Accounting Doesn’t Have to Suck | HVAC Business Finance Tips w/ Spencer Sheinin CPA
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Release Date: 11/15/2023
How to Grow a Home Service Business by Buying Competitors, Not Ads | Alex Smereczniak
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
How to grow a home service business is usually pitched as one thing: spend more on marketing. Alex Smereczniak has a faster, cheaper answer most owners never consider. As co-founder and CEO of Franzy and a serial entrepreneur who scaled 2ULaundry and sold 118 franchise locations, he has bought, built, and financed businesses more ways than almost anyone. In this episode, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Alex to unpack how to grow through acquisition instead of ads, why the wrong business partner is the number one reason companies fail, and how to finance a deal using tools most...
info_outline
Winning the Messy Middle: Home Services Marketing in the AI Era | MarketStorm
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Home services marketing has a hidden battleground, and most owners never fund it. It is the messy middle, the 40 to 100 days a homeowner spends circling a project before they ever search your name. Rick Brown and Carole Lawson of MarketStorm have spent years mapping that window, and what happens inside it decides who gets the call. In this episode, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Rick, CEO and co-founder of MarketStorm, and Carole, its co-founder and chief data officer and a Harvard-trained data scientist, to break down how buyer behavior changed after the pandemic and why the...
info_outline
How One Focus Every 90 Days Scales Your Business | Josh Zolin
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Doing more does not scale your business. It stalls it. Diluted focus gets you diluted results, and the owners who grow fastest are usually the ones doing fewer things, not more. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Josh Zolin, CEO of Windy City Equipment Service and author of Blue is the New White, on how one simple shift, a single company wide focus every 90 days, took the guesswork out of hitting his goals. Josh breaks down how he points his entire company, from himself to the parts runner, at one goal each quarter, why focusing on less...
info_outline
Why Your Techs Are Losing Sales in 2026 | Justin Riley
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Service Scout (14 day free trial): This is the toughest year to close a sale in home services since 2008. Equipment costs more than ever, credit is tighter, and the customers calling for a replacement are the hardest ones to sell. The problem usually is not your leads. It is what happens when your technician walks in the door. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Justin Riley, CEO and founder of UpFrog, for a straight read on the 2026 home services market and how the best companies are still closing jobs hand over fist. Justin breaks...
info_outline
Systems That Outlast You: Building a Trades Business for Generations
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most companies do not last. A huge share of the biggest names in the world vanish within a few decades. The Smith & Oby Company has been running since 1898. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Jake Wattenbarger, president of Smith & Oby, a Foundral brand, a Cleveland mechanical contractor that has stayed relevant for 125 years by reading the market before it forces the issue, and by building systems and a culture that outlast any one person. Jake spent nearly a decade as an Army logistics officer before the trades, and it shows....
info_outline
How to Beat Private Equity Without Selling | Zach Cooper-Vastola
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Private equity is buying up home service companies and quietly gutting the good ones, and most owners think their only options are to sell or get outspent. There is a third one. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Zach Cooper-Vastola, co-founder of Hickory, who has bought and built home service companies across the tri-state to roughly 350 people and 80 million dollars in revenue, without ever running them from an ivory tower. Zach breaks down how he keeps technicians from walking out the door after an acquisition, why he...
info_outline
How Home Service Pros Hit 20% Net Margin | Profitability Partners
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most home service businesses keep just 5 to 12% net profit, and most owners have no idea that is where they are. The best run HVAC, plumbing, and electrical shops keep 20%, and the gap almost always comes down to a few fixable mistakes. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Matthew Mooney and Raymond Gong of Profitability Partners, a fractional CFO firm that spent years on the private equity side of the table and now helps owners find the profit already hiding in their business. They break down the real gross profit benchmarks for every...
info_outline
How AI Is Changing HVAC (Without Replacing Techs) | Chris Plunkett
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
AI is not coming for your techs. It is coming for the busywork, the missed calls, and the guesswork that quietly eats your margin. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett sits down with Chris Plunkett, a Tucson HVAC owner who has been in the trade since he was eight years old, to talk about what using AI in an HVAC business actually looks like day to day. They get into how Chris turned home inspections from a loss leader into one of his highest paying jobs, why his AI voice agent books calls so well that customers swear they were talking to a person, and the simple pay...
