I started in this industry in 1997 as an apprentice tradesman making $8 an hour. I wore the tool belt. I got licensed. I worked my way up through every position there was — technician, service manager, ownership — because the companies I worked for kept running out of ways to pay me and incentivize me for the numbers I was putting up.
One of the companies I started with had three employees when I walked in. Within 18 months we had over 20. I built them a brand new service department from scratch during that same stretch. I know what it's like to be the guy on the truck at 7 AM. I know what it's like to not have a system, not have a script, not have anyone teaching you what to say when a customer says no. Everything I teach today started with me living the exact problems I now help operators fix.
I cut my teeth from 2001 to 2005 inside Nexstar, one of the best practice groups that quietly built the modern home services industry. In 2005, I joined Success Group International — SGI — under the man I believe is the greatest the home services industry has ever produced: Jim Abrams. Jim co-founded Service Experts, the first publicly traded HVAC consolidator in the country, taking it public on NASDAQ before later moving to the NYSE. He then founded Clockwork Home Services, the parent company of SGI and franchise brands like Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning, and Mister Sparky Electric. Jim gave me a level of access to his organization that very few people outside his own staff ever had.
I was the #1 ranked operator on the SGI scoreboard from 2005 to 2015 — a decade that took me from Success Group International, into Clockwork Home Services, and back to Success Group International again. Back-to-back Training Professional of the Year in 2010 and 2011 — the only person to ever win it twice in a row. Three Home Services Hall of Fame inductions, all before I turned 30.
"I didn't build these systems in a classroom. I built them standing in call centers at 8 AM watching a CSR lose a $12,000 job because nobody had ever taught her what to say next."
My foundational relationship in this industry started in 2006 with Wyatt Hepworth, when his company was still Hepworth Electric — a single electrical trade with no service department. I sat down with Wyatt and helped him build his first service department, his first price book, and his first home protection plan from scratch. Wyatt would sit beside me at industry conferences taking photos of my notes. He recorded me role-playing a full technician service call in my hotel room — his brother-in-law playing the customer, no experience, about to become his first service manager — and used that recording to train his team. For years after, I ran monthly calls with Wyatt's team and his first service manager, coaching them through what became the foundation of a company that grew into a multi-trade regional operator.
Since then, I've worked alongside and been trusted by some of the biggest names in this industry — Ken Goodrich at Goettl, Tommy Mello at A1 Garage Door Services, and Patrick Kennedy at Mr. Sparky.
Over 24,000 customers served. Twelve protégés who went on to launch their own home services businesses. I've trained call centers, rebuilt dispatch systems, restructured compensation plans, and sat across the table from operators trying to figure out why a business that looks successful from the outside doesn't feel that way from the inside.
Today I put all twenty-five years of that into a room as the founder and lead trainer of Operations Mastery Lab. Not theory. Not a framework I read about. The actual systems, tested inside actual companies, taught by the person who built them — and lived them, starting with a tool belt at $8 an hour.