Unscripted Small Business

Luke Mickelson is a farm kid from Idaho who heard, in a church meeting, that a family in his town had children sleeping on a hardwood floor. He had never heard of child bedlessness. He built one bunk bed. Sleep in Heavenly Peace has since built roughly 400,000. Host Zaneta Chuniq Inpower gets the whole arc, starting with Haley.

Read the full recap: How I Built the World's Largest Bed-Building Charity From My Garage

Connect with Sleep in Heavenly Peace: shpbeds.org

Hosted by Zaneta Chuniq Inpower. More at Unscripted Small Business.

Cecily North ran Traveling North Agency as a hobby for three years before she started treating it like a business. The revenue changed almost immediately. Cecily joins Zaneta Chuniq Inpower to talk about what actually separates a side gig from a company - and why the answer had nothing to do with working harder.

She is a Certified Travel Advisor and a Verified Travel Advisor who is also, still, a special collections and local history librarian. She started the agency in 2014, after asking herself what she would do if money and time were no object. The answer was driving, road trips, and seeing places.

The full write-up is here: Cecily North on Building a Travel Agency, and Why AI Can't Replace a Human Agent.

Cecily also hosts Life Between Flights, a podcast for new travel agents covering the business side almost nobody covers - SEO, bookkeeping, client acquisition, websites. She is on Instagram as @lifebetweenflightspod.

More small business conversations at Unscripted Small Business. Hosted by Zaneta Chuniq Inpower.

The Philosophy of Renovation

Join host Jeremy Rivera for a deep dive into the world of residential construction with Alec and Josie Davis, the husband-and-wife team behind H&H Construction in Cookeville, Tennessee. This two-part conversation explores how they've built a thriving renovation business focused on relationship over transactions, creativity over cookie-cutter solutions, and preserving the beauty in old homes while bringing them into the modern age. 

Josie shares her unique perspective on what makes home renovations special: "You're taking something that's already there and already has flavor. It already has its own embodiment, and you are tweaking it, aesthetically smoothing it out, maybe changing some of the rhythms there in the space, but you're ultimately still keeping the foundation and the bones the same."

Discover why she believes the most beautiful spaces happen when you marry older charm with newer aesthetics.

"To me and Alec, there's no small job. Every job has an impact to the customer and to the family that's living in the home."

Learn how H&H Construction builds long-term client relationships by starting with small repairs—drywall holes, baseboard fixes—and growing trust over time into major kitchen remodels, bathroom transformations, and home additions.

"How you're wanting a space to feel should often dictate how you develop this space."

Josie reveals her signature question for every client: "What do you want it to feel like when you walk in?" This approach moves beyond standard kitchen triangles and bathroom layouts to create truly personalized spaces.

The Davis team offers honest consultation about when to invest in customization versus following market standards. "If you're planning to be there forever, then we really want to customize it to what you're wanting to feel."

Josie describes her love for wet rooms—bathrooms where the entire space becomes the shower with seamless tile work that's "almost like artwork." She also shares stories of renovating homes from the 1930s and 40s, preserving original hardwood floors and historic fireplaces while upgrading everything else.

Josie offers refreshingly honest advice: "Some houses, the way that they're structured, they're just perfect the way they are. Sometimes it's meant to be that way. And so adding onto that changes the feel of that home. I would say, 'Nah, friend, just go ahead and find a new place that you can grow into.'"

But when an addition IS right? "You get the right contractor and the right budget, and you can do just about anything."

Sometimes home exterior additions like concrete fences, landscaping or driveway replacement can be a better solve for improving home values for sale, when you don't plan on living in the home for the longterm vs renovation for your own living wants/needs.

"A sunroom is being outside and enjoying outside without being outside."

Alec and Josie explain the difference between sunrooms and covered patios, climate-controlled versus non-conditioned spaces, and how they've transformed decks, porches, and even sheds into beautiful year-round living areas.

"We're in Cookeville, Tennessee. There's a lot of mountain ranges. You can't have a patio without flat land."

Alec shares his passion for custom deck designs: "I love anything that's out of the norm, anything that's different." From multi-level decks to grand staircases, fire pits to octagonal designs, discover why decks are the perfect solution for Middle Tennessee's challenging terrain.

"Construction is a marriage of a certain form. You're gonna be spending a lot of time with those people."

Josie offers candid advice about choosing a contractor: "If you meet us and you don't want to go get coffee with us, then find a contractor that you really enjoy speaking with." Learn why relationship matters so much in construction projects that can take months.

Unlike large corporations with streamlined processes, H&H Construction dedicates time to getting to know each client personally. "We have more time, and we carve out more time to be very specific with the customer themselves."

Josie reveals she'll spend hours researching specific kitchen formats or design styles just for one client's unique vision.

