Over two seasons, the Good Contractor Podcast interviewed dozens of contractors across every trade (roofing, HVAC, landscaping, solar, pond building, custom framing, and more). Hosted by Luke Hansen (CEO of CompanyCam) and John Talman, the show set out to answer one question:
What makes a good contractor?
The answer wasn’t a precise builder. Instead, a pattern emerged.
Contractors who excel share common traits that go beyond technical skills or business acumen.
- They prioritize character over credentials.
- They care about people as much as profit.
- They see success as a responsibility to lift up the next generation.
These aren’t feel-good platitudes. These are battle-tested principles from contractors who’ve overcome addiction, bankruptcy, cancer, homelessness, and every business challenge imaginable. From 22-year-old framers to industry veterans with 25+ years of experience, from solo operators to companies doing $40 million annually, certain truths kept showing up.
Here are the 35 most powerful lessons, organized into themes that matter for building a sustainable, profitable contracting business while keeping your integrity and sanity intact.
Mindset and Personal Growth
Most contracting wins start in your head before they show up on a jobsite. These lessons are about grit, humility, and learning fast so you can handle whatever the work throws at you.
1. You Don’t Grow in the Sun. You Grow in the Storm.
The most successful contractors often came from the darkest backgrounds. Their ability to handle business challenges wasn’t in spite of what they’d been through. It was because of it.
Kevin Choquette, owner of Ravin Builders, put it perfectly: “You don’t grow in the sun. You grow in the rain, in the snow… We aren’t plants. We grow in the storm.” Kevin had been homeless, struggled with heroin addiction, and spent time in jail.
When he talks about business challenges now, his perspective is unshakeable: “I was dead… bring it. We’re worried about not having enough projects? I figured out how to get high for 10 years. I can figure out how to make a track loader payment.”
Eric Triplett, The Pond Digger, faced a different storm. In 2015, he was diagnosed with stage four throat cancer and thought he was done. He disbanded his team, sent everyone out with their own contractor licenses, and spent two and a half years fighting to survive. Today, he runs a 15-man team, owns a 5‑acre ranch with a wildlife rescue operation, and speaks at events across the country.
Adversity isn’t something to avoid. It’s how real growth happens. Your darkest moments can become your greatest source of strength. When you’ve survived actual rock bottom, business challenges feel remarkably manageable.
2. Your Personal Growth Ceiling IS Your Business Growth Ceiling
Many contractors hit a plateau and look outward for the problem. They blame the economy, employees, market, or competition. The most successful contractors learned a harder truth: they were often the problem.
Caleb Auman, of the Kid Contractor Podcast, stated he mentor said something that stopped him in his tracks: “Your business is only going to grow to the capability and your understanding of yourself at that time.” Caleb described it as “a kick in the groin moment” when he realized he was the bottleneck. “I haven’t grown myself and developed myself enough to go to the next level, that’s why I’m still at a level here.”
Chris Caudy of Select Plumbing echoed this: “Your business is limited by your own shortcomings, your own close-minded ideas.” The solution? “Work on yourself… work on having an open mind, understanding business principles, get into business groups.”
When your business plateaus, look in the mirror first. Your mental limitations, trust issues, and inability to delegate often hold everything back. Personal development through coaches, books, and masterminds isn’t optional. It’s the prerequisite for growth.
3. In Order to Become the Master You Must First Risk Being the Fool
Pride is expensive in contracting. The willingness to look stupid, ask obvious questions, and admit what you don’t know separates those who learn quickly from those who fail expensively.
Caleb Auman has a principle that became core to his approach: “In order to become the master you must first risk being the fool.” Caleb has “thrown trying to look cool out the window.” He asks all the “dumb questions upfront” because it prevents “dumb stuff happening on the backside.”
Luke Hansen tells CompanyCam product managers: “You have to be the dumbest person in the room… your ignorance will help everyone understand the whole problem better.” When someone asks five-year-old-level questions, it pulls everyone out of locked-in thinking and helps the team understand issues more clearly.
