Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors

Effective Social Media Strategies for Service Contractors and Brand Promotion with Alexander Donev

Maximizing Your Brand's Online Presence: Tips for Contractors and Small Business Owners with Alexander Donev

In this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors, we dive into the power of professional online presence and effective marketing strategies with Alexander Donev of Firemind Studios. Alex, a creative marketing expert with years of experience, has helped contractors and service businesses transform their brands, boost their customer engagement, and drive impressive business growth. Our guest shares his success story of working with a local painting company to increase their online lea...

Scaling Your Painting Business using Proven Strategies with Mike Gore Hickman

In this episode of Rocket Your Business For Trade Contractors, we explore the essential strategies that help contractors grow their businesses with Mike Gore Hickman. Our guest shares his journey from running a successful painting company to building a business that helps contractors streamline their operations, improve their sales processes, and generate consistent leads. He discusses the importance of building strong business fundamentals before diving into marketing, and how understanding the...

Tech and Team Coordination with Company Cam Owner Luke Hansen

In this episode of Rocket Your Business For Trade Contractors, we're thrilled to welcome Luke Hansen, the founder of CompanyCam, joins us to discuss the intersection of technology and team communication, focusing on the role of AI in simplifying workflows for contractors. Luke shares insights on the exciting AI developments happening at CompanyCam, including how voice interaction and visual documentation are reshaping how field teams operate. We explore the challenges of tech integration, the fu...

Improve Company Culture through Performance Pay With David Franco

In this episode of Rocket Your Business For Trade Contractors, we're thrilled to welcome David, the founder of Protiv, a software company revolutionizing the construction industry. David shares his journey from contractor to tech entrepreneur, developing a platform that helps contractors incentivize their hourly workers to increase productivity while maintaining high-quality standards. Learn how Protiv’s boosts profits by aligning team performance with financial rewards, creating a win-win envir...

How HMI's Innovation Elevates the Concrete Lifting Industry with Will Sublette

In this episode of Rocket Your Business For Trade Contractors, we welcome Will Sublett, a geoengineer at HMI, a company specializing in concrete lifting and ground improvement. Celebrating 50 years in business, HMI is renowned for its commitment to customer education and long-term support. The conversation highlights HMI's dedication to advancing technologies, including new polyurethane products for ground stabilization and innovative concrete lifting techniques. Will shares insights into his ro...

Why "Guessing" How Much to Charge Never Works with Brandon Lewis

In this episode of Rocket Your Business For Trade Contractors, we welcome Brandon Lewis, founder of the Academy for Professional Painters and Contractors and publisher of Painters Weekly, to discuss the vital importance of production rates, charge rates, and pricing. Gain insights from Brandon's extensive experience in coaching service contractors to success. Whether you’re a solopreneur or leading a large team, this podcast offers valuable strategies to improve your business efficiency and prof...

Mastering Your Schedule at Peak Times with Jason Paris

In this episode of Rocket Your Business For Trade Contractors, join us as we explore the entrepreneurial journey with Jason Paris, the brain behind Paris Painting and Partnership Developer at Aleph Holdings. Delving into the crucial aspects of growing a painting business, Jason shares invaluable insights on profit reinvestment, strategic decision-making for business expansion, schedule management during peak seasons, and the power of strategic partnerships. This conversation is packed with actio...

All About the Numbers that Matter with Daniel Honan

Our apologies, this was a duplicate upload. Check out our latest episode with Jason Paris. On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors we are joined by Daniel Honan of Bookkeeping For Painters about being prepared for the taxman, managing overhead, pricing, pricing, pricing and finally profitability. Learn how not to get surprised by the taxman and rock solid advice on Pricing for profits. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/ccosJ0zhazo

Adding Services to Your Company with Will Reyes

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors we are joined by Will Reyes of Battleborn Painting to talk about adding services to your company's repertoire of offerings. Learning what services will be profitable and aligned with your core skills is essential when considering adding something new on the menu for your customers. Will discusses how he added roofing coatings, gutters, and other services to his painting company, and he shares lessons he learned along the way to save y...

