How Contractors Use Air Curtains to Solve Costly Building Challenges
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Release Date: 05/27/2026
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
The cheapest leads in your home service business are not on Google, they are already in your customer list. Email marketing is the channel most contractors ignore, and the numbers are almost unfair. Tim Jordan sent one basic newsletter last month and it produced 45 leads, for the price of a $40 email tool and ten minutes of work. Tim is a serial entrepreneur who bought or founded five companies by age 27, exited all but his window tinting business, and now runs Service Catalyst, a peer mentorship community for service owners. In this episode, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with him...
info_outlineService Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
If you have ever wondered why delegation keeps breaking down in your business, ADHD entrepreneurs have a specific answer, and a fix. Skye Waterson has built her whole company around it. As an ADHD strategist and founder of Unconventional Organisation, she comes in alongside founders, pulls the process out of their head, and builds the systems and team to run it. In this episode, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch, both ADHD entrepreneurs themselves, sit down with Skye to unpack why the ADHD brain resists systems, how to actually delegate without micromanaging, and the AI trap that quietly creates...
info_outlineService Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
How to grow a home service business is usually pitched as doing more: more trades, more services, more offers. Paul Kelly did the opposite, and it built one of the largest home service companies in the country. He bought Parker & Sons in 2004 as a $7 million shop and grew it to roughly $260 million in a single market, then wrote the playbook down. In this episode, Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch sit down with Paul, bestselling author of Tricks of the Trade to Success and creator of the Raising Goats program, to unpack the 4 pillars behind that growth and why simplicity beats complexity...
info_outlineService Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Turning more calls into revenue is the growth lever most contractors never touch, because they cannot see what is actually happening on their phones. Bill Brown spent 25 years in HVAC, built an Inc. 5000 company, and still could not trust his own booking data. So he helped build the tool that fixes it. In this episode, Josh Crouch sits down with Bill, co-founder of PhoneTAP, to announce the launch of PhoneTAP and unpack why the calls you already pay for are where your next jobs are hiding. Tersh is out this week, but he, Josh, and Bill built PhoneTAP together to solve one of the least...
info_outlineService 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_outlineService 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_outlineService 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_outlineService 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_outlineService 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_outlineService 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_outlineMost 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 preventing heat, humidity, dust, smoke, and flying insects from entering the building.
They also discuss:
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How air curtains reduce HVAC energy loss
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Why electrification will make energy savings even more valuable
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How air curtains help solve cold storage and freezer issues
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The difference between strip curtains and air curtains
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Why insects and contaminants enter buildings through open doors
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How air curtains improve indoor air quality
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The ROI contractors can present to commercial customers
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Why these systems are becoming more important in high-traffic buildings
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Simple installation opportunities for HVAC contractors
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Residential applications for luxury outdoor living spaces
If you work in light commercial HVAC or want to offer energy-saving upgrades to your customers, this episode is packed with practical opportunities.
Timestamps
00:00 Energy efficiency in buildings
05:54 Energy savings with protected openings
07:08 Impact of Electric Demand on Costs
12:24 Using air curtains for patios
13:11 Using CallRail for Marketing
16:29 How air curtains work
19:43 Installing above-door units
22:54 Episode wrap-up and closing remarks
Follow the Host and Guest
Tersh Blissett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tershblissett/
Joshua Crouch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-crouch/
Curtis Rosol: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisrosol/
Connect with Us
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• Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/servicebusinessmasterypodcast
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This episode is kindly powered by:
UpFrog: upfrog.com
MarketStorm is an AI-powered advertising platform. Results vary by market, budget, and campaign configuration: https://marketstorm.ai/
Get Your 14-Day Free Trial with CallRail!: https://www.callrail.com/sbmpod
CompanyCam: https://companycam.com/
Breezy: Capture 25-30% more clients with Breezy AI Agents. Use code 'SBM' to book a demo and get $500 on us: https://getbreezyapp.com/schedule-demo
PhoneTAP: Your calls hold the key to growing your business. PhoneTAP gives you instant AI analysis, real customer lifetime value, and tools to coach your team. Learn more: phonetap.ai/demo