Pretending to understand when you don’t isn’t just dishonest. It’s strategically stupid.
It leads to expensive mistakes, safety issues, and lost time.
Pride costs money.
Humility creates learning and prevents disasters.
4. Speed of Execution Beats Perfect Planning
The most successful contractors move from idea to execution in days, sometimes hours. They don’t overthink. They test, learn, and adjust.
Dmitriy Ivanchuk of HeyPros tested for his contractor’s license on a Wednesday, passed, built a website, published an ad. The first lead came in the next day. He quoted $3,500 for a painting job, the customer agreed immediately, and his father became his first employee. He did the same thing with a flooring calculator: built it in three hours, got his first lead the next day.
Brandan Sirrine, known as The Solar Goat, quit his accounting job and drove to Arizona for a solar company interview. Didn’t get the job. His car broke down on the walk home. He saw someone on a roof installing solar panels, walked up and asked about the equipment. The guy climbed down and said, “You want a job?” Brandan didn’t hesitate.
Overthinking and over-planning paralyze action. Fast iteration beats slow perfection because you learn what actually works in the real market, not what you think will work. You can’t steer a parked car.
5. Learning Attitude Separates Good Contractors From Mediocre Ones
Years of experience don’t automatically create expertise. The least effective contractors are often those with decades of experience who stopped learning years ago.
Kevin Choquette has received thousands of comments on his social media, and he’s developed a sense for who’s actually good: “The good contractors are always looking to learn.” From analyzing comment sections, Kevin says, “I can pretty much tell you just by somebody’s attitude if they’re talented or not.”
The person who confidently declares “I have 40 years experience, I can build anything” often “shows up and they don’t know how to read a tape measure.” Meanwhile, “the people that are good quality, talented, smart… all they do is lift other people up.”
Competence isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about always learning. The most dangerous contractor isn’t the beginner asking questions; it’s the experienced person who thinks they have nothing left to learn.
Business Operations and Scaling
Doing great work is only half the job. These lessons are about building a business that runs clean: roles, delegation, goals, and growth that doesn’t burn you out.
6. Good Work Does Not Equal Good Business. You Must Consciously Choose to Be a Business Person.
Being excellent at technical work doesn’t automatically translate to running a successful business. In fact, the two require almost opposite skill sets.
Caleb Auman learned this the hard way. “I ran a horrible company. We did good work, I ran a bad business because I was more focused on being a technician than a business person.” The result? Bankruptcy in 2009. Now, his message is clear: “You have to make a decision. Are you going to be just a service provider, which is fine, that’s cool, or are you going to be a business person?”
Paul Jamison of the Green Industry Podcast underpriced for years because he had an “employee mentality.” He was used to making $8 – 11 per hour at previous jobs, so when he started charging $25 for a lawn that took 45 minutes, “I thought I was ripping them off.” He had no idea the market rate was $45 per manhour.
Being a great technician and being a great business owner are different skill sets. You have to consciously decide which one you’re going to be. And if you choose business ownership, hire out your weaknesses so you can focus on your strengths.
7. Get Out of Your Own Way. Owner Involvement Becomes the Bottleneck.
Some of the most successful contractors achieved their breakthrough by doing less, not more.
Dan Waters, owner of Decks Unlimited and Deck City, described his biggest challenge: “The main thing I try to do is get out of the way of myself cause I will screw everything up. I will overanalyze, I will pick and poke at things that don’t need touched until I wreck it.” When circumstances forced Dan to step back, something unexpected happened. His team performed even better.
Matt, known as Working with Matt, articulated a truth many struggle to accept: “It is extremely difficult, if near impossible, to work a company and run a company.” He had to stop being on the lawn mower all day before he could actually grow his business.
The skills that make you great in the field (attention to detail, hands-on problem-solving, being the expert) often work against you in management. Sometimes the owner’s biggest contribution is knowing when not to intervene.
8. Delegate What You Cannot or Will Not Do Well
Every contractor hit the same realization: they couldn’t do everything themselves. But many only delegated field work while holding onto business tasks they were terrible at.