"Alec and I want to talk. We want to pray over your family. We want to meet your children if you're willing. We want to encourage you in steps of life."

Discover how the Davis family integrates their faith and values into their business, teaching their children about craftsmanship while treating every client like family.

Alec Davis is a licensed Tennessee General Contractor (BC-A/r) and certified HVAC technician with over a decade of hands-on experience in residential construction. He founded H&H Construction in 2014, initially focusing on mobile home remodeling before transitioning to full-time residential renovations in 2020.

Alec specializes in transforming old structures into restored beauty, with expertise spanning framing, trim-out, custom deck construction, and complete home systems. He holds an Associate's degree in Business and is a graduate of the Nashville State Workforce and Community Development Program.

Construction runs in Alec's blood—passed down through generations—and today, he continues that legacy by teaching his two young children the value of hard work, integrity, and craftsmanship.

Josie brings the creative vision and design expertise to H&H Construction, spending hours researching specific formats and styles for each client's unique needs. Her design philosophy centers on how spaces feel rather than just function, asking every client: "What do you want it to feel like when you walk in?"

She handles client relations with a relationship-first approach, dedicating time to truly understand each family's goals, priorities, and vision for their home. Her commitment to personalization sets H&H apart from large corporations with standardized processes.

On Renovation:

"Renovations are really special because you're taking something that's already there and already has flavor. It already has its own embodiment, and you are tweaking it, aesthetically smoothing it out." — Josie Davis

On Every Job Mattering:

"To me and Alec, there's no small job. Every job has an impact to the customer and to the family that's living in the home." — Josie Davis

On Design Philosophy:

"How you're wanting a space to feel should often dictate how you develop this space." — Josie Davis

On Honest Consultation:

"Some houses, the way that they're structured, they're just perfect the way they are. Sometimes it's meant to be that way." — Josie Davis

On What's Possible:

"You get the right contractor and the right budget, and you can do just about anything." — Josie Davis

On Seamless Additions:

"In my opinion, a good addition never feels like an addition. It feels like you've successfully continued to walk through the house from start to finish." — Josie Davis

On Choosing a Contractor:

"Construction is a marriage of a certain form. You're gonna be spending a lot of time with those people." — Josie Davis

On Finding the Right Fit:

"If you meet us and you don't want to go get coffee with us, then find a contractor that you really enjoy speaking with." — Josie Davis

On Creating Vision:

"A lot of people don't have vision for space. We help create that vision for people who struggle with seeing their space and what it could be." — Alec Davis

On Custom Decks:

"I love anything that's out of the norm, anything that's different. We've done multi-level decks, decks with grand staircases, decks with fire pits within them, octagonal decks." — Alec Davis

On Core Values:

"At the core of our work is a simple principle: build well, work honestly, and treat every project as if it were our own home." — Alec Davis

On Client Relationships:

"Alec and I want to talk. We want to pray over your family. We want to meet your children if you're willing. We want to encourage you in steps of life." — Josie Davis

Website: handhcookevilleremodel.com

Phone: (931) 329-5754

Email: [email protected]

Address: 541 S Willow Ave Suite 101#528, Cookeville, TN 38506

Portfolio: View Their Work

Facebook: H&H Remodels

Service Area: Cookeville, Sparta, Smithville, McMinnville, and all of Middle Tennessee

Listen: unscriptedsmallbusiness.com Host: Jeremy Rivera Guest: Chad T. Jenkins, Founder of SeedSpark & The CoLAB

Chad T. Jenkins grew up on a small farm in South Carolina, started his first real estate deal at age 11, and spent 25 years building over 50 businesses across wireless phones, data centers, construction, HVAC, GPS leasing, and more. Then he stopped. Not because he failed — but because he found something better: engineered collaboration.

In this episode, Chad breaks down the framework he calls the VCR Formula (Vision + Capability × Reach = Success), explains why most entrepreneurs suffer from a WHO deficiency, and shares how his CoLAB community grew to 700+ collaborations in just 18 months — outpacing his entire 25-year history of starting companies.

Jeremy and Chad also dig into the real role of AI in entrepreneurship, how to structure collaboration outcome splits, and why "showing up at the receiving dock" is the ultimate growth strategy.

