#484 The Anatomy of a Great Remodeling Testimonial
Release Date: 04/29/2026
#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)
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)
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
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
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)
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)
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
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
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
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...
info_outlineHow 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 drives real buying decisions. From choosing the right setup (DIY vs. photographer vs. videographer) to structuring the story, asking the right questions, and editing for impact, this episode is a full behind-the-scenes look at how high-performing testimonial videos are made.
If you’ve ever thought, “We should probably get a testimonial for this project,” but weren’t sure how to do it right—this episode will save you time, money, and frustration.
Resources Mentioned in the Video:
Client Testimonial Questions PDF
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S2pCv3sASWny_2iWiLqCilz80PBf7r1Z/view?usp=sharing
7 Tips for Recording Better Testimonials
https://youtu.be/L_wE3-qPWf8?si=ezSGJRlvmnYPVbPW
Finished Testimonials We Created for Frei Remodeling
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoQIN5NPd7wdXN_xyKCRUGhcemMnr7AFD&si=C0JaPttzZDjO24xV
00:00 — Why storytelling is the key to building trust with testimonials
01:28 — Why video testimonials are harder than they seem
04:13 — The biggest mistakes remodelers make
05:46 — DIY vs. hiring help: pros and cons
10:09 — “Architectural Digest vs. TikTok” style videos
14:05 — The 3 core components: filming, story, and editing
18:07 — What testimonial videos are actually used for
20:54 — How to prep before filming (finding the story)
24:02 — Identifying the core storyline
29:29 — Setting up the interview and camera positioning
37:44 — The exact questions to ask clients
55:06 — What B-roll is and why it matters
01:00:10 — Editing, pacing, and keeping attention
01:12:50 — Why editing is the most important part