Caleb Auman’s transformation came when he realized he needed to delegate “the stuff you cannot do well or you don’t do well or you don’t do at all. Your profit and loss, cash flow projections, all that.” He now uses fractional CFO services and other tools to handle his weaknesses. The key: “You don’t need to know how to file taxes and do cash flow projections, but you do need to have enough sense to hire out those weaknesses and pursue your own strengths.”
Ashley Smith of Always Forward Roofing designed her entire business around this. Her sales team doesn’t write contracts, do sketches, create material orders, write labor reports, or review claim paperwork. “They don’t do any of it.” Their only job is to “build connections, put in the files where it’s supposed to be, communicate clearly with me and JobNimbus.” Everything else is handled by her back office.
The things you avoid (often paperwork, finances, systems) are usually what’s killing your business. You don’t need to learn them yourself. Recognize you won’t do them and hire someone who will.
9. Clear Expectations Plus Belief Equals Growth. Belief Without Accountability Equals Enabling.
There’s a delicate balance between believing in your people and enabling them.
Dan Waters explained his struggle: “I want the best for them, I see the best in them, I know what they’re capable of… so I’ll hold on to them too long and I end up enabling.”
His solution was simple: “I lay out my expectations so that way if those expectations are compromised, then you’ve officially quit. I didn’t have to fire you.” Dan has specific checklists for each position level. Each role has clear requirements. When supervisors confirm someone is consistently performing those tasks, raises happen automatically.
Believing in people is essential. But belief without clear standards removes their responsibility to grow. You’re not helping someone by making excuses. You’re robbing them of the opportunity to rise to the occasion.
10. Four Quarters Beats 100 Pennies. Prioritize Team Quality Over Size.
When business owners think about growth, they think about headcount. More people equals more capacity equals more revenue. But the math doesn’t always work out.
Ashley Smith, founder and owner of Always Forward Roofing, is explicit: “I’m the person who wants a team. I would much rather have a team with four quarters than 100 pennies because I want people that are gonna stick and stay and that are strong rather than this constant turnover.”
David Peters, founder and CEO of Construction Clock, learned this in his construction business before applying it to his tech company. “You expand your team and then you realize oh these people aren’t working well together.” When he started Construction Clock, he was more selective: “It’s okay to have a smaller team… A‑players want to work with other A‑players.”
High turnover destroys culture, wastes training investment, and creates inconsistent customer experiences. Better to grow slowly with the right people than quickly with warm bodies. Your A‑players don’t want to work alongside C‑players.
11. Goal-Setting Transforms Wild West Chaos Into Intentional Growth
Many contractors start reactively, taking whatever work comes in, hiring whoever applies, buying whatever equipment seems necessary. It works for a while, but it’s chaotic.
Chris Caudy described his business before goal-setting: “Our business was a Wild West show… it was just like whatever, whatever, whatever.”
Everything changed when he “put my foot in the sand and made a change and had a goal in mind and started working towards that goal and sharing the goal within the company.”
His first big goal was $6 million in annual revenue. When the year finished, they hit $6.59 million. Now he has a $10 million goal with an eventual stretch goal of $30 million.
Without goals, you’re growing like a blob, reacting to whatever comes at you.
With clear goals you share with your team, growth becomes intentional. Everyone knows what they’re working toward.
12. Lifestyle Design Over Revenue Maximization. Intentional Scaling Decisions.
Not every contractor wants to build an empire, and that’s not just okay. It can be a smart strategic decision.
Desmond Tse, The Siding Guy, deliberately scaled down from 10 crews to working solo when his kids reached an age where he wanted to be more present.
Despite lower overall revenue, his margins working solo were so high the financial picture “wasn’t that different.” He only needed to side 2 to 3 houses a year to survive, but did 20 to 30, which allowed him to take vacations and be home for his kids.
Bigger isn’t always better.
Scaling down intentionally can improve quality of life while maintaining or increasing income if you dramatically increase efficiency.
