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. 2d ago ·  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 O&O John's Podcast YouTube ChannelOwned 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

    How to Survive Slow Season in Your Home Service Business

    Slow season doesn’t have to wreck your home service business. In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down how they prepare for shoulder season when inbound demand slows, the call board gets lighter, and every lead becomes more valuable. They cover how to fill the board with outbound calling, when to use specials and discounts, why sales KPIs can actually improve during slower months, and how tightening labor, marketing, and spending can turn shoulder season into a stronger cash-producing period. They also explain why preparing months ahead and building a customer contact list during peak season makes the slowdown much easier to manage. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Why August and September can be some of the slowest months of the year • How to use outbound calling to fill the board when inbound demand drops • Specials, BOGOs, tune-ups, and other ways to drive shoulder season leads • Why you should lean on proven marketing instead of taking new risks • How to get more revenue from the leads already on your board • Why average ticket and conversion rates can improve during slow season ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with O&O John's Podcast YouTube ChannelOwned 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. Aug 20 ·  Video

    Why Everyone Is Buying Home Service Businesses (And You Should Too)

    Home service businesses are getting more attention than ever. But are they really as good as they look? In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr talk about why HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other home service businesses have become so popular; and why they’re still incredibly hard to operate. They break down what makes home services attractive, the mistakes people make when buying into the trades, and where there’s still opportunity as more buyers enter the space. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Why more people are getting into the trades • What makes home services such an attractive business model • Why fragmentation creates so much opportunity • The reality of staffing, seasonality, and competition • Why running a home service business takes more than being smart • The biggest mistake people make when buying a home service company • The difference between buying a business and buying a job ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Catalyst https://www.ownedandoperated.com/catalyst ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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/ 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 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 O&O John's Podcast YouTube ChannelOwned 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. Aug 18 ·  Video

    How to Build a $40M+ Home Service Business: Cash Flow, Sales & KPIs

    You can be profitable and still run out of cash. In this supercut episode of Owned and Operated, featuring insights from several episodes, John Wilson breaks down the cash flow, sales, and KPI systems that helped him scale a home service business from $1M to roughly $40M in revenue. Learn why profit doesn’t equal cash, how to improve average ticket by solving higher-value problems, and the five numbers every home service owner should track to find problems faster and scale with more control. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Why profitable home service businesses still run out of cash • How to improve cash flow and get paid faster • The systems John would implement at $1M in revenue • How to increase average ticket with a value ladder • Why training and ride-alongs drive better sales performance • The 5 KPIs every home service owner should track • How to diagnose lead, booking, closing, and average ticket problems • Why “number of options” is a critical sales metric • How scorecards and daily KPIs create accountability ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 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/ Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with O&O John's Podcast YouTube ChannelOwned 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. Aug 13 ·  Video

    The $1M Decisions Contractors Don’t Realize They’re Making

    The biggest decisions in your home service business usually don’t feel big when you make them. In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down the $1 million decisions contractors make without realizing how much they can impact the business over time. They discuss hiring the right people, choosing technology that can scale, building a membership program, reinvesting profits, making smarter marketing bets, and why seemingly small decisions can shape the next decade of your business. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Why small decisions can compound into million-dollar outcomes • How hiring the right people can change the trajectory of your business • Why your CRM, payroll, phones, and technology stack matter as you scale • How membership programs create long-term customer value • Why reinvesting profits can accelerate growth • Why John and Jack prioritize executors over “strategic” hires • The two areas they would focus on first at $5M: people and leads • How training, KPIs, and better data create a long-term advantage ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 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 Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with O&O John's Podcast YouTube ChannelOwned 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. Aug 11 ·  Video

    Why Home Service Businesses Get Stuck at $3M and How to Scale to $30M

    The strategies that get your home service business to $3 million will not get you to $30 million. In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson and Jack Carr break down why contractors stall at different stages of growth and how the owner’s role has to evolve as the business gets bigger. They discuss escaping “hero mode,” building the right teams and systems, reinvesting in growth, and why the owner can ultimately become the biggest bottleneck in the business. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In This Episode ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • Why the playbook that gets you to $3M stops working as you scale • Why contractors commonly stall between $3M and $10M • Getting the owner out of "hero mode" and building a real organization • Reinvesting profits versus pulling cash out of the business • The systems and positions you need as the company gets bigger • Why adding trades and locations too early can slow down growth ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Jack Carr https://x.com/thehvacjack Owned and Operated https://www.ownedandoperated.com/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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 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 Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with O&O John's Podcast YouTube ChannelOwned 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. Aug 6 ·  Video

    From a $2M Family Plumbing Shop to a Multi-Trade Powerhouse

    Every growing home service company eventually hits the same wall. The systems that got you to $2 million will not get you to $20 million. In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Brady Jolly and Scott Sharrock of Jolly Heating, Air, Plumbing & Electric to break down what it actually takes to scale a second-generation home service business. They discuss moving from commercial to residential, building a leadership team, using acquisitions to accelerate growth, creating a culture people want to stay in, and the management systems that help businesses continue growing without relying on the owner. The conversation also dives into scorecards, leadership development, AI, private equity, and why investing in people often creates a bigger return than investing anywhere else. In This Episode • Growing a second-generation plumbing company into a multi-trade business • Why residential service changed the trajectory of the company • Lessons from acquisitions, launching roofing, and adding new trades • Building leaders before you need them • Creating a culture that people actually want to be part of • How scorecards and KPIs improve decision making • AI, private equity, and where home service businesses are headed next Connect John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Brady Jolly + Scott Sharrock https://justcalljolly.com/ Reimagining Home Services Podcast https://www.youtube.com/@ReimaginingHomeServices ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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/ 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 Send Us Mail! More Ways To Connect with O&O John's Podcast YouTube ChannelOwned 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 4 ·  Video

    The Complete Home Service Marketing Playbook

    Home service marketing strategy isn't one-size-fits-all. In this Owned and Operated compilation, John Wilson sits down with Lisa Appleby and Ethan Wright of Service Scalers to break down the marketing systems, lead generation strategies, SEO, Google Ads, Local Services Ads, reviews, AI, and growth playbooks that help contractors scale from $1M to $10M+. Whether you own an HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, or other home service business, this episode explains where your next marketing dollar should go, how to generate higher-quality leads, improve conversion rates, and build a marketing engine that scales with your company. In This Episode  The marketing roadmap from $1M to $10M in revenue  Where to invest your next marketing dollar  When to use Local Services Ads, PPC, SEO, and aggregators  Why speed-to-lead dramatically increases booked jobs  How online reviews impact rankings and revenue  The biggest marketing mistakes growing contractors make  How AI is changing SEO, Google Search, and digital marketing  The KPIs every contractor should actually be tracking Connect John Wilson https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/ Lisa Appleby https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-appleby/?originalSubdomain=uk Ethan Wright https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanwrighttx ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  Sponsors ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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  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/ 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 O&O John's Podcast YouTube ChannelOwned 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
out of 5
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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