"A true entrepreneur is someone who relentlessly seeks leverage." — Chad T. Jenkins

"Stop trying to grow through effort. Start focusing on what you have, combining it with what others have, and ask one question: How do you want to split the outcome?" — Chad T. Jenkins

"The only thing cash does is pay for somebody's vision or buy somebody else's capability." — Chad T. Jenkins

"Always show up at the receiving dock, not the procurement office. Future money is always up for grabs." — Dean Jackson (via Chad T. Jenkins)

Chad T. Jenkins / SeedSpark

Strategic Coach / Dan Sullivan

Mentioned Companies / People

Host Jeremy Rivera

Chad T. Jenkins is the founder of SeedSpark, a Charlotte, NC-based organization known as a leverage partner for entrepreneurs worldwide. Over 25 years he started more than 50 businesses across industries ranging from wireless phones and GPS leasing to construction and real estate investment. In the past 18 months, he's pivoted entirely to building collaborations through his CoLAB community — which now represents 700+ businesses ranging from $2M to $35B in annual revenue.

He is the author of Friction Fuel and Just Add a Zero, and his new book The Code to Collaboration is available for preorder now on Amazon. He speaks globally at entrepreneur conferences and hosts twice-monthly CoLAB Kickstarter events.

Jeremy Rivera is an SEO consultant and entrepreneur with 19+ years of experience. He is the founder of SEO Arcade, a unique podcast-based content and link building service, and hosts the Unscripted Small Business Podcast — a series dedicated to authentic conversations with entrepreneurs, SEO professionals, and small business owners. Jeremy specializes in converting podcast interviews into comprehensive SEO content marketing strategies.

Subscribe to the Unscripted Small Business Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Feedback? Connect with Jeremy at jeremyriveraseo.com

Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, joins Jeremy Rivera to discuss why strategy must come before tactics in small business marketing. With 15 years at Duct Tape Marketing—starting as an intern and rising to CEO—Sara shares the agency's proven approach to building trust through transparency, education, and true partnership.

This conversation covers the evolution of SEO in the age of AI, why customer interviews are non-negotiable, how to structure content for both humans and LLMs, and why quarterly planning beats annual marketing plans in today's rapidly shifting landscape.

Sara Nay is the CEO of Duct Tape Marketing, where she has spent 15 years helping small businesses build effective marketing strategies. She recently authored Unchained: Breaking Free from Broken Marketing Models, offering a fresh perspective on escaping outdated marketing approaches that no longer serve today's businesses.

"A website should help people get to know, like, trust, and even be able to try your services and buy your services. Yes, it should look nice—that is important. But the content and the journey that you're guiding people on is what I would argue is the most important piece of the puzzle."

"Don't discount all the ways TN businesses can save costs on energy"

"We're not just creating marketing strategy for people anymore. We're creating marketing strategy for people AND AI."

"When people skip over leadership interviews and ideal client interviews, that's where they waste time, energy, and money on marketing in the long run."

"Gone are the days where you can just publish content and hope it shows up. You have to be very focused on what you're putting in the content, but also how you're structuring it."

"I believe you can't really plan for marketing further than three months at this time because it's changing, shifting, and evolving so much."

Jeremy Rivera is the founder of SEO Arcade and host of the Unscripted SEO Podcast, with 19 years of experience in SEO and digital marketing. He specializes in converting podcasts into comprehensive SEO content marketing strategies.

Jim Hauck spent fifteen years at Gap and a stretch at Salesforce before a restructuring eliminated his job. Instead of climbing back on the ladder he built JP Hauck Adventures. He tells host Zaneta Chuniq Inpower why cruise lines are selling into 2028, and what a full-service advisor does that a booking site cannot.

Read the full recap: Why I Left Corporate IT to Become a Travel Guardian Angel

Connect with Jim: jphauckadventures.com

Hosted by Zaneta Chuniq Inpower. More at Unscripted Small Business.

Tom Fox founded the Compliance Podcast Network and has been podcasting since 2010, which made him the first podcaster in his niche by a wide margin. His argument is that no other single medium delivers thought leadership, client development, audience engagement, sales collateral and marketing material all at once.

Tom's content-engine argument, applied: The Content Library No Competitor Can Copy and the Podcast SEO page on SEO Arcade.

Tom’s case for audio over video is not about production cost. It is about the listening context. Somebody has your voice in their ears while driving or walking, uninterrupted, for half an hour. Very little else in marketing gets that.

The result is a parasocial familiarity that arrives before any commercial conversation does, which changes what the first meeting is like.

That last one has become the commercially interesting item on the list, for obvious reasons.

Everything else a business publishes competes with an infinite supply of similar material. A recorded conversation between two practitioners does not, because it did not exist until the moment it was recorded.

For a professional services firm that is the whole argument. You cannot out-publish the internet, and you can be the only source of a particular conversation.

The tactic is simple enough to be uncomfortable. A cold email asking a senior person for a meeting is ignored. An invitation to be interviewed about their expertise is accepted at a rate that makes the rest of business development look inefficient.

It is not a trick, which is why it works. You are genuinely offering them something, and the relationship starts on the correct footing.

His best example is an upsell that happened live on a customer interview, entirely because nobody in the conversation was trying to sell anything.

