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

John Wilson
  • 4.7 (95)
  • 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. Trailer ·  Video

    Owned and Operated with John Wilson | Podcast Trailer

    John Wilson has spent the last decade growing a home service company from $1M to $53M in revenue. On Owned and Operated, John breaks down what it actually takes to build and scale a home service business, including hiring, sales, marketing, operations, acquisitions, pricing, and everything in between. Real operators. Real numbers. Real problems being solved in real time. If you own a plumbing, HVAC, electrical, or other home service business and want to build something great, this show is for you. New episodes twice a week. Find Owned and Operated: https://www.youtube.com/@JohnWilsonOAO https://www.ownedandoperated.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. 1d ago ·  Video

    The 2026 SBA Playbook: How to Buy a Business With 10% Down

    The SBA rules for buying a business are changing in 2026. Here’s what buyers and home service operators need to know. Jack Carr sits down with Alan Peterson from First Internet Bank to break down the latest SBA 7(a) changes, including how buyers can finance up to 90% of an acquisition, new equity requirements, seller financing, and changes affecting minority investors. They also cover how sellers can stay involved for up to 24 months after closing, strategies for navigating licensing when buying HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other skilled trades businesses, and new Quality of Earnings requirements for larger acquisitions. Plus, Alan explains one of the biggest opportunities for existing business owners: using SBA expansion financing to acquire another company with potentially 0% down when the deal qualifies. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Inside This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  • Buying a business with an SBA 7(a) loan  • Financing up to 90% of an acquisition  • New 2026 SBA equity requirements  • Seller financing and transition rules  • Licensing strategies for home service acquisitions  • Quality of Earnings and business valuations  • SBA expansion loans and potential 0% down acquisitions  • What buyers should know before making an offer ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 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  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack  Alan Peterson https://alanfib.com/  Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.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.

  3. 3d ago ·  Video

    What Is EBITDA? How to Value, Grow & Sell Your Home Service Business

    What is EBITDA, and why does it matter so much when building, financing, or selling a home service business? John Wilson and Jack Carr break down EBITDA in simple terms, including how it differs from net income and SDE, what a healthy EBITDA margin looks like, and why buyers, banks, and lenders pay so much attention to it. They also explain how EBITDA impacts business valuation, why maximizing profit doesn't always maximize company value, and the other financial metrics buyers look at during an acquisition. Plus, John shares the 50/30/20 framework used at Wilson: 50% gross margin, 30% SG&A, and 20% EBITDA. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • What EBITDA means and why it matters • EBITDA vs. net income and SDE • Healthy EBITDA margins for home service businesses • How EBITDA impacts business valuation • Using strong financials to access capital • Why higher EBITDA doesn't always mean a better business • The 50/30/20 framework ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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/ 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack 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. Sep 10 ·  Video

    Why Roofing Is a Beautiful Business: Marketing, Sales & $20K Jobs

    What does it actually take to buy and grow a roofing company? Nicholas Riley left Deloitte to buy Driftwood Builders Roofing, a 20-year-old roofing company in Austin, Texas. After reviewing roughly 2,000 businesses, he finally made his first home service acquisition. In this episode, John Wilson and Nicholas break down the economics of the roofing business, including $20,000 average roof replacements, cash vs. insurance margins, roofing marketing, direct mail, referral partnerships, and competing in a market with more than 1,000 roofing companies. They also cover Nicholas' biggest mistakes during his first year as an operator, what buyers should look for when acquiring a home service business, and why roofing ultimately comes down to two things: marketing and sales. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Buying your first home service business • The economics of running a roofing company • $20K average roof replacements • Roofing marketing and direct mail • Building referral partnerships that generate leads • Why seller integrity matters when buying a business • Competing against private equity and local roofers • Why roofing is a marketing and sales business ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The Military Veteran (TMV) Hiring a VP, GM, or C-suite leader? The Military Veteran (TMV) specializes in executive search for home service businesses, connecting you with proven veteran leaders who know how to execute, build teams, and drive growth. Select Owned and Operated as your referral source when you schedule a consultation: https://themilvet.typeform.com/to/BDwkmCU0?typeform-source=www.themilvet.org 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/ Nicholas Riley https://www.instagram.com/nickriley2/ https://driftwoodbuildersroofing.com/ Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.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.

