Profitable Home Services Podcast | Increase Profits & Improve Cash Flow

Some of the biggest hidden profit leaks in a home service business are sitting in your warranties. Every callback pulls a tech off a paying job. You eat the cost, and it comes straight out of today's cash flow.
My guest, Tim Byrd of Warranty-RE, has spent 32 years helping car dealers set up and own their own warranty companies. Now he's doing the same thing for home service businesses. He told me about an HVAC owner he met in Scottsdale who was sending $600,000 a year to a third-party warranty company. His claims didn't come anywhere close to that.
If you're building a profitable HVAC business or trying to protect your roofing contractor profits, this conversation shows you how to stop callbacks from hurting profits and start keeping the premiums you collect.
What You'll Learn:
Why third-party warranties send out more money than they ever pay back

How owning your own captive insurance company keeps warranty premiums in your pocket

How an 831b company lets warranty premiums grow without being taxed

Why the labor on every unit you install stays on you for years

How old warranties can hold up the sale of your business

How one of Tim's customers used his warranty company to fund his son's home

Key Moments:
1:51 The $600K A Year Warranty Problem
4:44 What A Captive Insurance Company Is
8:47 Why Setting Money Aside Yourself Still Costs You Taxes
16:49 Which Home Service Businesses Qualify Right Now
21:54 How Old Warranties Can Stall The Sale Of Your Business
23:13 How $1.8M In Premiums Turns Into $1.5M You Keep
31:11 Funding A Son's Home From A Warranty Company
33:50 The Profit Leak Behind Cash Flow And Tax Problems
This is one of the tax strategies for contractors I get excited about. It plugs a leak and builds a reserve you can borrow against later. It's a smart way to protect your callbacks and profit margins at the same time.
🎧 Listen to all episodes at https://profitablehomeservices.com/
🤝 Connect with Tim at https://warranty-re.com/benefits-of-reinsurance/
 
ACCESS SOME FREE RESOURCES TO BOOST YOUR PROFITS 
🤑Add $200k In Profits Without Chasing Leads
Sales are rolling in, so why does your business still feel broke?  Here are 15 ways to add profit back into your Home Service Business without more leads & sales.  https://profitcoach4you.com/profitleaks
Profit Impact Call
☎️ Let me find $45k in hidden profit leaks in your home service business in 45 minutes during a Profit Impact Call.  https://taxcoach4you.com/profitimpactcall/

Inventory profit leaks are the ones almost nobody goes looking for. You already paid for the material. It's sitting on a shelf in your shop. Then a crew buys it again on the way to the job, and the margin you planned on quietly drops.
My guest this week is Eric Oberembt, owner of D&M Roofing and the founder of InventoryHQ. He started roofing with his grandfather at ten years old and still runs the company today. He built the app for his own crews after material costs in home services climbed, and he realized he had no real idea what was sitting in his two warehouses.
What You'll Learn:
Why a five percent job costing error quietly costs you tens of thousands

How to tell if your crews are buying material you already own

The one thing that skews contractor profit margins on every repair job

Why job costing for contractors falls apart without inventory tracking

How to improve profit margins without more leads or one extra sale

The hidden profit leaks showing up in what you pay your reps

Key Moments:
7:33 Buying Materials In Bulk To Protect Margin
8:30 Tracking Two Warehouses On A Clipboard
13:08 The $10,000 Thermal Drone That Vanished
16:30 Buying A $500 Box Of Screws He Already Owned
19:48 Why Leftover Material Belongs Back In Inventory
27:07 The Two Ways To Create More Profit
33:36 Turning Service Trucks Into Mobile Warehouses
42:50 The Commission Leak Nobody Catches
Most of the operational profit leaks I find with my customers aren't complicated. They're small, repeatable, and completely fixable once somebody starts tracking them. Eric put a real number on this one, and it's bigger than most owners want to admit.
🎧 Listen to all episodes at https://profitablehomeservices.com/
🤝 Connect with Eric at https://inventory-hq.com/
 
ACCESS SOME FREE RESOURCES TO BOOST YOUR PROFITS 
🤑Add $200k In Profits Without Chasing Leads
Sales are rolling in, so why does your business still feel broke?  Here are 15 ways to add profit back into your Home Service Business without more leads & sales.  https://profitcoach4you.com/profitleaks
Profit Impact Call
☎️ Let me find $45k in hidden profit leaks in your home service business in 45 minutes during a Profit Impact Call.  https://taxcoach4you.com/profitimpactcall/

When it comes to lead conversion for contractors, the problem is almost never how many leads you have. It is what happens in the first 60 seconds after one of them comes in.
I sat down with Ryan Fenn, the founder of Chiirp, to walk the whole customer journey and find the marketing profit leaks hiding along the way. We start at the missed call and follow it all the way through to the estimate that nobody ever chased. Most of what Ryan shows comes down to catching the leads you already paid for instead of going out and buying new ones.
What You'll Learn:
Why your missed calls cost you more than your ad budget does