And, you get to define success on your own terms.
Building Trust and Reputation
Trust is what keeps customers coming back and keeps disputes off your plate. These lessons show how follow-through, clear expectations, and solid documentation turn good work into a strong reputation.
13. Do What You Say You’re Going to Do. Reliability Is the Ultimate Differentiator.
In an industry where broken promises are almost expected, simply following through becomes a massive competitive advantage.
Desmond Tse, known as The Siding Guy, has an impressive track record: in 20 years of contracting, he’s “never missed a deadline never.” When asked what makes a good contractor, Desmond kept it simple: “Do what you say you’re going to do… just stick to your word… if you’re going to be late tell them.”
Paul Jamison built his entire business on three pillars: “Quality, punctuality, professionalism.” The punctuality piece led to his breakthrough. A CFO for major Silicon Valley companies googled “lawn care Duluth Georgia” and called the top 3 results.
Numbers 1 and 2 didn’t call back right away.
Paul was number 3.
He called back immediately and got the job, which led to future connections to multiple NFL coaches and players living in the same area.
Most contractors over-promise and under-deliver. Simply doing what you say when you say you’ll do it creates massive competitive advantage. And when you can’t hit a deadline, honesty about delays builds more trust than optimistic lies.
14. Be a Prophet. Call Out Problems Before They Happen.
The best contractors don’t just react to problems. They anticipate them and warn customers in advance.
Ashley Smith calls this being a “prophet”: “If there’s a potential for something and you talk about it ahead of time, it’s going to be 1,000% easier when it happens.” This connects to a principle about the 3 questions every customer has at every stage:
- Where am I?
- How does this work?
- What’s next?
Marco Radocaj of Balance HVAC takes the same approach: “Any contracting process is never as easy as the homeowner hopes… you need to paint the very realistic picture of how this is going to go.”
When you proactively set expectations about potential problems, two things happen. First, when problems occur, you’re viewed as knowledgeable rather than incompetent. Second, you’ve pre-sold the solution because you already explained why it might be necessary.
15. Documentation Builds Trust AND Prevents Legal and Financial Problems
Photos and videos serve a dual purpose: they’re both your best insurance policy and your best sales tool.
Chris Caudy has seen CompanyCam save his company a fortune. When they hit a gas line where it wasn’t supposed to be and the utility company wanted to charge $8,000 to fix it: “Oh no no no… we got pictures with the dates and everything else and here’s the report.” The documentation proved the gas line was marked incorrectly.
Marco Radocaj, owner of Balance HVAC, uses documentation differently, showing craftsmanship to customers who can’t see the work: “Nobody goes in their attic especially in Florida… we’re able to send these pictures and show the craftsmanship of guys who didn’t just come to work to go home, who came to work to do really good job.”
Brandan Sirrine has taken this to the extreme. With 120,000+ Instagram followers and over 500 videos of repairs, “I close the deal before I even pick up the phone… if you have a social media account that goes back 500 videos of you fixing people’s installations and a customer sees that, there’s no other conversation to be had.”
Documentation is insurance against lawsuits and disputes. But it’s also your best sales tool. A portfolio of documented work builds more credibility than any sales pitch. When you can show (not just tell) that you do quality work, customers trust you before they’ve even met you.
16. Long-Term Reputation Beats Short-Term Profit
Playing the long game means making decisions that don’t maximize profit today but build an unshakeable reputation over decades. Because when you consistently do good work, time becomes your greatest marketing asset.
Ashley Smith maintains 50 to 70% referral rates by “doing what we say we’re going to do and doing it really well.” She puts lifetime warranties on all her work and includes manufacturer warranties even though other companies upcharge $1,000 for something that costs her $75. She turns down jobs where price is the customer’s number one concern because “that would make me remove pieces of my system to hit that number and I’m not going to do that.”
