Book a free strategy call to see how we can help you hit your goals and beyond: https://bit.ly/4b0wLaZ or call us at: (214)-453-1591

Get Predictable Calls From Proven Direct Mail Campaigns. Learn more about CertainPath's Lead Generation Direct Mail programs — for members AND non-members. Click here for a FREE Market Analysis: https://mycertainpath.com/lead-generation-request/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=tsc230

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He lays out three options, then he stops talking. Sometimes for two full minutes.

Ray Kinder is the senior technician at Perfect Star Heating, Cooling and Electrical in Antioch, California. Last year he did $2.4 million in sales and service. He is not a salesman by training. He came out of union drywall, got his GED, and promised himself he would be in a profession by 25. At 25 his brother-in-law Chris, who owns Perfect Star, put him on a duct crew, where he stayed a year before he ever touched an air conditioner. Fourteen years later he trains the team, and here he walks Bob Houchin through his entire call.

He makes a friend on the walk up, because people buy from people they like. He asks permission before he shares a single finding. He never asks about budget, because the people you least expect are often the ones who want the platinum package.

Then he presents, top down, and goes quiet. He plays with his wedding ring and looks down, the way Chris used to do it with his glasses, and waits out a silence that can feel like an hour. Most of the time it ends with the homeowner wanting to move today.

When the price lands hard, Ray agrees with them. It is a lot of money, and in 14 years it has never gotten cheaper, so today is the best price they will see. Then he walks the equipment again until they say the condition out loud themselves, because when it is the client's idea, it is the best idea.

In this conversation, you'll discover:

• The permission question that turns a tune-up into a sales conversation

• Why he refuses to guess what a homeowner can afford

• The word he will not say out loud, and what he calls it instead

• The product he did not believe in until his son was born

• The advice he would give himself ten years ago, in one sentence

Whether you run a plumbing, HVAC, electrical, or roofing company, this is an hour with a technician who can explain exactly how he sells.

Watch on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to subscribe to The Successful Contractor for more interviews that move the needle.

About the Show

The Successful Contractor is a podcast for residential HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing contractors. Hosted by Bob Houchin, each episode features real contractor growth stories, hard-won business insights, and practical takeaways for building a profitable home services company.

Meet the Host

Bob Houchin has spent 20+ years immersed in the home services industry — listening to, learning from, and serving the people who run it. As host of The Successful Contractor, he's interviewed hundreds of the brightest minds in the trades. Beyond the mic, Bob is a Senior Strategist at CertainPath, building the training, onboarding programs, keynotes, and playbooks used by 1,200+ residential service companies. His motto: smart contractors learn from their mistakes; wise contractors learn from the mistakes of others.

About CertainPath

CertainPath is a business coaching and training organization that has built successful home service businesses for more than 25 years. We serve 1,200+ member companies across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing with professional coaching, training for every role, software solutions, and a vendor partner network that delivers millions in member rebates every year. Doubling your sales with a 20% net profit and an inspiring company culture is ALL possible. With CertainPath, Success is Made Certain.

Connect

CertainPath: https://www.mycertainpath.com

Book a free strategy call to see how we can help you hit your goals and beyond: https://bit.ly/4b0wLaZ or call us at: (214)-453-1591

Get Predictable Calls From Proven Direct Mail Campaigns. Learn more about CertainPath's Lead Generation Direct Mail programs — for members AND non-members. Click here for a FREE Market Analysis: https://mycertainpath.com/lead-generation-request/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=tsc229

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Google is deleting the Local Service Ads dashboard. Your leads move to Google Ads. Your performance history does not come with them.

Chris Vance is the Executive Marketing Coach at CertainPath, seven years into building marketing plans for member companies across all four trades. In May a partner took him to Google's Austin headquarters to hear from the people who run its paid ads division, and what they said there explains everything since. Customer behavior changed in response to AI, so Google changed with it. Brand is the new keyword. And the silos between Local Service Ads, Google Ads and YouTube are coming down.

On August 17 they lit the match. Local Service Ads are being pulled into Google Ads as a Performance Max product over the rest of the year. The weekly budget becomes a daily budget, and if you type your weekly number into the daily box you spend 650 a day instead of 650 a week. When demand spikes, Performance Max can run two times your daily average in a single day. The algorithm chases volume, not value, so one campaign will buy every cheap lead it finds and starve your install work.

Before it happens, download your performance history. The leads transfer over. Your spend levels and lead rates do not. From there Chris walks Bob Houchin through everything else that moved.

