Why Home Improvement Companies Stop Growing (And What to Do About It)

Brian Gottlieb built a home improvement company from $3,000 on a plastic folding table to a $150 million exit. Eric Bohner has spent 27 years inside this industry, across hundreds of businesses, watching owners get stuck at the same walls over and over.

In this first episode of The TruCoach Podcast from Truvolv, Brian and Eric lay out the founding vision behind TruCoach and the problems it and Truvolv exist to solve. Home improvement owners are exceptional at their craft. Running and scaling a business is a different skill set entirely, and most people are learning it the hard way.

If you're in the home improvement or home services business, congratulations - you're already committed. If you want to thrive in this business, TruCoach is built to shorten the road to scaling, growing and sustaining it. The right answers, from people who've actually been there.

The TruCoach Podcast is brought to you by Truvolv - digital marketing and business coaching experts built exclusively for the home improvement industry. TruCoach is Truvolv's mentorship program: real-world guidance from people who've actually built, scaled, and exited home improvement companies so you can skip the hard lessons they’ve already learned and get to growth faster. Learn more and have your lightbulb moment at truvolve.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to the TrueCoach Podcast, where you'll find industry-specific actionable methods to help you build a supercharged home improvement or home services business. From leads to leadership, we exist to help you and your team successfully grow. TrueCoach is your single source of truth for organizations looking to scale. Brought to you by TrueVolve. You'll get exclusive access to leaders who have been there and done that. And the wisdom that only comes from experience. Proven strategies for you and your team to implement.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