Matt, better known as Working with Matt, shared why this matters: He quoted $12,000-$13,000 for a small walkway project. The customer went with an unmarked truck for about $5,000 less. That winter, the customer’s daughter broke her arm when the poorly installed stairs started falling apart. The customer called Matt: “Everything he did is falling apart. Please come.” Because she saved $5,000 initially, “she ended up paying like $12,000-$15,000 more.”
Playing the long game means accepting you won’t win every bid. Price-shoppers aren’t your customers. They’re future customers of your future customers. When cheap competitors’ work fails, your reputation grows stronger.
17. Integrity Means Doing Right When the Customer Doesn’t Know the Difference
True character is revealed when no one is watching, when the customer wouldn’t know if you cut a corner.
Matt Danskin of Restoration Referral Systems defined a good contractor this way: “Someone with the integrity to make sure that their project is done right whether their customer knows it or not… going in and fixing something that got done wrong that your customer doesn’t know is wrong.”
Desmond Tse applied this to his social media. He’s turned down lucrative sponsorship deals that would compromise his integrity. A company offered to pay him “lots of money” to make one video using their hammer. He refused: “Even if I did not have to post it on my own social media channel, if they use that footage and someone else saw it, they’d know Dez would never swing that hammer… there goes my integrity.”
Customers often can’t tell if corners were cut. A good contractor does it right anyway because their standard is internal, not external. This is the foundation of sustainable reputation.
Collaboration and Competition
You don’t have to treat every other contractor like an enemy. These lessons are about the mindset shift that leads to better relationships, better work, and more opportunities for everyone.
18. Abundance Mindset: The Water’s Plenty Warm. There’s Enough Work for Everyone.
While many contractors view local competitors with suspicion, the most successful ones have adopted a radically different approach.
Dan Waters and Matt from Working with Matt both independently used almost identical phrases. Dan said: “The water’s plenty warm boys, there’s enough work. There’s 10 deck builders in town now, we run 4 crews and I can’t even touch the amount of work that’s there.”
Matt’s philosophy is the same: “There is no competition… we’re in a very densely [populated area]. There’s plenty of work for all of us.” When his crew ran out of block on a job, he called a “competitor” and asked who they used for supplies. One phone call, 20 minutes later, his team had materials.
Scarcity thinking makes you hoard knowledge and undercut pricing. Abundance thinking creates collaboration and mutual support. The contractors thriving most are those who treat their “competitors” as collaborators.
19. Real Competition Isn’t Other Quality Contractors
Understanding who your actual competition is completely changes how you operate.
Matt draws a clear distinction. If a quality competitor beats him on a bid by $1,000 to $2,000, his response is: “Power to you. You did a better job selling it. Shame on me.” But when someone is $5,000 cheaper “for supposedly the same work, there’s typically a reason for that.”
Your real competition isn’t other professionals who are licensed, insured, and doing quality work. Those are your peers, potentially your collaborators.
Your real competition is the unlicensed, uninsured operators who cut corners and disappear when problems arise. The good news? They create your best marketing when their work inevitably fails.
Don’t compete on price with people who have no overhead, no insurance, and no integrity. Compete with other professionals on quality, service, and customer experience.
20. Mentorship Isn’t Optional. It’s the Entire Point.
Perhaps the most striking pattern: successful contractors view mentorship not as a nice-to-have, but as central to their identity and purpose.
Kevin Choquette was emphatic: “It would be horrible if I went through my life and I didn’t teach people what I knew… what’s the point then? It’s all for me.” Kevin serves on the board of the Young Craftsman Foundation, providing tools to students entering the trades.
Eric Triplett runs contractor coaching programs and speaks at events. He’s helping contractors navigate the same struggles he faced: “I’m helping myself who I was 10 – 15 years ago.” His Friday accountability calls sometimes have “grown ass men crying” as they work through business challenges.
Mary-Anne Bowcott, The Lady Plumber, explained why representation matters: “I didn’t have any mentors back then because nobody in construction looked like me. So being that person that is able to be a mentor has been the best part of being this influencer on social media.”
Jesse Demler, a fourth-generation mason known as SlimBrick, carries that same philosophy forward in a way you can literally see from the road. In his hometown, where he lives and works, buildings and structures that his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father worked on are everywhere.