Getting Your Marketing Back on Track with Brandon Pierpont

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors we are joined by Brandon Pierpont of Painter Marketing Pros to talk about how trades businesses often go off track in their marketing, spending large amounts of money but getting very little in return. Brandon discusses simple steps businesses can take to get marketing back on track and pointed in the right direction. There is no easy button in marketing, but there are processes that can help ensure you're not spending your budget on ...

Training as an Investment with Fred Kulik

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors we are joined by the Customer Success lead at Estimate Rocket, Fred Kulik, who talks with us about the kind of investment that training ought to be in every company. It takes time, money, and intention to carve out time for the proper amount of training in a company, but that investment multiplies the efficiency and profitability of teams. If this is true, why don't more companies spend more time bringing their team members up to spee...

Building Winter Backlog with Jim McBrayer

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors we are joined by Jim McBrayer of McBrayer and Associates to discuss strategies for keeping the winter backlog full and flowing! We discuss ways to creatively plan for slow seasons, and we spend time analyzing sales processes that keep people engaged. "VBR" is a term you should know by the end of this podcast so you can get more business and keep solving customers' problems no matter what time of the year it is.

The Every-Contractor's Guide to Estimating (Part 2)

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors, Tom Droste of Estimate Rocket share a presentation in two parts on the fundamentals of proper estimating that every trade contractor should understand to stay efficient and profitable. In this part 2 of the presentation, Tom discusses sales strategies, pricing models, production rates, best practices, and more. This is part 2 of a 2-part series. If you haven't listened to part 1, you might want to go back an episode and get caught up...

The Every-Contractor's Guide to Estimating (Part 1)

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors, Tom Droste of Estimate Rocket share a presentation in two parts on the fundamentals of proper estimating that every trade contractor should understand to stay efficient and profitable. Tom discusses production rates, accurate measurements, labor and material tracking, job costing, pricing, training new estimators, software applications, and more. This is part 1 of a 2-part series. Check out the full video here. Get the Estimating Bes...

Delegating that Doesn't Blow up in Your Face with Corwin Smith

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors, Corwin Smith of Culture To Cash joins us to talk about why business leaders find delegating so difficult, and why efforts to start delegating often wind up ineffective. If you can't let go of what you're not good at and learn to delegate, you inevitably limit your team's growth, and frustration will negatively impact bottom line revenue and company culture. Corwin discusses barriers to understanding the need for delegation, and pract...

Champion-Level Process for Sales and Job Management with Nick May and Stacia Newton

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors, we are joined by Nick May of Walls By Design and Stacia Newton of Paper Moon Painting. Nick and Stacia are champion sales and job management process creators and we discuss pro tips that empower efficiency and profitability in business, covering topics like client communication, sales funnels, work order distribution, virtual assistants, team coordination, sales seasonality...and more! Nick and Stacia will both be presenting at the A...

Estimating and Job Management Tech with Nick Slavik and Tom Droste

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors, we re-share a conversation by Nick Slavik, host of Ask A Painter LIVE, and Tom Droste, Founder/CEO of Estimate Rocket. Nick and Tom's conversation originally aired on Ask A Painter LIVE and they covered topics ranging from job management technology and future economic challenges, to sales process, customer service, and more. These two big brains sift through some of the hottest subjects being discussed in contractor circles, and they...

Finding Bandwidth to Innovate and Elevate Your Industry with Tony Margani

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors we chat with Tony Margani from Nubilis about the ability of trade contractors to innovate within their company while simultaneously elevating their trade with products and services that make the world a better place. Not everyone is able to create world-changing products while staying profitable in their business, but Tony suggests that passion for one's trade will lead to the discovery of adjacent passions and opportunities that allo...

The Be-Look-Attract Marketing Strategy with Logan Shinholser

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors we are joined by Logan Shinholser of the Contractor Growth Network to talk about what trade businesses can do to build a more cohesive and compelling marketing plan. Many companies want to jump straight to the "attraction" phase of marketing strategy, but Logan discusses reasons why service quality and powerful branding form the foundation for any successful marketing strategy. Getting the Be-Look-Attract sequence out-of-order can hav...

