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#479 How NS Builders Built a Massive Following While Building Luxury Homes

Contractor Growth Network

Release Date: 02/18/2026

#493 Hiring, Firing, and Hard Conversations (ft. Squirrel Solutions) show art #493 Hiring, Firing, and Hard Conversations (ft. Squirrel Solutions)

Contractor Growth Network

Most remodelers call an HR person when something is already on fire. Somebody quit, somebody needs to be fired, or a role has been empty for three months and the owner is covering it at 9pm. In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan Shinholser sits down with Bryan Williams, owner of Squirrel Solutions, a fractional HR and operations firm working with remodelers and custom builders across the country. Bryan's whole premise is that the hire is almost never the actual problem. When an owner calls him about a designer or a project manager, his first move is to figure out...

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#492 4 Stories to Add to Your Sales Toolbelt (ft. Mark Dixon) show art #492 4 Stories to Add to Your Sales Toolbelt (ft. Mark Dixon)

Contractor Growth Network

Shownotes Most sales training tells you to talk about your past projects. Mark Dixon talks about spaghetti. In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan Shinholser sits down with Mark Dixon, co-owner of Odd Fellows Contracting in Michigan and a remodeler with more than 40 years in the trade. Logan first heard Mark speak at the Rise Conference earlier this year and expected a talk about project storytelling. Instead he got Italian food. Mark walks through the three analogies he actually uses in the field: the spaghetti dinner that explains why nobody can price an addition...

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#491 Marketing Your Job to Sell the Next One (RISE Summit '26) show art #491 Marketing Your Job to Sell the Next One (RISE Summit '26)

Contractor Growth Network

Your next project is probably within a mile of the one you're finishing right now. In this live session, Logan Shinholser breaks down how to systematically market the neighborhood you're already working in. It starts with a story about his neighbor Bo — a basement remodel, a nerdy Gantt chart, a Friday pizza party, and four of that contractor's yard signs appearing within a half mile over the next few months. The problem with the Bo model is that it depends on Bo. So the whole session is about taking what happens offline, by luck, and rebuilding it as something you actually control. Logan...

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#490 Answering Remodeler's Top Photography Questions show art #490 Answering Remodeler's Top Photography Questions

Contractor Growth Network

How do you find a good remodeling photographer — and once you've found them, how do you actually get photos worth paying for? In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Aaron Horner sits down with Luke Strappelli, a CGN client success manager, to answer the photography questions that come up over and over from remodeling clients. Aaron spent years traveling to shoot on-location photography for CGN clients and has been building a full photography guide, so this one gets tactical. They cover what actually separates a good photo from a bad one (spoiler: it's not just camera...

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#489 Your Remodeling Business' Marketing Strategy for 2027 show art #489 Your Remodeling Business' Marketing Strategy for 2027

Contractor Growth Network

A year ago, in episode 466, we laid out the entire six-step marketing strategy for a remodeling company. A lot has changed since — the market has slowed, AI search has gone from a curiosity to a real force, and the tactics that used to move the needle have shifted. In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan Shinholser and Aaron Horner give you a "State of the Union" on what CGN is now doing differently for its remodeling clients, and why. The foundation hasn't changed: know your ideal client and their real problem, articulate how you solve it, back it up with strong...

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# 488 AI Tools Built BY REMODELERS (ft. Data X) show art # 488 AI Tools Built BY REMODELERS (ft. Data X)

Contractor Growth Network

Everyone keeps telling contractors they’ll be out of business in six months if they don’t adopt AI. The reality is calmer than that—and a lot more useful. In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan Shinholser sits down with Peter Ranney and Elliott Wittstruck, the founders of DataX, an AI optimization company built specifically for contractors running JobTread. Peter and Elliott come from the remodeling world themselves, and DataX started as a hodgepodge of tools they built to solve their own problems—Peter brute-forcing automations in Zapier, Elliott writing code...

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#487 Branding for the Billion Dollar Client (ft. Vought Construction) show art #487 Branding for the Billion Dollar Client (ft. Vought Construction)

Contractor Growth Network

Everybody says they do "high end." Almost nobody looks the part. In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan sits down with Devin Vought of Vought Construction — JobTread's 2025 Builder of the Year and a luxury home builder in the Bay Area whose clients are routinely worth hundreds of millions, sometimes billions. Devin breaks down what branding actually means when your prospects can buy anything they want. It's not the logo or the tagline. It's the client journey he's engineered behind the scenes — the demo-day party, the handmade pastries waiting for a client flying...

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#486 How to Get Cited by ChatGPT, Gemini & Claude in 90 Days show art #486 How to Get Cited by ChatGPT, Gemini & Claude in 90 Days

Contractor Growth Network

Is your remodeling company being recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude — or would you even know if it was? In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan sits down with Patrick Sculley, CGN's in-house SEO lead, to walk through a 90-day plan for getting cited in AI search. They start with the basics — what "cited" actually means, why personalization is making AI results different for every searcher, and why the old SEO formula of "more reviews + more backlinks = trust" doesn't hold the same weight anymore. Then they break the 90 days into three sprints. Days...

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#485 JobTread's Founder on AI, Automation, and The Future of Remodeling show art #485 JobTread's Founder on AI, Automation, and The Future of Remodeling

Contractor Growth Network

What's the one thing in your business you wish could be automated? In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan sits down with Eric Fortenberry — founder and CEO of JobTread — to dig into how AI is reshaping the way contractors run their businesses, and where the real risks are hiding underneath the hype. JobTread just rolled out a feature that lets contractors connect their own AI model directly into their JobTread account, and within two weeks over 1,500 users had spun up Claude and wired it in. Eric walks through what's working, what's blowing up in people's faces...

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#484 The Anatomy of a Great Remodeling Testimonial show art #484 The Anatomy of a Great Remodeling Testimonial

Contractor Growth Network

How well does your company share stories of your past work? Many remodeling companies know that client testimonials are important, but are wasting the opportunity because of a lack of understanding around what a testimonial is supposed to do. In this episode Logan and Aaron are breaking some of the most impactful lessons they've learned over the years making impactful testimonials that actually sell more work. They walk through why most testimonial videos fail, the biggest mistakes contractors make when trying to capture them, and what it actually takes to create a video that builds trust and...

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More Episodes

Logan sits down with Nick Schiffer, founder of NS Builders, to unpack what it really takes to build a brand so strong that clients wait five years to hire you.

With over 400,000 followers across platforms, NS Builders is widely recognized for high-end craftsmanship and polished content—but this conversation goes far beyond Instagram. Nick shares how intentionality drives everything: from floor transition details and branded clothing to proposal books, employee handbooks, and long-term trust with clients.

If you want to understand how brand, systems, communication, and consistency compound over time to create real market leverage, this episode is a masterclass.

🎯 Timestamps:

00:00 — How NS Builders became a brand remodelers study
03:00 — What “intentionality” actually means in construction
07:30 — Content first: building high-end perception before high-end projects
11:00 — Turning storytelling into long-term client trust
15:30 — Communication as the true differentiator
18:45 — Imposter syndrome and leveling up internal systems
23:00 — The 14-month “Our Process” book and branded documents
30:00 — Cohesive branding across proposals, publications, and touchpoints
33:45 — Why uniforms and branded gear matter more than you think
40:45 — Should every builder build a brand?

This episode breaks down the iceberg beneath the polished projects—showing how internal systems, communication discipline, and relentless brand consistency are what actually fuel the external reputation.

Listen now to learn how intentional branding can transform your building business