This is TrueCoach the podcast. I'm Chris Bentliff, and I'm so excited to start. What I am envisioning is a saga of conversations with legends in this industry. I am joined by Eric Bonner, who is an investor and chief growth officer at TrueVolve. I am joined by Brian Gottlieb, who's one of the founders and investors at TrueVolve. And guys, so exciting. We've been talking about this. We've been talking about the energy that we have around this. It's an opportunity here to kind of introduce ourselves, I think, to an audience who might know us, but also many who don't. And I think, Eric, I just want to give us the 10,000-foot view of TrueVolve so that we can kind of start to talk then about well, what is TrueCoach and what is TrueCoach the podcast? So welcome, guys. And Eric, tell us a little bit about TrueVolve.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, thank you, Chris. Um, so TrueVolve is a full digital marketing agency, and we really start by specializing and building the fastest loading websites in the industry, all based on conversion models. So the architecture and the design to convert as many leads as possible. But we're really powered and specialized with SEO strategy and campaigns and also campaigns in paid media. But what we're also super excited about, I think this is really important. What I think really sets us apart is an online learning management platform called TrueCoach, where we can help companies really build and scale their businesses beyond digital lead generation. And that's something I'm excited to talk about today here with Brian. We know that a lot of businesses get stuck, right? So lead generation aside, how do businesses get stuck and what do they do when they're stuck? So, Brian, if I could kind of turn it over to you for a second. Yeah. You've built a many different businesses. Tell me, like, where do businesses get stuck and what do you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, it's a great question. I appreciate the time here today. Well, it's interesting. Look, I think in many ways, the entrepreneur is growing a business and we're building the airplane while we're flying it at the same time. And we don't necessarily know where to find the right answers when questions come up. There's a lot of noise out there on social media. And I think the advantage to TrueCoach is we wanted to create a platform where people can find the right answers. You know, I look, I've stepped in plenty of bear traps along my way of building a business. When I when I started my company with$3,000 on a plastic folding table, to when I exited all my companies at$150 million in revenue with 600 employees, it wasn't a straight line to get there. There were a lot, a lot of bumps along the way. So if we can help other business owners avoid those bumps that we've already stepped in, well, I think that's the way to really help a business. And the reason is it's so important is I learned a long time ago that if I really want to grow a business, I first have to grow the capabilities of the people on my team. Because an organization can't outperform the team's capabilities. If we really want to build a business, well, let's start by building people. And that's really what TrueCoach is all about. Tell me a little bit, you guys.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Um kind of home improvement uh professionals is kind of the sweet spot for TrueVolve and TrueCoach. And my perspective there is like a lot of us, we started the business because we're pretty good at the thing, carpentry or building or engineering, or we've kind of got a craftsmanship about us or something. Or we were working in somebody else's shop and thought, you know what, we could do it different, or we could do it better. That does not necessarily mean I'm great at business, or I'm great at understanding how to grow, or I'm great at understanding the challenges of pitfall. And so there comes kind of like an expected cost of business, which is the trial and error, which is the fall on your face and pick yourself up. Do you agree with that? And and do you envision true coach as kind of a remedy to that? We can shortcut that. We can eliminate a lot of your stub toes if you can if you can sort of tap into this wealth of knowledge and insight that we have. Eric, what's your perspective on what I'm sharing?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah, so um great perspective, great questions. And and I do want to say that the ownership group, and Brian and I are part of that, are all focused, we only focus, I should say, in the home improvement space. So no matter how you get started, um, our TrueVolve can help you. We focus in the home improvement industry, and that's where we're gonna spend all of our time and trying to grow that. But it doesn't really matter how somebody got in this industry. And I'll just say so, I've I but I'm not a digital lead generation expert. I've been in this space now for 27 years, but I work for three leading manufacturers. So on sales and marketing on the manufacturing side, I've been in hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses, and I've seen people start anywhere from how Mr. Gottlieb got started, it's which is a very interesting story, how he built a home improvement company. And no matter where you are in that journey, congratulations to you for being a home improvement owner. But where do you go when you do get what I talked about earlier? Uh, get stuck. What type of peer group do you have? And and who are you leaning on? What type of network do you have to scale your business? And I think that's where True Coach really comes in.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Oh, go ahead. Well, I was gonna say you mentioned earlier social media, and and as Eric's talking, one of the first things I'm thinking is uh a lot of people are going to Reddit or somewhere where they can ask others that are going through in their minds the same thing, and and they might be in the same kind of station. Yeah, why is that a problem or why is that not a problem? And and and how do you kind of how do you piggyback off of what Eric was sharing around this, wherever you're starting, we can we can be a part of that.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah, well, look, running a three million dollar business is very different than running a$10 million business and a$20 million business and a$100 million business. The team you need is different, the the the challenges that the CEO has, and in many ways, I'll share with you as my business was growing. There were times where I questioned, what is my role in this business? What am I really supposed to be focusing on at this particular level? And unless and until you have people that have actually been there and done that, that you that you know and trust in the industry, you know, it's hard to find those right answers, you know. And and it and it is true that a lot of us we fall into these businesses. It's not like we went to Harvard Business School and came out with a plan on how to open up a window company or a bath company or a roofing company. We probably worked for somebody and maybe they were a jerk. So we started doing it on our own. We gained a little bit of traction. Before you know it, we have to hire a couple of people. And next thing you know, we've got a business that we're trying to run. And there's a big difference when we start to really run a business in the early days of business, it's especially when you first start an organization, the success of the business comes down to how well the founder can execute on anything. But once you start hiring people and building your team, now the success of the business comes down to how well do your teams execute and how well are they doing when you're watching and when nobody's looking. And that that and that means that we have to develop people and we need the right systems and processes and strategy and all those sorts of things that really comes from a lot of experience. And uh just to go, just to add to this, look, sometimes it's not a matter of how do you how do I go from one million to three million? Maybe I'm doing$10 million and I want to open up another location, but but how do I think about my business that way? Do I do a hub and spoke model? What should live in this in this branch and what should live at the hub? Or maybe I want to take on another product. How do I make it a focus and not a distraction? Or maybe I want to forecast my business for the next 12 months so that the organization can hit targets with a high level of certainty. What do I need to be excellent at in order to make that happen? These are just some of the subjects that we're going to go really deep in on TrueCoach. And I'm super excited because I truly believe, you know, Eric, you've got so much knowledge in this industry. You've seen so many, you've seen so many successes, and I'm sure you've seen your fair share of people that have stubbed their toe that I think we're uniquely qualified to really just help you grow a good business. And that's that's kind of our focus.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, and and Brian, you know, if we've talked a lot about this. So when you started your business, I bet you'd say for the first five years of your business, you would have considered yourself a construction company, right? Correct. Yeah. Whatever the widget was, you're a construction company or you're a home improvement company. And then after that, what were you? You were a lead generation company, right? It's all about leads. We got to get leads, and we obviously can help you without a true valve, right? But it's all about leads. And I found it all just so interesting when you speak now. It's towards the end of your career at all the businesses that you had, not your career, but of the as a business owner, you are a training and development company, right? You are developing people. That's what's so important. And what I see, um what I what I what I've seen throughout my career here going into different businesses are people just not developing the right people. There's too much ownership on the owner, right? There's not enough delegation, but there's not enough opportunity that I see people developing other people and departments within their company.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Well, and and we default to unintentionally, we default to as a as a as a business owner to micromanagement, right? We're trying to hit that target, we become the bottleneck, we unintentionally become micromanagers when in fact we have to empower people if we really want to grow. And as I wrote in my book, you know, leaders model their business as a training organization. And it is true that if you can train and develop your team into a high performance team, look, I'm one of the investors in True Valve. Do I want you to have more leads? Of course I do. But sometimes before you're ready for more leads, we need to say, are we processing the ones we have to the best of our ability today? And then we can scale. When you scale a broken business, you end up with a bigger broken business. So look, if we can help you get your infrastructure and your systems and processes correct and even your business disciplines, then you're really being set up for success.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