Two episodes a month, for a small business, and he is firm about the direction of travel. Publishing four and then dropping to two is visible and reads as decline, whereas going from two to four reads as success.

Set the cadence at the level you can hold in a bad quarter, not the level you can hold in a good one.

His daily news show went from a hundred and ten thousand downloads to two hundred and fifty thousand in two months, which he attributes to consistency and format discipline rather than promotion.

The longer written version of this argument is in the full recap.

Every link above goes somewhere different. These are the ones not already mentioned above.

The Compliance Podcast Network is where all of his shows live. Hosted by Jeremy Rivera.

Fox, Tom. Interviewed by Jeremy Rivera. “Podcasting as the Most Powerful Content Engine in SEO.” Unscripted Small Business, 2026. https://unscripted-small-business.castos.com/episodes/tom-fox-podcasting-as-the-most-powerful-content-engine-in-seo

Rich Potter represents more than 500 franchise concepts across 37 industries, and he got there the expensive way. He bought a Snap Fitness gym in 2019 without a broker, found it did not fit his life, and sold it inside nine months. Host Zaneta Chuniq Inpower gets the myths, the math, and the personality test.

Rich once owned a Snap Fitness gym. Jeremy's own fitness project is The Body Arcade, a weigh-twice-a-day method and a $1 app, and the two of them should compare notes on who actually shows up.

Read the full recap: How I Bought the Wrong Franchise So You Don't Have To

Connect with Rich: franchiseheroes.co

Hosted by Zaneta Chuniq Inpower. More at Unscripted Small Business.

Rachel Eisaman has run Joli Residential, an Atlanta concierge move management company, for almost seventeen years. About sixty per cent of the work year on year comes from repeat clients and referrals. The most interesting thing in this episode is her pricing stance, which is deliberately the opposite of her industry’s.

It’s not the furniture that’s the hard part in a move, right? I mean, that wraps up, gets on a truck and comes off all in the same day. It’s the 300 plus hours you spend packing boxes, right?

The whole business follows from that sentence. The visible, priced, comparable part of moving is the one day everyone focuses on. The expensive part is the months either side, and it is invisible until you are inside it.

Move management sells the invisible part, which is why explaining the service is most of the sale.

Her team is staffed with professional organisers and interior designers rather than moving crew. That is a deliberate skills choice, because the work is decisions rather than lifting.

The furniture floor plan is the clearest example. Deciding where things go belongs weeks before the move, not while two people stand holding a sofa in a doorway. Getting that conversation into the right week removes most of the chaos of the day.

The structural trick is that she converts a consumer transaction into a business one. The painter, the landscaper and the movers all coordinate with her team, who do this every week, rather than with a homeowner who does it twice in a lifetime and is currently exhausted.

Everyone involved performs better, because the person on the other end of the phone knows what they are asking for.

I actually quote high and I do that with intention.

She is reacting to a specific predatory practice. A low estimate wins the job, then the price rises once your possessions are physically on somebody else’s vehicle and you have no leverage at all.

Quoting high loses her work at the enquiry stage and never produces that conversation. It is a deliberate trade of conversion rate for trust, made by someone whose business runs on repeat clients.

Electricians, plumbers and moving companies get interviewed long before she has a job for them. That way the choice is made calmly rather than under a deadline, and the relationship exists before it is needed.

It is the same principle as the floor plan. Move the decision to a week where you can think.

I think the thing that’s been best for us is really doing good work and having our clients want to refer us. But that’s not a marketing strategy. So let’s talk again in three more years and see if I have a better answer.

Refreshing, and correct. She has burned money on paid search and on local magazine placements, and January and February are quiet regardless. Referrals have carried the business and she is clear-eyed that this is not the same as having a plan.

Every link above goes somewhere different. These are the ones not already mentioned above.

Joli Residential is at joliresidential.com, on Instagram as Joli Residential, and Rachel is on LinkedIn.

Eisaman, Rachel. Interviewed by Jeremy Rivera. “It’s Not the Furniture.” Unscripted Small Business, 2025. https://unscripted-small-business.castos.com/episodes/rachel-eisaman-its-not-the-furniture-what-a-move-actually-costs-you

Gil Vaisman edited reality TV for a living, built his own accessory dwelling unit with his wife in 2017 as an owner-builder, and turned the scar tissue into GoADU. He talks with host Zaneta Chuniq Inpower about the real napkin math on an ADU, the passive-income myth, and why his actual goal is to make himself unnecessary.

Read the full recap: How I Turned My First DIY ADU Into a Full-Time Construction Business

Connect with Gil: goadu.com

Hosted by Zaneta Chuniq Inpower. More at Unscripted Small Business.