AI Search and the Death of Old-School Marketing for Home Service Businesses
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Release Date: 05/13/2026
The Moneyball for Home Services: How You Can Catch the Jobs You’re Missing
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most contractors think they need more leads. But what if the real problem is that you’re already missing the jobs you paid to generate? In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Shaun Ritchey from Breezy to talk about Moneyball for home services and how contractors can use AI, better data, and smarter systems to uncover the jobs hiding inside their existing business. Just like Moneyball changed baseball by finding overlooked value in the data, this conversation shows how contractors can find overlooked revenue in missed calls, slow follow-up,...
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The Guide to Branding and Networking for Service Business Owners
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most service business owners are chasing the next lead source. Google Ads. Facebook Ads. AI. SEO. Automation. But sometimes the fastest way to grow is still the most old-school strategy in the book: getting out into your community, shaking hands, building trust, and making sure people remember your brand. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Chuck Worley, owner of Worley’s Home Services, to talk about branding, networking, reputation, and the real-world grind behind building a service business people know, trust, and refer. Chuck shares...
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Consistent Branding Can Solve Your Hiring and Growth Headaches
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most contractors think branding is about logos, colors, and marketing. It's not. The strongest brands in the trades do something much more powerful: they attract great employees, create loyal customers, and make growth easier. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Levi Torres, founder of High 5 Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electric, to discuss how consistent branding became the foundation for one of Colorado's fastest-growing home service companies. What started as a simple idea—a high five at the end of every service call—evolved...
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How AI Actually Solves the Real Call Center Headaches in Home Services
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most home service companies don't have a lead problem. They have a follow-up problem. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Kevin Wu, founder of Leaping AI, to discuss how AI voice agents and automation are helping home service businesses solve some of their biggest call center challenges. From missed calls and slow follow-up times to after-hours booking and lead nurturing, Kevin shares how AI is being used as a practical tool to support customer service teams, improve speed-to-lead, and create better customer experiences without...
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How Top Trades Businesses Use AI and Systems to End Recruiting Pain
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most contractors don't have a recruiting problem. They have a recruiting system problem. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Paul Sanneman, founder of Contractor Staffing Source, to discuss how top home service companies are using systems, assessments, and AI-powered recruiting tools to consistently find better employees. After helping more than 2,000 contractors and recruiting over 2,500 successful hires, Paul shares the biggest recruiting mistakes contractors make and why most hiring challenges are self-inflicted. The conversation...
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How Contractors Use Air Curtains to Solve Costly Building Challenges
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Most contractors walk past air curtains every day without realizing how much money they can save commercial buildings. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Curtis Rosol from Mars Air Systems to break down how air curtains work and why they’ve become a powerful solution for energy savings, indoor air quality, and insect control in commercial spaces. From convenience stores and restaurants to cold storage facilities and warehouses, Curtis explains how air curtains create an invisible barrier that keeps conditioned air inside while...
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How Service Businesses Can Stop Losing Skilled Workers
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
The skilled labor shortage isn’t just a hiring problem. It’s a perception problem. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Ruchir Shah, founder of SkillCat, to discuss why home service companies are struggling to attract and retain skilled workers and what the industry can do about it. Ruchir shares how his background in workforce training led him to build SkillCat, an online trade training platform helping people transition into HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and appliance repair careers. If your company struggles with hiring,...
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AI Search and the Death of Old-School Marketing for Home Service Businesses
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
The way homeowners search for HVAC, plumbing, and home service companies is changing fast. And most contractors are completely unprepared for it. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett sits down with Phil Risher from Phlash Consulting to discuss the massive shift from traditional Google SEO to AI-powered search and what it means for home service businesses. Phil explains why AI search is changing how customers find contractors, why conversational search matters more than keywords, and how tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews are disrupting traditional...
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How Storytelling Can Solve Your Skilled Trades Recruiting Crisis
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett and Joshua Crouch sit down with Ryan Kiscaden, owner of Kiscaden Consulting and creator of the Next Up Trades children’s book series, to discuss how storytelling can reshape the future of recruiting in the trades. Ryan shares how a conversation with his plumber brother-in-law sparked the idea to create books that explain HVAC and plumbing to children in a way they can understand and connect with emotionally. Instead of focusing only on wages, debt, and job security, Ryan believes the industry needs to tell a better...
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How to Optimize and Automate Your Home Service Business
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Most home service business owners are excited about automation, AI, and new technology. But here’s the problem… They’re implementing tools before fixing their processes. In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett sits down with Nathan Whittacre, CEO of Stimulus Technologies, to break down what actually works when it comes to optimizing and automating your business. Nathan shares decades of experience helping companies implement technology the right way and explains why most tech investments fail. What You Will Learn in This Episode Why automation without optimization...
info_outlineThe way homeowners search for HVAC, plumbing, and home service companies is changing fast. And most contractors are completely unprepared for it.
In this episode of Service Business Mastery, Tersh Blissett sits down with Phil Risher from Phlash Consulting to discuss the massive shift from traditional Google SEO to AI-powered search and what it means for home service businesses.
Phil explains why AI search is changing how customers find contractors, why conversational search matters more than keywords, and how tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews are disrupting traditional marketing strategies.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
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Why old-school SEO is no longer enough
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How AI search actually works
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Why Google is moving toward “agentic search” and booking
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How to optimize your website for AI visibility
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Why pricing pages and online scheduling matter more than ever
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How contractors should use call transcripts to create content
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Why AI-generated “slop content” can hurt your rankings
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How local backlinks and authority still matter
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What contractors should be doing right now to stay ahead
If you want your company to stay visible in the next generation of search, this episode is a must-listen.
Timestamps
00:00 Impact of AI on search queries
06:14 Shift in local search habits
09:00 Navigating AI for presentations
12:38 Debating the relevance of SEO
16:13 Using AI for customer insights
18:58 Importance of local backlinks
20:58 Building partner referral networks
24:15 Optimizing for AI search ranking
27:51 Importance of online recognition
32:29 Creating a searchable business database
33:34 Initial struggles with Notebook LM
39:10 Comparing Google and LLM relationships
42:35 Measuring AI visibility metrics
44:37 Navigating the AI search landscape
46:21 Dealing with AI memory glitches
Follow the Host and Guest
Tersh Blissett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tershblissett/
Phil Risher: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philrisher/
Connect with Us
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