All Episodes

I spent a full day at the table with Jayni Fontaine and her daughter Danielle before we ever turned on a microphone. Danielle had the spreadsheets out. She knew every number by heart. Somewhere on that day, I stopped seeing a mother and daughter and started seeing two halves of one very good operator. Jayni …

Chris Yano sold his company to scale it.  A year later, he was on the bench, watching strangers run it. He built RYNO on one rule.  Reputation over revenue.  He said it so often it became a mantra. He listened to inbound calls himself to make sure the leads were real. He refused to tell …

If you sent two of your techs to the same house, same system, same problem, would the customer get the same experience? Would the average ticket land anywhere close to the same? For most companies, the honest answer is no. And that one word is costing you more than anything else in your business. Picture …

“Family-owned and operated since 1987. Our award-winning technicians provide expert service with a smile. Call now for your free estimate.” I read that ad to Charlie and Roy at the top of this episode. Roy said, “That’s fair and friendly service.” Charlie added, “Open Sunday. Plenty of free parking.” We’ve all heard it a thousand …

You’re at $5 million. The phones ring. The trucks roll. The revenue’s there.  But somehow you keep hitting the same wall. You break through for a quarter, then fall right back. You blame the market. You blame your people. You blame the economy. It’s none of those. It’s you. Your company cannot outgrow your capacity …

Researchers took 20 seconds of footage of a cow eating grass in a field. Not a beautiful cow. Not a dramatic scene. Just a cow chewing. Then they tested it against thousands of real ads from real companies that spent real money. The cow beat half of them. I sat with that for a while …

A tech showed up at Matt Posda’s house and gave him the worst service experience of his life. Matt came from finance. He didn’t know anything about the trades. But he knew what bad looked like. And it made him angry enough to go buy a business. That was January 2017. The company was 98% …

Two years in, the phone’s ringing, and the owner calls me and says: I’m bored with this ad. I think we need something new. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re about to kill the thing that’s working. Roy opened this episode at the top of a tower. At the Wizard Academy in Austin, there’s a sword …

Alan asked a room full of managers one question. What’s the biggest obstacle to hitting your numbers this year? Ten out of ten said the same thing. Recruiting. Then he asked a second question. How many minutes per week are you spending on it? They tallied it up. Less than 1% of their time. On …

Here’s what I see all the time. An owner hires a great ad writer. The radio spots are beautiful. Then a digital agency comes in and runs Facebook ads that sound like a completely different company. A PPC team bids on keywords the brand would never touch.  Everybody reports their own metrics. Everybody claims victory. …

I asked Paul a simple question before we started recording. What was it like growing up while your dad built a $150 million company? I was expecting the answer I usually hear. Dad worked all the time. Dad was stressed. Dad came home and didn’t want to talk. I’ve heard that story a hundred times …

I want you to do something the next time you talk to your marketing team/company.  Ask them one question. Can you separate my branded search results from my unbranded search results? If they hesitate, you have your answer. Here’s why that matters. In this episode, Jake Williams pulled apart the data from a real company …