How one minute of delay can cut your booking rate in half

The one thing that decides who gets the job in 60 seconds

Why 60 percent of your estimates never get a second conversation

How contractor sales follow up recovers revenue you have already earned

How to improve estimate follow up without hiring another person

The quiet leak that cancels jobs after they are already sold

Key Moments:
2:34 The Two Leaks At The Very Start
3:18 Why Missed Calls Are The Quiet Killer
8:14 The Text Message That Recovered $300,000
14:32 How One Minute Cut A Booking Rate In Half
23:35 The Second Leaky Bucket, Estimate Rehash
27:52 $750,000 Found In 60 Days
36:20 The Owner Handshake Video
43:09 The Hidden Leak After The Sale Is Won
None of this requires a bigger ad budget. This is how to increase revenue without more leads, by tightening home service estimate follow-up and answering faster than the shop down the road.
🎧 Listen to all episodes at https://profitablehomeservices.com/
🤝 Connect with Ryan at https://chiirp.com/
 
ACCESS SOME FREE RESOURCES TO BOOST YOUR PROFITS 
🤑Add $200k In Profits Without Chasing Leads
Sales are rolling in, so why does your business still feel broke?  Here are 15 ways to add profit back into your Home Service Business without more leads & sales.  https://profitcoach4you.com/profitleaks
Profit Impact Call
☎️ Let me find $45k in hidden profit leaks in your home service business in 45 minutes during a Profit Impact Call.  https://taxcoach4you.com/profitimpactcall/

Most of what I hear about contractor sales follow-up comes down to one thing: businesses stop too soon. I sat down with Nathan Klug of Lift Growth Systems to talk about the dollars sitting untouched inside your own customer list.
Nathan started his own insurance agency about fifteen years ago. He and his business partner brought on 100 agents in 90 days. That fast growth exposed a real problem. They had no way to actually follow up with everyone they brought in. That early lesson is what eventually led him to build tools that help with lead conversion for contractors today.
What You'll Learn:
Why the average business only tries a sales follow up once and gives up

How estimate follow up can turn unsold jobs into paid work

The one shift that helps you increase revenue without more ads

Why most sales happen only after the seventh touch, not the first

How a five step process turns old leads into new paying jobs

The one text message structure that gets a response almost every time

Why lead conversion for contractors starts with a plan, not more marketing

Key Moments:
1:37 Nathan's Insurance Agency Story And Why Follow Up Broke At Scale
3:26 The Average Business Only Follows Up 1.1 Times
11:34 What Database Reactivation Actually Means
12:31 The Postcard Program That Added Real Profit
13:40 Why Nearly Half Of Contractor Income Comes From Follow Up
17:54 One Business Collected 162 Data Fields With No Plan
26:54 The Five Step Follow Up System
33:50 Nathan's Hidden Profit Leak Answer
If marketing profit leaks have been draining your results, this episode gives you a clear place to start. You do not need more leads to grow. You need a better way to use the ones you already have, which is exactly how to increase revenue without more leads.
🎧 Listen to all episodes at https://profitablehomeservices.com/
🤝 Connect with Nathan at https://nathanklug.com/
 
ACCESS SOME FREE RESOURCES TO BOOST YOUR PROFITS 
🎫 FREE HIDDEN PROFIT WORKSHOP –
How To Find Another $160,000 In Profit Already Hiding In Your Home Service Business Without Selling More
Register here https://go.profitcoach4you.com/workshop
 
Profit Impact Call
☎️ Let me find $45k in hidden profit leaks in your home service business in 45 minutes during a Profit Impact Call.  https://taxcoach4you.com/profitimpactcall/

I want to talk about how to find hidden profit in a service business, because most owners are asking the wrong question. They ask how to get busier instead of asking why the busy months still leave the bank account looking thin.
In this episode, I walk through 10 questions business owners avoid asking themselves. Every single one has a hidden profit leak sitting behind it. We cover why more revenue is not more profit, what your labor really costs you, and why cash disappears in my business even in a good month. I also get into home service labor costs and contractor pricing for profit, two of the spots where I see owners lose the most money without realizing it.
What You'll Learn:
Why more revenue is not more profit in a home service business

How to know if you are actually charging enough for the work you do

What your team really costs you once you calculate the full number

Why busy crews can still be losing you money every single day

Why cash disappears in my business even when the P&L looks good

The real cost of keeping your doors open each month

What happens to your business if you disappear for thirty days

Key Moments:
6:45 Why More Revenue Is Not More Profit
17:45 The Question That Exposes Money-Losing Jobs
20:20 What Your Team Really Costs You
28:16 Why Cash Disappears Even When The P&L Looks Good
33:10 The Real Cost Of Keeping The Doors Open
35:38 Why Customer Follow-Up Is A Profit Leak
41:31 What Happens If You Disappear For A Month
Home service business profitability starts with asking these questions before they cost you more. If one of them made you uncomfortable while you listened, that is usually the one I would start with.
🎧 Listen to all episodes at https://profitablehomeservices.com/
🤝 Connect with Diane at https://taxcoach4you.com
 
ACCESS SOME FREE RESOURCES TO BOOST YOUR PROFITS 
🎫 HIDDEN PROFIT WORKSHOP
How To Add Another $160,000 In Profit To Your Home Service Business Without Selling More 
Register here https://go.profitcoach4you.com/workshop
 
Profit Impact Call
☎️ Let me find $45k in hidden profit leaks in your home service business in 45 minutes during a Profit Impact Call.  https://taxcoach4you.com/profitimpactcall/