From the Yellow Chair
Episodes
218 episodes
The Power of Maintenance Clubs: Turning One-Time Customers into Lifelong Clients
Your maintenance club might be the most valuable asset in your home service business and you’re probably underusing it. We’re talking about how to turn one-time HVAC and home service customers into loyal members who stick around for years, book...
PPC for Contractors: Turning Paid Ads Into Booked Jobs w/ Brett Hansen
PPC has a reputation in home services: expensive, unpredictable, and somehow always blamed when the phones aren’t turning into booked work. We sit down with Brett Hansen from WebFX to make pay-per-click advertising practical for contractors who...
From CTR to ROI: Making Sense of Your Email Marketing Metrics
Your email marketing is talking to customers every month, but do you actually know what it’s saying in the data? We sit down with Jocelyn from the Mailchimp Academy team to decode the metrics that separate a “we sent it” newsletter from an emai...
Breaking Down the Acronym Soup in Contractor Marketing
Marketing vendors love acronyms because they sound precise, but they can also hide the only question that matters: did this effort create profitable revenue? Recording from an airport, I break down the alphabet soup in plain English so contract...
GBP Optimization 101: How to Win on Google
Your next customer is probably meeting you on Google before they ever see your website and that first impression is your Google Business Profile. If your hours are wrong, your address is outdated, your categories are messy, or your reviews sit ...
Scaling a Business Without the Burnout
Burnout is not a badge of honor, and it is definitely not a requirement for scaling a contracting business. Crystal sits down with Chuck Staskowitz, a former plumber who started from a garage with a $2,000 van, grew to more than $22 million in ...
Open Estimates are Open Opportunities
You don’t have a lead problem, you have an opportunity leak. If you’re staring at revenue goals while open estimates pile up and missed calls vanish, the money you want is already in your database, you just aren’t collecting it. We...
Mass Media: How to Trust the Process When Building a Brand
If you’ve ever said, “We tried billboards and nothing happened,” this conversation is for you. Mass media can feel silent and hard to measure, but when it’s done with the right frequency, consistency, and creative discipline, it builds the kind...
The magic wand for your marketing strategy and brand
What if the best marketing isn’t a silver bullet but a well-practiced routine that wins attention, builds trust, and creates real momentum? We sit down with Jimmy Gibson—a magician-turned-marketer—to unpack how stagecraft maps to standout messa...
Attribution That Matters: Stop Guessing, Start Knowing with Jeff Greenfield
Most marketing reports tell a neat story that isn’t true. We peel back the layers with Jeff from Provalytics to show how real customers actually find and choose a contractor—and why single-source attribution keeps leading teams astray. Think of...
Brand Accelerator- 4 ways to build your brand in an authentic yet scalable way!
Need customers to choose you before they even search? Crystal lays out a simple, gritty playbook for brand acceleration that doesn’t rely on massive ad budgets: creative messaging that sticks, social content that compounds, and community presen...
How rebranding SHOOK up Shanklin—for the better!
A 65-year family name can open doors—or hold you back. We sat down with Derek from Shanklin to unpack how a third-generation HVAC company protected its legacy while building a brand that finally fit today’s homeowner. The story starts with a st...
How Duck hunting has a new meaning for Rowell
What does it take for a 70-year HVAC company to break free from a look that blends into the crowd? We sit down with Rowell, a third-generation business, to explore the bold leap from familiar red-and-blue to a disruptive identity built around d...
Giving your brand the Royal Treatment
Ever watch a hometown brand go from “just another contractor” to a neighbor everyone knows by name? That’s the journey we explore with Royal Air Systems, a second-generation HVAC company that faced a rebrand in the midst of loss and still found...
Coach or Guru? Navigating the Noise in the Trades
Growth stalls when we expect marketing to fix what’s really an operational problem. We dig into the honest math of margins, staffing, and process with Joe O’Grady of Team SPG, and we map out how to turn ad spend into predictable revenue without...
Why Every Brand Needs a Story and How to Tell It Well with James Erskine
What makes a brand memorable isn’t volume, it’s precision. We sit down with James Erskine, CEO of Rocket, to explore how one product can hold multiple stories—and why telling the right one to the right person is the difference between being not...
The Missing Link Between Leads and Revenue with Kathrine Farris
What if your marketing wasn’t a stack of disconnected tools but a living system that turns attention into revenue every day? We sit down with Kathrine Farris of MarkeTecs to map the path from inspired ideas to measurable conversions, showing ho...
Over-Responsibility: The Silent Profit Killer in Home Services with guest Roger Daviston
What if the trait you’re most proud of—being the one who always steps in—quietly destroys your profit and peace of mind? We dive into over-responsibility as a hidden profit killer and lay out a practical plan to reclaim your time, your culture,...
2025 Lemon Wrapped
Stop chasing silver bullets and start stacking real wins. We’re taking you through the most useful, unfiltered moments of 2025—what worked for contractors, what flopped, and how to build a brand that outlasts any algorithm. From booking rate be...
The Gift of a Good Brand
Want your marketing to feel smoother, your sales to close faster, and your decisions to get easier? We dig into the real gifts of a strong brand and why it’s the best investment you can make heading into a new year. Forget the myth that a brand...
Behind the Curtain of an Internal CMO
Want a marketing plan that survives platform changes, rising CPCs, and slow seasons? We sit down with CMO Matt Tyner to unpack a practical playbook for home service companies that blends brand building with capacity-aware demand generation. Fro...
Behind the Scenes: Great American Brand Story 2025 Winners, Skagit Plumbing
A new logo didn’t change everything—owning a clear promise did. We sit down with Mark and Teresa Summers of Skagit Plumbing to unpack how winning the Great American Brand Story set off a deeper transformation: a cousin-made logo gave way to a b...
Unlock the mystery of building a strong foundation with Dave Sullivan
Ready to stop chasing topline and start building a business that lasts? We sit down with Dave Sullivan—third-generation contractor, founder of The Roofer Show, and coach to growth-minded owners—to unpack how real progress comes from balancing t...
Creative Ways To Show Thanks To Your Customers
Loyalty doesn’t happen at the invoice; it happens in the simple, human moments after the job. We break down a practical gratitude playbook for home service brands—HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and beyond—so you can turn happy customers into repea...
Smart Pricing in Home Services: Profits without fear
Ever wonder why some shops can charge premium prices without flinching while others apologize their way through every estimate? We unpack the playbook for home service pros who want to price with confidence, execute with precision, and market w...