  5. Sep 8 ·  Video

    Ismael Valdez: How I Built a $108M Home Service Company & What I’m Building Next

    Ismael Valdez built NexGen Air Conditioning & Plumbing from $0 to $108 million in just 6.5 years. Now he’s back on Owned and Operated to share the blueprint for his next $100M home service company. John Wilson and Ismael break down what worked at NexGen, the mistakes he would never repeat, why most HVAC and plumbing contractors stall below $2M, and why sales and marketing are the real engines behind rapid growth. Ismael also shares what he’s building next. After investing more than $22 million of his own money into Nuve, generating $15.2 million in first-year sales, and selling more than 110,000 units, he’s turning his attention back to home services. His vision: an AI-powered, hyper-efficient HVAC and plumbing company with almost no traditional back office, lower prices, higher close rates, and the potential for 40%+ EBITDA margins. In This Episode: • How Ismael Valdez built NexGen from $0 to $108M • What he learned from a nine-figure home service exit • Building Nuve to $15.2M in first-year sales • Why most contractors stall below $2M • NexGen’s biggest wins and mistakes • Why sales and marketing drive growth • Building an AI-powered home service company • Ismael’s blueprint for his next $100M company Connect John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Ismael Valdez https://www.instagram.com/nuveceo/ Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ 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/ 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 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. Sep 3 ·  Video

    How We’d Turn $5M Into $10M in 12 Months

    How would we turn a $5 million home service business into a $10 million company? In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down how they’d invest $1 million to double a profitable home service business. They cover where they’d invest first, finding the next high-ROI marketing channel, hiring salespeople ahead of demand, expanding the balance sheet, and building the capacity to scale. Could they reach a $10M run rate in just 12 months? This is the playbook they’d use. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • How to grow a $5M home service business to $10M • Where they’d invest $1 million for growth • Finding your next high-ROI marketing channel • Why one marketing channel could double the business • Branding, radio, LSAs, and commercial sales • Hiring salespeople ahead of demand ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Yelp Looking for more qualified leads beyond Google? See how contractors are using Yelp to reach homeowners who are ready to book and diversify their lead generation. Learn more: https://business.yelp.com/campaign/ownedandoperated/ 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 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 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. Sep 1 ·  Video

    How We’d Start a Plumbing Company From $0 in 2026

    If John Wilson and Jack Carr lost everything and had to start a plumbing company from scratch, what would they actually do? In this episode of Owned and Operated, John and Jack break down exactly how they’d build a plumbing business from $10,000 to $1 million in revenue using everything they’ve learned as home service operators. They compare two different paths: staying extremely lean by subcontracting work and proving demand before spending money, or hiring early and building the operation one truck at a time. They cover how they’d land their first customers, where they’d spend their first marketing dollars, when they’d hire, what jobs they’d target, and how they’d build toward four productive trucks. John also explains why he’d eventually use a small acquisition to accelerate the business, including examples of companies he’s previously acquired with very little cash down. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • How to start a plumbing company with $10,000 • Getting your first customers without a big marketing budget • Subcontracting vs. hiring your first plumber • Why John would prioritize revenue before investing • Using Facebook, Nextdoor, referrals, and LSAs to generate leads • The plumbing jobs Jack would target first • When to add your first truck and technician ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack  Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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  Yelp Looking for more qualified leads beyond Google? See how contractors are using Yelp to reach homeowners who are ready to book and diversify their lead generation. Learn more: https://business.yelp.com/campaign/ownedandoperated/  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. Aug 27 ·  Video

    There Are Millions Hiding in Your Customer Database

    Your customer database might be worth more than you think. In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Faraday founder Alex Coleman to break down how home service companies can turn the data they already collect into better marketing, smarter dispatching, and more replacement opportunities. They cover how Wilson uncovered millions of dollars in opportunities hidden inside old customer records, why equipment data becomes increasingly valuable as a contractor scales, and how back-office automation can tackle permits, warranties, rebates, and other processes that often fall through the cracks. John and Alex also dig into AI in the trades, where automation is actually useful, why AI still needs a human in the loop, and why contractors should think twice before building their own software instead of focusing on the core business. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • How old customer data can uncover millions in replacement opportunities • Why equipment age matters for marketing and dispatch • Turning service calls into long-term marketing assets • Using existing customer databases to drive more revenue • Automating permits, warranties, rebates, and back-office work • Why rebates can become a major source of missed profit • How data becomes more valuable as a home service company scales • Where AI is overpromised in the trades ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Alex Coleman / Faraday https://www.faraday.so/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/faraday-ai/ Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 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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95 Ratings

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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