard, co-owner of Dynamech, about growing an HVAC, plumbing, and electrical company toward $5 million in revenue through organic growth without outside investors, loans, or acquisitions.
Austin shares why Dynamech hires for character before technical experience, how they train employees across multiple trades, and why clear roles between service and project execution have become increasingly important as the company grows.
For trades owners and home service company owners, this conversation offers a practical look at hiring, technician development, business partnerships, performance tracking, margins, systems, and building a company around the strengths of the people already inside it.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
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
Growing a trades business from one truck into a multi-million-dollar company can look impressive from the outside. But as Ashley Stroud explains, each new stage of growth brings a different set of problems to solve, from leadership and recruiting to marketing costs, margins, and the systems needed to support a larger team.
In this episode of Profit & Grit, Tyler sits down with Ashley Stroud, co-owner of Plumbing Outfitters in the Austin, Texas area. Ashley shares how she went from working in a level one trauma center to helping build a plumbing company with 27 team members and roughly $6 million in revenue.
They also talk about the revenue ceilings Plumbing Outfitters has faced along the way, why growth has not been linear, what losing three high-performing plumbers taught the company, how Ashley thinks about gross profit and marketing spend, and why stronger infrastructure becomes more important as a shop gets bigger.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
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
From the publisher's feed
Profit and Grit is the no-BS weekly podcast for home service business owners and blue collar entrepreneurs. Each episode features real strategies from successful contractors and industry experts in…