There's just a ton of wisdom in so much of what you guys are saying. And a lot of it strikes me. One is um so many of us, what you're saying, I kind of describe as hard work and hustle. That's that's that's what gets me from here to the first whatever million or two or$500,000 or$100. But it's me and the relationships I have and the reputation that I've earned or built as a founder, and many of us never get out of that. So we hit some some ceiling because we are in the business. We're not on the business. So we're we're we're fighting fires and we're trying to solve this, and we're out there swinging a hammer sometimes or doing whatever. What I hear you saying is true coach can help you if that's where you are. And if you want to get past that next thing, we can help you there. But then, Brian, you you bring up interesting things of, but if you're in a more mature space and you're you're that's not who you are. You're not trying to, what are the small moves you can make, the thrusters that you can fire to go from here to just three degrees that way, but that three degrees is really important. How do you combine that expertise? How, how, how are you adept at talking to me when I'm kind of like, I don't know if this is for me because I'm kind of I don't know. Is this I'm am I too new? Am I too young? Am I too inexperienced? Versus, look, I've been here for 20 years and I'm really facing some things that I can see are part of my legacy. Can you help me there? How do you guys do all of those things?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah. So so look, I I mentor a lot of people in this industry today. I choose to, that's where I choose to volunteer my time to give back to an industry that's done so well for me. But and I and I love it because when you can make a positive impact uh in in in an organization, that ripple effect is tremendous. And what I've learned is you just have to meet people where they are. You really do. You have to meet them where they are, you have to honor and respect where they are and help them and understand what is that one thing they need to start focusing on to get to the next level. You know, I speak at conferences all over the country, and I always like asking people, how many of you raise your hand if you need to do a better job documenting your systems and processes? And all the hands go up. Everybody needs, and and if you just focus on social media, they tell you that's what's important. Well, the truth is, what's more important are your business disciplines. Like, what are your core disciplines by department? And I'll give you an example a marketing discipline, the lead is sacred. That is a business discipline. Okay, we can talk about the system and process we need to treat it that way, but we have to start with the discipline. Or another discipline is when we're done with a job, we get paid in full. That's a good business discipline. We can then talk about what kind of systems and processes we need to get there. Now, disciplines are timeless. And I think at any stage in an organization, it's important to revisit, even if you're a million-dollar company or a$50 million company, are we honoring the core disciplines of our business? And does everybody know what they are? Because if they know what the disciplines are and you don't have your systems and processes correct yet, you'll still be better off because of it.