In this conversation, you'll discover:

• Why the BBB badge lost its weight overnight, and the six call-outs that took its place

• How AI Max builds an ad out of whatever is sitting on your website

• What Chris calls the sea of generic, and how boilerplate copy puts you in it

• Why Yelp suddenly matters again, and why you should not start sending review requests there

• The recency bias that makes 5,000 old reviews largely irrelevant

• How to turn one four-minute phone video into a dozen pieces of content

• The one-page brand brief that stops AI writing like AI

Whether you run a plumbing, HVAC, electrical, or roofing company, this is the clearest hour on what changed in search this year and what to do.

Watch on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to subscribe to The Successful Contractor for more interviews that move the needle.

About the Show

The Successful Contractor is a podcast for residential HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing contractors. Hosted by Bob Houchin, each episode features real contractor growth stories, hard-won business insights, and practical takeaways for building a profitable home services company.

Meet the Host

Bob Houchin has spent 20+ years immersed in the home services industry — listening to, learning from, and serving the people who run it. As host of The Successful Contractor, he's interviewed hundreds of the brightest minds in the trades. Beyond the mic, Bob is a Senior Strategist at CertainPath, building the training, onboarding programs, keynotes, and playbooks used by 1,200+ residential service companies. His motto: smart contractors learn from their mistakes; wise contractors learn from the mistakes of others.

About CertainPath

CertainPath is a business coaching and training organization that has built successful home service businesses for more than 25 years. We serve 1,200+ member companies across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing with professional coaching, training for every role, software solutions, and a vendor partner network that delivers millions in member rebates every year. Doubling your sales with a 20% net profit and an inspiring company culture is ALL possible. With CertainPath, Success is Made Certain.

Connect

CertainPath: https://www.mycertainpath.com

FOLLOW CERTAINPATH:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CertainPath

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/certainpath

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/certainpath/

Book a free strategy call to see how we can help you hit your goals and beyond: https://bit.ly/4b0wLaZ or call us at: (214)-453-1591

Get Predictable Calls From Proven Direct Mail Campaigns. Learn more about CertainPath's Lead Generation Direct Mail programs — for members AND non-members. Click here for a FREE Market Analysis: https://mycertainpath.com/lead-generation-request/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=tsc228

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Three years ago he could not start a conversation with a stranger. Last year he sold and installed $703,000 in plumbing — as a technician, in Amarillo.

Zachery Kongsy is a service technician at Frank's Plumbing in Amarillo, Texas. He sold and installed $703,000 last year, his second straight year past the CertainPath plumbing Crown Champion threshold — in his third year holding a license.

He spent nine years in restaurants first: Subway, Burger King, Texas Roadhouse. His stepdad has been at Frank's for 32 years and all three of his brothers worked there too. One shift at Roadhouse, two of them showed him their checks. "I was like, I can do that." He applied, got hired the same day, and started as an apprentice the next morning — riding with a seven-time Crown Champion, taking notes from the back of the room. The part he volunteers without being asked is the part most technicians hide: "Before I got this job I was very shy. Would not talk to anybody. Couldn't even start a conversation."

What changed was method, not personality. He still gives himself pep talks driving to the house. The rest of this conversation with host Bob Houchin is his entire service call, start to finish.

In this conversation, you'll discover:

• Why he is in the gym at five and through the call histories before the trucks roll

• What he reads on the front of a house before he ever knocks on the door

• Why he never diagnoses alone — and the four words that explain it

• How he builds three options out of sight, then reveals the membership savings last

• The line he uses when a $300 repair turns out not to be $300

• Why he gets a shovel in the ground the same night, even at eight o'clock

• The review ask at the door that lands nine times out of ten

Whether you run a plumbing, HVAC, electrical, or roofing company, Zachery's process shows how a shy third-year technician turns ordinary service calls into $703,000 a year.

Watch on YouTube or listen on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to subscribe to The Successful Contractor for more interviews that move the needle.

About the Show

The Successful Contractor is a podcast for residential HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing contractors. Hosted by Bob Houchin, each episode features real contractor growth stories, hard-won business insights, and practical takeaways for building a profitable home services company.

Meet the Host

Bob Houchin has spent 20+ years immersed in the home services industry — listening to, learning from, and serving the people who run it. As host of The Successful Contractor, he's interviewed hundreds of the brightest minds in the trades. Beyond the mic, Bob is a Senior Strategist at CertainPath, building the training, onboarding programs, keynotes, and playbooks used by 1,200+ residential service companies. His motto: smart contractors learn from their mistakes; wise contractors learn from the mistakes of others.

About CertainPath

CertainPath is a business coaching and training organization that has built successful home service businesses for more than 25 years. We serve 1,200+ member companies across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing with professional coaching, training for every role, software solutions, and a vendor partner network that delivers millions in member rebates every year. Doubling your sales with a 20% net profit and an inspiring company culture is ALL possible. With CertainPath, Success is Made Certain.

Connect

CertainPath: https://www.mycertainpath.com

FOLLOW CERTAINPATH:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CertainPath

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/certainpath

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/certainpath/