Jesse’s approach to mentorship comes from a specific memory: “When I was a kid, a journeyman named Steve didn’t even hesitate. He just picked up my pizza, gave me his, and that stuck with me my whole life.” Now Jesse uses his social media reach (300,000+ followers across platforms) to extend that same care beyond his crew: “I want to be the journeyman that I needed when I was younger.”
Success creates a responsibility to lift others up. Knowledge hoarding stems from fear and ultimately limits everyone. The most dangerous contractors are the experienced people who think they have nothing left to learn and nothing left to teach.
Hiring and Team Building
A strong crew doesn’t happen by accident. These lessons focus on finding the right people, setting clear standards, building leaders, and creating a team that can grow without constant babysitting.
21. Hire for Attitude, Train for Skill. You Have to Care.
Technical skills can be taught. Attitude, work ethic, and genuine passion? Those are either there or they’re not.
Marco Radocaj is direct: “You have to care… that’s like the only prerequisite.” When Marco was interviewing for Balance HVAC, one guy said something that stuck with him: “I just want to say this and it’s weird and I hope you don’t get freaked out but like I love air conditioning.” Marco’s response: “Me too dude, like me too.”
Chris Caudy took a huge risk hiring Kirk straight out of jail. Kirk had long stringy hair and the wrong kind of tattoos. When asked about his goals, he said he wanted to be a Hell’s Angel. Chris was ready to end the interview, but Kirk stood up, shook his hand, looked him in the eye and said: “I won’t let you down, just give me a chance.” Kirk turned out to be awesome.
Technical skills can be taught to someone with the right attitude. But you can’t teach someone to care. You can’t teach work ethic. One employee who genuinely loves the work is worth 10 who are just collecting paychecks.
22. Everyone Has Unique Strengths. Design Roles Around People, Not Job Descriptions.
The traditional approach is to create job descriptions and find people to fit into predefined boxes. The best contractors flip this. They find great people and design roles around their unique strengths.
Kevin Choquette explained: “Everybody has a strength, everybody is a weapon in their own area.” He went on: “If I just decided this is the way I learn, this is the only way I’m going to explain things, this is what everybody is going to do, if I pre-decided everybody’s role in my company before I even met them, it would not be the company that it is.”
Marco Radocaj uses a phrase his daughter’s t‑shirt company popularized: “Let him cook.” His philosophy: “If you want to try something, if you want to try it a different way, we’ll talk about it but the answer is probably going to be yes.”
Someone failing at Task A doesn’t mean they lack talent. It probably just means Task A isn’t their strength. Your job is to find what they’re naturally good at and position them to do more of that.
23. Forced Independence Creates Growth. Remove the Safety Net.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is to stop helping them and force them to figure it out on their own.
Gil Cavey of HVAC Uncensored would call his father on every single service call for help. Finally, his father had enough: “Are you going to give me half your paycheck? Son, you’re never going to learn. Figure it the F out.” Gil described this as “the best thing that ever happened to me because it made me stick my nose in the books.”
Jarod Coffman got the same treatment from circumstance. At 18 years old, his father put him in charge of leading a massive project. On the first day, both lead guys had major issues. Jarod was suddenly leading 20 guys at 18 with zero support. “Trial by fire,” he called it, “and messed up a lot of stuff but definitely learned a lot.”
Over-protecting or over-supporting someone prevents them from developing problem-solving abilities. Sink-or-swim moments create rapid learning that gradual teaching often can’t match.
24. Take Extreme Ownership. Everything Is Your Fault (And That’s Empowering).
Several contractors credited “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko Willink with transforming how they ran their businesses.
Chris Caudy explained: “No matter what happens within the company it’s my fault… when your guy screws up you could say ‘what a Ted is,’ or you could say ‘why didn’t I think to put something in our standard procedures for this to not happen and that’s a failing on my part.’ ” The power is dual: “I can’t do anything about Ted being an idiot. I can do something about putting something in my procedures that prevent that from happening in the future.” Plus, “Ted knows no matter what I got his back.”