The ONE DOOR to Customer Service with David Lord

On this episode of Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors, David Lord from Nexa joins us to talk about how phone calls can be the most important step--and the first!--to a positive customer experience. We talk about why some businesses don't value call services, how affordable call companies have become, and how call services can help a company improve customer reviews. Every company learning to capture leads and create raving fans from the first interaction needs to listen and take notes! L...

Project Performance Reviews with Nick Slavik

On this episode of Rocket Your Business, Nick Slavik from Ask A Painter joins us to talk about the types of project and performance reviews that reveal trends and improvement opportunities. Every project review is inevitably impacted by employee performance, and Nick talks about how his company, Nick Slavik Painting and Restoration, schedules project performance AND personell performance reviews. We also talk about the 'above-the-line' and 'below-the-line' method of identifying work attitudes th...

Complex but not Complicated with Splash

We are celebrating the launch of our new podcast name and logo, Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors! New name, same great business growth education! On this episode of Rocket Your Business we are joined by Splash from Blue Collar Tribe to talk about how businesses can scale without alienating their employees, dipping in customer service, or losing profit margin. Complexity is a great thing, but when it gets complicated it's time for leadership to decide to slow down hyper-expansion or...t...

Phone Answering for Pros with Tom Droste

On this episode of Estimate Rocket Radio--soon to be Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors!--Tom Droste, CEO/Founder of Estimate Rocket, joins us to talk about the importance of professional phone answering services. How your company answers the phone--or doesn't!--can reveal a lot about your sales process efficiency and growth potential. This seemingly small part of sales and customer service is the foundation for everything that happens after that first call. Learn how other companies are...

The Right Way to Grow with Nick May

On this episode of Estimate Rocket Radio (soon to be rebranded as Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors!) we are joined by Nick May of Walls By Design to talk about industry influence on every trade contractor to scale their business at all costs. But is this the right way to grow your company? Nick discusses ways business owners can target new growth without sacrificing the integrity of positive team culture, healthy profit margins, or ....time! Don't grow your business into a time and mon...

5 Years is the New 10 with Jason Paris

On this episode of Estimate Rocket Radio, Jason Paris of Paris Painting and Aleph Holdings joins us to talk about business growth and leveraging leadership skills to realize new expansion. Trade businesses can experience accelerated change in the current economy, and long-range goals that used to take 10 years to actualize can now often be reached in 5 years! We discuss why some business leaders bump their heads on skill ceilings where further growth requires new specialists with new skills. Bei...

Getting Into Commercial with Scott Lollar

On this episode of Estimate Rocket Radio, Scott Lollar of Consulting 4 Contractors talks with us about how businesses can start taking on more commercial work to get bigger projects and to even out the peaks and valleys of cash flow. Thinking about getting into commercial but you're not sure of the steps you need to take to get your feet wet? Scott is a guide to the world of commercial for contractors in any growth stage. Check out this free self-assessment that will help you gauge your company'...

Pros and Cons of Sign-on-the-Spot with Tom Droste

On this episode of Estimate Rocket Radio (soon to be Rocket Your Business for Trade Contractors!), we are joined by the CEO and Founder of Estimate Rocket, Tom Droste who shares ways a sign-on-the-spot option can help sales people close more sales. This may not be an option for every business, but if your company has the tools and opportunity for sign-on-the-spot offering, you'll want to explore it's application in your sales process. Tom discusses tools that power this option, as well as sales ...

Sales Process for Pros with David Reed

On this episode of Estimate Rocket Radio, David Reed from Sales Transformation Group (STG) joins us to talk about the systems that the best professionals use to generate more leads and to train their team on sales processes that close more deals. We discuss generate more qualified leads, challenges contractors face the sales process, standards leaders need to set for their organization, and metrics owners/leaders be training on. Estimate Rocket is sponsoring the Transform Conference coming up so...

Bringing on an Operations Director with Zach Kenney

On this episode of Estimate Rocket Radio we talk with Zach Kenney of ZK Painting to talk about how he hired an Operations Director at his company so he could get out of the business and work ON the business as the president. We discuss how business owners can know when it's the right time to hand operations over to someone else, and methods to hire and train that speed up the stabilizing process that soon follows. Zach reveals the ONE THING that contractors can do to help get your business to th...