Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast

John Wilson
  • 4.7 (109)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Semiweekly

Owned and Operated is the podcast for home service entrepreneurs who want to build larger, more profitable businesses. Hosted by John Wilson and Jack Carr, each episode features candid conversations with the founders, operators, investors, and industry leaders shaping the future of HVAC, plumbing, electrical, septic, roofing, restoration, and the wider home service industry. From acquisitions and marketing to sales, leadership, hiring, finance, AI, and operational excellence, you'll hear real-world lessons, proven strategies, and actionable playbooks from people who have actually built successful companies. If you're buying your first business, scaling past your next revenue milestone, or building toward an eventual exit, Owned and Operated delivers practical insights you can apply immediately. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Learn more at www.ownedandoperated.com

  1. 2d ago ·  Video

    Stop Buying More Leads. Fix Your Home Service Sales. With Brian Burton

    What if you could grow your home service business without spending another dollar on marketing? John Wilson sits down with Brian Burton, co-host of Waste No Day and creator of Blue Collar Closer, to break down how better sales training, higher average tickets, and a stronger sales culture drive growth. Brian shares how he helped scale a plumbing company from $2.4M to $6.2M in two years without acquisitions, and another business from $6M to $32M with 20% net profit. Plus, why technicians struggle to close sales, how to build repeatable sales processes, and why increasing your average ticket could be more valuable than generating more leads. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Growing a plumbing business from $2.4M to $6.2M through organic growth • Scaling a home service company from $6M to $32M with 20% net profit • Why increasing average tickets can outperform spending more on marketing • Building a sales culture that drives technician performance • How daily role-playing and sales training improve closing rates • Why technicians struggle to ask customers for the sale • The GO PRO sales process and presenting multiple service options • Performance-based pay and technician commission structures ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Service Scalers Get more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://www.servicescalers.com/?utm_source=oao_podcast&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=podcast Quick Staffers Hire trained HVAC and plumbing CSRs without the overhead of traditional hiring. Save $500 on your first placement with Quick Staffers: https://www.quickstaffers.com/   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Brian Burton | Waste No Day & Blue Collar Closer https://wastenoday.com/ https://www.bluecollarcloser.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

  2. 4d ago ·  Video

    From $700K to $15M: How He Built an Electrical Business in 5 Years

    From $700K to $15M in just five years. Shane Viggiani has nearly doubled his electrical business every year, growing from one truck to a 50-person operation in Las Vegas. John Wilson sits down with Shane, owner of Ampere Electric, to break down the strategies behind that growth. They discuss how Shane built over 3,000 Google reviews, structured technician commissions, developed his management team, and maintained roughly 15% net margins while scaling. They also get into the mistakes that nearly derailed his early growth, why hands-on technician training has been so effective, and how he's thinking about acquisitions as he works toward $30M in annual revenue. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Growing an electrical business from $700K to a $15M annual revenue paceHow 3,000 Google reviews became a competitive advantageHiring managers, building teams, and scaling operationsTechnician commissions, sales training, and incentivesMaintaining profitability during rapid growthBuying vs. building a home service businessThe path from $15M to $30M━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FieldPulse Ready to ditch the whiteboard and spreadsheets? See how FieldPulse helps home service companies simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more. Book a free demo: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operated Service Scalers Get more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/youtube ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Shane Viggiani | Ampere Electric https://www.facebook.com/share/1DtHym2rke/?mibextid=wwXIfr https://www.instagram.com/shane_viggiani?obrf=MTAzOHVnaXd0ZGJ1MA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr https://www.instagram.com/ampere_electric_las_vegas?rpxt=cGgzNWFtYzJhNHdl&utm_source=qr Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

  3. Oct 15 ·  Video

    What HVAC Owners Get Wrong About the Labor Shortage

    The HVAC industry doesn't just have a labor shortage. It has a training problem. John Wilson sits down with Jennifer Manzo, HVAC business owner and founder of HVA-Chicks Coalition, to discuss why contractors struggle to hire and develop technicians, and why the next generation of HVAC workers might be the solution. They break down how one HVAC company reduced callbacks by 52% in just three months, why experienced technicians aren't always the best hires, and how better training, technology, and company culture can help operators build stronger businesses. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Why the HVAC labor shortage might be a training problemHow one company reduced callbacks by 52%Hiring Gen Z vs. experienced techniciansBuilding better technician training programsSupporting women entering the tradesAdapting to heat pumps, inverters, and new refrigerants━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Catalyst | May 3–5 | Akron, Ohio 100+ home service owners and operators. Three days of tactical sessions, real conversations, and learning from great operators. Grab your seat: https://www.ownedandoperated.com/catalyst  Profit & Grit Running a 3M–15M home service business? Profit & Grit helps contractors improve cash flow, pricing, forecasting, and profitability with guidance from an operator who's built and sold a $25M service business. Book your free 20-minute strategy call: https://www.profitandgrit.com  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jennifer Manzo https://www.linkedin.com/in/hvachicks-jennifer-206832280/?isSelfProfile=false https://www.instagram.com/hvachicksjennifer/?hl=en  A quick thank you to FieldPulse for helping make this conversation happen! If you're looking to simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more for your home service business, check them out here: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operated Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