SPEAKER_03 12:48

Eric, there are people listening that are right now saying, What? Business discipline? Hold on, what? I'm not thinking about any of those things. I'm just trying to get to the next job, or I'm just trying to survive this or survive that. How do we how do we connect the dots to those folks so that one, they're not intimidated by things that they don't understand, but two, they start to understand, or as Brian is describing, the nuances of success is in the leadership, not in just the leads.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, sometimes it's just understanding what questions to have, right? And Brian's been very instrumental to me on what questions to have when we talk to businesses together. But it's for people that are intimidated, don't be. Again, I always say, congratulations, you're a home improvement owner, and and there's you should be proud of that. So now that what what is the next step? Making sure everybody in your organization, and that could just be you and your wife, or that could be a team of uh, you know, a hundred or more people, does everybody understand which department they're working on and what that mission is in that department to support the overall vision of the company? And whatever your disciplines are, write them down. You might think they're wrong, but you should document your disciplines and your processes. Yeah, you can always change them, but you have to document them so people with uh within your organization kind of know which which way they're pulling on that rope so that everybody's pulling in the right direction. Um, but asking for help is huge. Just being able to ask the questions uh um and have that support network. Like, who are you leaning on your vendors? Like I obviously at TrueVolve, we have the True Coach platform and we have other ways that we can help you out. But your other suppliers, your manufacturers, are you leaning on them for support? There's so much knowledge in this industry. Who are you leaning on and what groups are you leaning on to ask, hey, I'm stuck here, I need help. So that's sometimes just asking the questions is really a way to get started.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah, I would add to that that look, it's very easy when you're trying to scale a business to have a chaotic business. It's it's it's almost like normal, right? And what I've learned about chaos is while chaos might produce revenue, it's discipline that produces profit. And and and shifting to that mindset. And and often the first mindset that needs to change is ours, right? We have to change the way we approach our business. We have to change who we are and how we show up every day. You know, and and and when we start thinking about ourselves the right way, then we can start thinking about the business the right way.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

Brian, that is gold. That is tell tell me a little bit about the origin story of True Coach. Like, were you were you working with so many teams on your marketing side, and and just again and again and again you thought, well, hold on, people were not asking the right questions or we're bumping into the same issue. Like, where did this idea of we really need mentorship, folks, for these people to really succeed? Where did that germ of an idea kind of come from and how did it flourish?

SPEAKER_00 15:30

It was really on day one. In fact, it was Eric, myself, it was Chris Beehan, the president of the organization, and uh Vincent Anthony Nardo. We were all kind of brainstorming what we wanted this business to become. What when we in the early days before we launched it, we wanted to create, we wanted to create a business that was more than just a vendor. We wanted to weave ourselves into the fabric of the organizations that we serve, helping them become better organizations in general. And because we believe that the better they are as an organization, the in all fairness, the more business they're gonna do with True Valve. But but what are the gaps that they are they're seeing now? How can we really take our experience and and leverage that to help other companies grow? And look, I think I think we're we're really proud of what we've accomplished, and yet we're still just at the beginning, and there's a whole lot more to do.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

I think we're just that's so well said, just scratching the surface. And also, um so so think about this. When we have companies that say, hey, I have um X budget and I want to generate 100 leads a month with this budget, can you do that? And and and let's say we can do that. Yeah, that makes sense, and we can do that. If I generated 100 leads for company Y, Joe's Joe's construction in this market, and then 100 leads with that same budget in another market, that one company might say, Hey, these leads weren't that great, and the other company would say, Oh my gosh, these were the best leads I ever had. I need can you generate 200 next month? Well, what we found is that maybe there's issues in the call center. Maybe we have a sales model issue, maybe maybe we're not getting the product installed on time. So we with the with the uh ownership group that we have, we knew, hey, we can help companies outside of just generating leads. How can we help companies maybe be more efficient with the leads that we're generating? So that's really uh something that we think is super important again, finding sort of maybe a leakage on a call center, or how can we make an apartment more efficient so that so they can maximize any leads that we're generating?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

I'd like to add what Eric was speaking about. And it's important to understand that true coach isn't just for the business owner. Okay. We recommend that you share the content with your team because we want the managers and the leaders of departments and all these people really understanding because because it is very specific to the different departments too, that the more you can train and develop your team and create an aligned organization around what best practices are, the better the business is going to grow. And and that's good for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Is there a process or a structure? Is it all very sort of bespoke, or are you able to kind of I come to you and I say, Team, I'd I'd like to explore true coaching. Do you kind of say, well, let's start here with this conversation, or let's start with these. Can you answer these 10 questions? Like what's the 10,000-foot easy answer to what's it like to get going?

