How the HVAC Industry Is Being Disrupted by LG’s US Manufacturing & Inverter Tech - Dustin Ketchem
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Release Date: 09/24/2025
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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....
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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...
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How Home Service Pros Hit 20% Net Margin | Profitability Partners
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Welcome to the Service Business Mastery Podcast!
Visit our website for more episodes and insights! http://www.servicebusinessmastery.com
On this week’s Service Business Mastery Podcast, Tersh Blissett sits down with Dustin K. (Dustin Ketchem), Senior Manager of Sales Programs at LG HVAC Solutions USA.
Dustin explains how LG is reshaping the HVAC market by:
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Building unitary systems in Alabama
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Going all-in on inverter-driven heat pumps that perform even in -45°F Alaska
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Supporting contractors with smart tools, training, and real-time tech - the same innovation LG will showcase live as Title Sponsor of TAP Into The Future, happening October 3-5 in Savannah, GA.
Consider this episode your first taste of the event.
Timestamps⏰
[00:00] - Recap
[03:12] - Episode Intro & Meeting Dustin Ketchem
[03:49] - Why LG Built a Unitary HVAC Line
[05:23] - Testing LG Heat Pumps in -45°F Alaska
[06:31] - What Makes LG’s Rotary Compressors Unique
[07:22] - Why LG Chose R-32 Refrigerant Over Blends
[08:54] - LG’s Inverter-Only Strategy Explained
[09:25] - Pricing Competitively While Offering High-End Tech
[10:30] - LG’s Pro Dealer Program and Contractor Tools
[18:37] - Improving Tech Support and Parts Availability
[22:56] - Easy Troubleshooting with LG’s Bluetooth Tool
[29:51] - What to Expect at the LG Dealer Summit in Orlando
[31:24] - Future of LG’s Huntsville, AL Manufacturing Facility
TAP Into The Future | October 3-5, 2025 | Savannah, GA
Join automation leaders, service business owners, and tech innovators shaping the future of the trades.
VIP Tickets → https://tapintothefuture.ai/vip-ticket-reservation/
Your VIP Ticket Includes:
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Full event admission with high-impact implementation sessions
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The Golden Banana Championship Game at Grayson Stadium
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Curated meals, signature cocktails, and a private networking lounge
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Direct access to industry leaders and innovators
Flash Sale Alert: Regular Price $1752 → Only $999 with Promo Code: FLASH
Ticket only. Rooms at The DeSoto must be booked separately: https://thedesotosavannah.com/
If you enjoyed this conversation with Dustin K. (Dustin Ketchem) from LG, please leave us a review (5 stars would be awesome 😉).
Links & References:
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This episode is kindly sponsored by:
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CompanyCam Visit CompanyCam and use code SBM for a free 2-week trial, 1:1 training and account setup, and 50% off your first two months!
- ServiceWorldExpo
Connect with us!
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Join the Service Business Mastery Facebook group for more updates!
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Visit our website: www.servicebusinessmastery.com
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