  4. Oct 13 ·  Video

    The Low-Cost Marketing Playbook for Home Service Businesses

    You don't need a massive marketing budget to grow a home service business. You just need to find opportunities your competitors are missing. Jack Carr sits down with Sam Preston of Service Scalers to break down low-cost marketing strategies for growing a home service company. From Nextdoor and Facebook groups to yard signs, local partnerships, and community events, they share practical ways to generate leads without spending a fortune. They also cover how one company generated over $500K in leads from Nextdoor, how yard signs helped grow an $8M plumbing business, and why getting creative with local marketing can give smaller operators an advantage over larger competitors. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Where to spend your first marketing dollars • Generating leads without expensive advertising • Nextdoor, Facebook groups, and Google Business Profile • How yard signs helped grow an $8M plumbing business • Building local partnerships and referral networks • Marketing expenses to avoid early on • Competing with larger companies on a smaller budget ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Quick Staffers Hire trained HVAC and plumbing CSRs without the overhead of traditional hiring. Save $500 on your first placement with Quick Staffers: https://www.quickstaffers.com/ Catalyst | May 3–5 | Akron, Ohio 100+ home service owners and operators. Three days of tactical sessions, real conversations, and learning from great operators. Grab your seat: https://www.ownedandoperated.com/catalyst  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Sam Preston https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-preston-a682103b6/  Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

  5. Oct 8 ·  Video

    Why Profitable Home Service Companies Keep Running Out of Cash

    Your home service business can be profitable on paper and still run out of cash. John Wilson sits down with Tyler Martin of Profit & Grit to break down where cash actually goes as a home service company grows and why strong EBITDA doesn’t always translate to money in the bank. They cover the biggest cash drains, including trucks, inventory, accounts receivable, debt payments, and hiring ahead of demand. They also break down how much cash to keep in reserve, what owners should be watching every week, and how a 13-week cash flow forecast can help you stay ahead of a crunch. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Why profitable businesses still run out of cash • Profit vs. actual free cash flow • How growth eats cash • The hidden impact of AR, inventory, trucks, and debt • How much cash to keep in reserve • What financial numbers to review every week • Building a 13-week cash flow forecast ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Service Scalers Get more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcast FieldPulse Ready to ditch the whiteboard and spreadsheets? See how FieldPulse helps home service companies simplify scheduling, dispatching, invoicing, and more. Book a free demo: https://landing.fieldpulse.com/owned_and_operated Comfort Connect Turn one installation into years of repeat business with Comfort Connect. Give homeowners flexible payment options, stay connected after the job, and create new recurring revenue opportunities. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4wGXqSX  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Tyler Martin Profit & Grit https://profitandgrit.com/ RESOURCE: Understanding Your Cash Flow Statement https://profitandgrit.com/quickbooks-cash-flow-statement-home-service/ Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

  6. Oct 6 ·  Video

    How We’d Structure Home Service Marketing From $5M to $10M

    What does the perfect marketing team actually look like for a $5M home service company trying to reach $10M? John Wilson and Jack Carr go head-to-head to build a marketing department from scratch, with Sam Preston judging every decision. They start with the exact same $5M appliance repair business, zero internal marketing employees, and a $400K payroll budget. Across five rounds, they have to decide who to hire first, what to keep outsourced, when to bring marketing in-house, and what gets cut when the budget tightens. Along the way, they break down lifecycle marketing, lead generation, PPC, SEO, content, branding, business development, multi-location growth, and why the marketing team that gets you to $5M may not be the one that gets you to $10M. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • The first marketing hire John and Jack would make at $5M • Marketing coordinator vs. lifecycle marketer • Using your existing customer database to drive more revenue • How the marketing team changes from $5M to $10M • When growth requires expanding into new markets • What should stay outsourced at $7M • Why PPC, LSA, and SEO may belong with an agency ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Avoca See how Avoca helps home service companies book more jobs with AI that handles calls, texts, follow ups, and dispatching without adding more chaos. Book a demo: https://www.avoca.ai/partners/oao Quick Staffers Hire trained HVAC and plumbing CSRs without the overhead of traditional hiring. Save $500 on your first placement with Quick Staffers: https://www.quickstaffers.com/ Big Reputation Get more from your Google Business Profile with Big Reputation. Automate reviews, improve local visibility, and turn more Google searches into inbound calls. Learn more: https://www.bigreputation.ai/oao?utm_source=oao&utm_medium=paid ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Sam Preston https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-preston-a682103b6/ Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

