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

------------------------

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/

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=tsc227

------------------------

Two years ago he drove home from Oregon broke, unpaid for seven weeks of work. Last year he sold and installed $1,011,000 in electrical — out of one van.

Mike Howie is a service technician at Travis Electrical Service in Clarksville, Tennessee. He does the selling and splits the installs 50-50. He did $612,000 one year and $1,011,000 the next — two years into residential service, in a middle-America market.

He had about ten years in electrical first: an industrial apprenticeship, then a service shop that, in his words, “threw you out in the wind.” A three-week job became seven unpaid weeks in Texas and Oregon. He nearly lost the house, his wife’s car was impounded, and he lost his mom in the middle of it. He found Travis on Indeed, emailed the owner’s wife from Oregon, and she kept telling him one thing: “Just get home.” Then six months of ride-alongs and CertainPath training before anyone handed him a van.

What changed between $612,000 and $1,011,000 was operational as much as personal. Travis added installers halfway through the year, anything over $1,000 started handing off, and Mike got into more houses. The rest of this conversation with host Bob Houchin is his entire service call, line by line.

In this conversation, you’ll discover:

• Why adding an install team took him from $612,000 to $1,011,000

• The six-month onboarding most owners skip — and what that patience actually bought

• Why he never finishes the troubleshoot, and the one question he asks instead

• The chain-link analogy that makes a backstabbed outlet obvious to a homeowner

• How he positions financing before the sticker shock lands

• “First person that talks loses” — and the fifteen minutes he sat in total silence

Whether you run an electrical, HVAC, plumbing, or roofing company, Mike’s process shows how one well-trained technician turns ordinary service calls into a million dollars 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/

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=tsc226

He was a corporate consultant. She had an MBA. Neither had roofed a day in their lives — then they bought a roofing company and doubled it.

Tim Wilde and his wife Sasha bought Sexton Roofing & Siding in Western Massachusetts in 2023 — a 40-year-old brand the previous owner ran solo at about $2 million a year, working 16-hour days, seven days a week. Neither of them had ever roofed: Tim came out of corporate pharmaceutical-construction consulting, and Sasha has an MBA and always wanted to run a business. When a corporate takeover pushed Tim out, and a friend showed them you could simply buy a business, they did.

The first year nearly broke them. They priced with “a finger in the air,” had no idea what a good margin was, and kept winning on low bids. Then they found CertainPath — Tim signed up at a Profit Day on the spot — and the turnaround began: fixing their pricing first, then rebuilding sales around an in-home, one-call-close process.

Two years in, they’ve doubled the business past $4 million, they’re targeting $6.5 million, and Tim personally sold $2 million to become a CertainPath roofing crown champion. And it’s 100% woman-owned — Sasha owns it outright, and Tim jokes he’s “just cheap labor.”

In this conversation, you’ll discover:

• How two people with zero trade experience bought a 40-year-old roofing company off a broker
• Why the acquisition was tougher than they expected — and what they’d do differently
• The “finger in the air” pricing mistake CertainPath fixed first
• How moving to an in-home presentation unlocked one-call closes
• Why being the most thorough person at the door — the one who actually goes in the attic — wins the job
• The CertainPath training moment that took Tim from “doing sales completely wrong” to a crown champion
• How they think about growth: taking “a smaller piece of a larger pie”

Whether you run a roofing, HVAC, plumbing, or electrical company, Tim and Sasha’s story shows how to buy a business, raise your prices, and build a sales process that actually closes.

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=tsc224

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This father-and-son electric shop was doing $600K with almost no profit. Three years later: $1.6 million. The difference wasn’t luck — it was how they sell.

Erwin Carrasquillo taught himself the electrical trade after coming to the United States — before he could even speak English. He and his son Owen built Jeoah Electric in Slatington, Pennsylvania on grit: borrowed crews, work that never turned into money in the bank, and a $15,000 payroll due against $200 in the account. The turning point came in a Home Depot aisle, when Owen asked a more successful electrician one question — "what are you doing that I’m not?"

That question led them to a sales process they now run on every call. In this conversation, Erwin and Owen walk host Bob Houchin through it step by step — selling the diagnostic first, asking questions instead of pitching, building three options instead of ultimatums, and reframing price as safety. It’s the system that took them from $600,000 to $1.6 million in three years, both earning Crown Champion honors.

They’re just as candid about the hard parts — the night Owen broke down finding his ’why,’ the leap of faith that put the whole thing on a credit card, and the faith and family culture that held it all together.

In this conversation, you'll discover:

• The questions that get customers to sell themselves
• Why you sell the diagnostic before you touch the panel
• How to present three options without giving ultimatums
• The "medicine analogy" that makes safety urgent
• How to handle "I need to think about it" in a single move
• Reframing price as monthly safety, not cost
• The mindset shift that turned survival into $1.6M

Whether you’re an electrician, a plumber, or an HVAC owner trying to get off the truck, Erwin and Owen’s process shows how a small shop can sell with confidence and character.

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.

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

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

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

#electrician #electricalcontractor #salestraining #homeservices #certainpath #skilledtrades #contractorbusiness #fatherandson

Book a free strategy call with CertainPath to see how we can help you hit your goals and beyond: https://bit.ly/4b0wLaZ

Or call us at: (214) 453-1591

He broke his back chasing pro baseball, spent 22 years in ministry, then helped build a $105M, $18M-EBITDA contractor. This is Bubba Thurman's story.

Bubba Thurman is the president of Baker Brothers Plumbing, Air & Electric in Dallas–Fort Worth — the first non-family president in the company's history, dating back to its founding in 1945. Last year, Baker Brothers did $105 million in revenue and exceeded $18 million in EBITDA — a level of profitability most home services companies only dream about.

His path was anything but linear. A Division-I baseball catcher who was certain he'd go pro, Bubba broke his back in a 1991 on-field collision and watched the dream die. “Baseball was a false well,” he says. He spent the next 22 years in ministry — helping build the largest youth ministry in the country and learning leadership under his mentor, Steve Stroop — before burning out and making an improbable leap into the trades.

Recruited by Jimmie Dale to Baker Brothers, Bubba earned the team's trust the hard way: “I ran calls, I dug trenches, I wore a uniform.” Then he drove the culture transformation that helped take Baker Brothers from roughly $20 million to more than $100 million.

In this episode, Bubba walks Bob Houchin through the whole journey — and the playbook beneath it.

In this conversation, you'll discover:

• Why culture is “just a set of norms” — and how to make excellence the normal
• The $0 cleanliness campaign that started the turnaround: “don't step over a piece of trash”
• How to layer standards one at a time so they actually stick
• The three-win strategy that aligns the customer, the employee, and the company
• What changes when leadership “lands on your desk” — the real weight of the top job
• His message for a tough market: stop chasing what you can't control — “you are your best marketer”
• “You earn equity when you do things above and beyond” — and the Miss Johnson light-bulb test
• Why “when you roll up, the clock starts” — and how micro-changes compound across 700 jobs a day

Whether you lead an HVAC, plumbing, electrical, or roofing company — or you're building toward your first leadership seat — Bubba's story is a masterclass in building a culture of excellence that scales.

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. Visit www.mycertainpath.com for more information.