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, well, we we wanted to, we we've started to put it in this content in buckets. So maybe there's a marketing bucket or a sales bucket or a leadership bucket or a or a compensation bucket. So we can get into topics around, you know, very specific areas of the business, or you know, the best practices in accounting principles, all those sorts of things, or a growth bucket, or a bucket on how to properly forecast your business. But I think that this way people can go in and out of content as they need it. And we think that's really helpful for the members of True Evolve, but really for anybody.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Eric, why is this exciting to you? Like why is this why is this exciting for you as a as an investor, as a business owner, as a pro who's been doing this a long, long time, making making all kinds of decisions, big and small? Why is this particular thing something you want to do?

SPEAKER_01 18:55

It's a great question, and I'm very passionate about it. It's truly helping people grow their business and helping people realize the dreams, whatever those are for the business, and then helping make departments and helping develop people more efficient for that business owner. So it's it's truly win-win. Um, and we just a little fact here. We we we don't call our customers customers or clients, we call them members. So we're constantly asking our members, what can we do for TrueCoach to make it better for you? Members come to us, they're already on a on a true speed website with us, and we might be managing SEO or a paid media campaign, and then they'll say, Hey, I'm I'm really interested in a 10-step selling system, or do you have finance partners that we should reach out to? Or do you have any other lead generation ideas outside of digital marketing, maybe best practices for home shows or or television? So again, we want to be able to help. It's just outside of what we might normally do. We want to make their business efficient, and it's about helping people. And those relationships are important. I hear a lot, again, being fairly new in the digital marketing industry, I've been in the industry a long time, but within digital marketing, I hear a lot of times people say, I don't have a relationship with my current vendor. I don't have a good relationship, or my marketing manager doesn't have a good relationship. We thrive on relationships. We want to have those relationships, not just owner to owner, right? We want to have a marketing manager to SEO department, marketing manager to an expert on our on our paid media team. Those relationships matter, and that's how that's win-win, and that's how companies are going to scale their business. It's super important.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Brian, you mentioned um Chris Bihan, you mentioned the Nardo's. Uh Eric just talked about a lot of interesting things. Um, what's our vision here for True Coach the Podcast? We want to touch on a lot of these things, right? Like what's the future in store for us? I want to hit subscribe because why?

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Yeah. We want to, my belief is we want to be the single source of truth for the industry on how to properly grow a healthy business and how to properly grow people. And if we can do that well, I think we're gonna win. And I look, you know, I it it's amazing. When when we're growing a business, it it can be somewhat frustrating and it can lead to sleepless nights and all of those sorts of things, right? But but it's also true that when you get it right and when you're able to not just forecast your business, but hit those forecasted targets with a high level of certainty, and you're growing people and you're growing an organization and you're seeing people that you've hired and now buying a house for the first time, and because it doesn't matter what kind of school people go to, what kind of education they have, what kind of car they drive, they can have the life of their dreams if they show up with the right attitude, energy, and training. And and when you do all those things right, you know, and I'm speaking to the business owner right now, that you will learn very much like I learned, that the two most important days of our lives are the day that we're born and the day we finally figure out why.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Guys, I can't thank you enough. Just what a what an energetic way. I'm kind of buzzing right now. Uh, what a great way to start the the this this series. And True Coach the Podcast. I can't wait for the next episode and the one after that and the one after that. And just uh all the learning and sort of of companionship and ambassadorship and mentorship that TrueCoach and TrueCoach the Podcast can be part of. Thank you, Eric Bonner, Brian Gottlieb of TrueVolve. The road is wide and we're moving down fast. Thank you. Let's go get it. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

You've been tapped into the True Coach Podcast from TrueVolve. Home improvement and home services experts helping professionals like you get better results faster. Subscribe and follow on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts for more expert insights. From digital marketing to business coaching, TrueVolve is dedicated to helping your business grow. Learn more and have your light bulb moment at TrueVolve.com.