  7. Oct 1 ·  Video

    Why Home Service Marketing Breaks at $5M

    Most home service companies think they need more leads. But as you approach $5M, the real problems are often attribution, capacity, booking rates, sales, and fulfillment. Jack Carr and Sam Preston break down where home service marketing starts to break as a company grows, why cost per lead can be misleading, and how to track marketing all the way to actual revenue. They also cover Google Ads and Performance Max, AI search, review velocity, and why the next era of home service marketing could extend well beyond Google. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • What breaks in marketing around $5M • Tracking leads all the way to revenue • Why cost per lead can be misleading • Using phone numbers and campaigns for attribution • Matching marketing spend to technician capacity • Why booking rate is one of the biggest missed opportunities • When a “lead problem” is actually a sales problem ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Big Reputation Get more from your Google Business Profile with Big Reputation. Automate reviews, improve local visibility, and turn more Google searches into inbound calls. Learn more: https://www.bigreputation.ai/oao?utm_source=oao&utm_medium=paid Service Scalers Get more high quality leads with marketing built for home service companies. Book a free strategy call with Service Scalers and see what's driving real jobs: https://os.servicescalers.com/go/oao_podcast/referral/podcast Avoca See how Avoca helps home service companies book more jobs with AI that handles calls, texts, follow ups, and dispatching without adding more chaos. Book a demo: https://www.avoca.ai/partners/oao  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Sam Preston https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-preston-a682103b6/  Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

  8. Sep 29 ·  Video

    The End of Google Search? How Home Service Companies Win in the AI Era

    AI search is changing how homeowners find HVAC, plumbing, and home service companies. John Wilson sits down with Julie Phan of Big Reputation to break down how ChatGPT and other AI platforms decide which contractors to recommend and what home service owners can do to show up more often. They cover why your Google Business Profile, reviews, website, service pages, local listings, and overall digital footprint are becoming increasingly important as search moves beyond Google. John and Julie also walk through how AI evaluates things like location, service type, reputation, availability, and customer feedback, plus how operators can test their own AI visibility and start building an advantage before the space gets more competitive. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • How AI search is changing home services • How ChatGPT chooses which contractors to recommend • Why reviews matter for AI visibility • Google Business Profile and AI search • Building a stronger digital footprint • Service and location pages that give AI more context • How to track your visibility in AI search • Why smaller contractors may have an advantage • How to start optimizing for AI search today ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Profit & Grit Running a $3M–$15M home service business? Profit & Grit helps contractors improve cash flow, pricing, forecasting, and profitability with guidance from an operator who's built and sold a $25M service business. Book your free 20-minute strategy call: https://www.profitandgrit.com Catalyst | May 3–5 | Akron, Ohio 100+ home service owners and operators. Three days of tactical sessions, real conversations, and learning from great operators. Grab your seat: https://www.ownedandoperated.com/catalyst  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Julie Phan/Big Reputation https://www.bigreputation.ai/  Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with OAO Start HereOwned and Operated Newsletter Bonus Videos From JohnLeave a Review John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC 📌 Disclaimer: Some links may include UTM parameters or affiliate relationships, meaning we may earn a commission if you make a purchase. Episodes may feature sponsors, but all opinions expressed are our own.

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4.7
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About

Owned and Operated is the podcast for home service entrepreneurs who want to build larger, more profitable businesses. Hosted by John Wilson and Jack Carr, each episode features candid conversations with the founders, operators, investors, and industry leaders shaping the future of HVAC, plumbing, electrical, septic, roofing, restoration, and the wider home service industry. From acquisitions and marketing to sales, leadership, hiring, finance, AI, and operational excellence, you'll hear real-world lessons, proven strategies, and actionable playbooks from people who have actually built successful companies. If you're buying your first business, scaling past your next revenue milestone, or building toward an eventual exit, Owned and Operated delivers practical insights you can apply immediately. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Learn more at www.ownedandoperated.com

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