info_outline
Stop Missing Calls: The Real Reason Home Service Leads Disappear
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most home service companies do not have a lead problem. They have a missed-call problem. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Chris Nelson, Senior Manager of Vertical Marketing at CallRail, to talk about why home service leads disappear, how missed calls turn into lost revenue, and what contractors can do to better understand what is happening inside their call flow. This conversation is not just about answering the phone faster. It is about understanding where your leads come from, how they move through your business, and where good...
info_outline
How to Grow Your Business with Sales Process and Technique
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most contractors want more leads, more booked calls, and more revenue. But if your sales process is inconsistent, more leads will only expose the problem faster. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Josh Martin, Director of Revenue Strategy at 3Four Labs, to talk about how service businesses can grow by building a stronger sales framework, improving technician coaching, and using AI-powered tools the right way. Josh explains why AI and automation are only useful when your company already knows what “good” looks like. If your...
info_outlineIf you are passionate about your skilled trades service business but struggle to see it grow, or if you're simply curious about running a successful service enterprise, this episode of the Service Business Mastery Podcast is for you!
In this episode, "Accounting Doesn't Have to Suck," hosts Tersh Blisset and Joshua Crouch engage with guest Spencer Sheinin, CEO and Founder of Shift Financial Insights, in a deep dive into the world of accounting, and how as daunting as it may appear, it doesn't have to suck!
They explore hiring problems often faced by small and medium-sized businesses and how hiring the wrong person for accounting can result in lost opportunities. They discuss the role of AI in bookkeeping, financial analysis, and how it may not necessarily be the ideal option for smaller businesses with unique scenarios.
Tersh, Josh, and Spencer inspire others with their personal stories of business finance, including Spencer's transformative shift in mindset towards numbers.
If you've ever been overwhelmed by financial statements, Spencer's take on using data visualization techniques for better understanding and data interpretation is a game-changer.
Also, make sure to look out for the invaluable advice from Sheinin's book, "Entreprenumbers," of which we are giving away copies after the interview. It's an absolute must-read for entrepreneurs looking to demystify their financials and gain the knowledge to make effective business decisions.
This episode is full of insights, practical advice, and money-saving tips for anyone in a service business. Don't miss out!
SHOW NOTES
01:59 Justin hosts giveaway and offers script for success.
04:11 Copeland offers valuable compressor diagnostics training.
08:58 Struggling to keep up, correcting formulas, light bulb moment.
12:20 Not a certified accountant. HVAC career started accidentally.
14:14 Accounting department struggles due to inadequate staffing.
17:15 Financials are backwards looking, but budgets and cash flows can be forward looking. Looking backwards helps identify what's not working and the root causes. The 80 20 rule applies to most problems. Understanding the right information helps identify issues like a 3% decrease in average margin.
20:14 AI accounting benefits big companies, not small.
24:16 Increase sales, decrease costs, analyze divisions.
26:01 Forward vs. backward analysis in HVAC operations.
30:46 Managing labor is crucial in every industry, particularly this industry. Analyzing labor as a percentage of sales can indicate if it's going in the wrong direction. Our brains process information visually, so financial information should be presented in pictures instead of letters and numbers. For example, when determining the current percentage of receivables, the accounts receivable aging report is commonly used.
34:27 Book version of tips/tools for implementation.
36:38 Great ideas shared with like-minded business coaches.
39:22 Impressive intro video. Tersh's amazing shoes.
Resources And People Mentioned:
Connect With Spencer on LinkedIn Here! Or check out his book’s website via entreprenumbers.com.
This episode is kindly sponsored by:
- Sera (visit their website)
- UpFrog (visit their website)
- Copeland (visit their website).
- CompanyCam (visit their website) Visit www.companycam.com/SBM and use code SBM for a free 2-week trial, 1:1 training and account setup, and 50% off your first two months!
- Interplay Learning (visit their website)
- Join the Service Business Mastery Facebook group
Affiliate Links:
- Castmagic - https://get.castmagic.io/SBM
- StreamYard - https://streamyard.com/pal/c/4524595769507840
- CallRail - https://partners.callrail.com/relentless-digital
- IfTTT- 10 Percent off! - https://ifttt.com/join?referral_code=BoERPHYVbCFE-C7okWNiClo3ygLafRze
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tershblissett/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tershblissett/support