Blame is disempowering (you have no control). Ownership is empowering (you have the power to fix the system). You can’t change whether Ted makes mistakes. You can change your processes and systems to prevent those mistakes from having serious consequences.
25. You Don’t Need to Be the Expert to Lead Experts
One of the biggest misconceptions: you need to be the best technician to lead other technicians.
Marco Radocaj compared himself to legendary basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski: “You see Coach K standing next to LeBron James and Kevin Durant… those guys are 7 feet tall… Coach K is like shorter and older but he can’t do what they can do but he understands what they want to do and it matters to him and he can help them get in that position to succeed.”
Marco applies this to his HVAC business: “I can’t still install an air conditioner… if I’m talking with the customer and they’re like ‘will you be the guy putting it?’ I’m like no, because I care too much about this job. You would never want me to put this air conditioner in your house.”
Your job as a leader isn’t to be better than everyone at everything. It’s to understand what your people need to succeed, remove obstacles, and create systems that allow them to do their best work.
26. You Can Only Sell What You Genuinely Believe In
Sales becomes dramatically easier when you’re not trying to convince yourself at the same time you’re trying to convince the customer.
Ashley Smith explained her struggle at previous companies: “I can sell anything if I truly believe in it and that was my struggle… short warranty times. Well why? Shelby calls me in 6 years, we’re not gonna help her because we installed a pipe boot wrong? Make that make sense.”
Marco Radocaj experienced this transformation personally. After his family moved and the usage pattern changed, 2 of his 4 kids started getting very sick. They discovered mold, temporarily moved, and the kids immediately improved. His youngest son “stopped crying for the first time in his whole life.” Now when Marco sells indoor air quality solutions, he has zero hesitation: “I don’t feel bad… what we do matters.”
Conviction is the foundation of effective selling. When you genuinely believe your work helps people, you can charge fair prices without guilt. If you don’t believe in what you’re selling, customers will sense your hesitation.
27. Building Trust Through Documentation Eliminates Hard Selling
The best sales process is one where the customer has already decided to hire you before you even quote them a price.
Brandan Sirrine (aka The Solar Goat) has reached this point with his social media presence. With over 120,000 Instagram followers and 500+ videos documenting repairs, “I close the deal before I even pick up the phone.” He explained what’s changed: “My phone number just gets given out and I just get calls and they’ve already decided they’re going with me before I give them a price.”
Marco Radocaj uses CompanyCam to solve a fundamental problem in his industry. “The whole transaction between an AC company and a customer traditionally has been a nightmare,” he explained. The customer’s house is hot, they didn’t sleep well, they have to miss work. “We go up in your attic, you don’t see us for who knows how long and we come out, and the longer we’re up there the more expensive it is.” The customer has no idea what was done. But when Marco sends daily photos through CompanyCam showing the craftsmanship, “they’re blown away.”
A portfolio of documented work builds more trust than any sales pitch. When you prove your expertise through documentation, customers trust you before they’ve even met you. Show, don’t tell.
28. Give Away All Information for Free. Trust Is What You’re Selling.
Many contractors worry about “giving away their secrets.” The most successful contractors learned the opposite is true.
Luke Hansen is adamant: “You cannot possibly give away too much information for free… you will become [trusted]… people will happily pay you to show up at their house.”
Eric Triplett experienced this during the 2008 recession. His business had dropped 60% and he was struggling. He started offering free pond inspections, and “$40,000 of business came immediately.” Today, he charges $500 just to walk on someone’s property. The free inspections when he was unknown built the trust that allows him to charge premium rates today.
What you lack when you’re starting out isn’t information or skill. It’s trust. Giving away knowledge builds trust faster than hoarding it. When people trust you through free content, they happily pay for your expertise applied to their specific situation.
29. Know Your Customer Persona. Speak to One Person, Not Everyone.
Generic marketing speaks to no one. Specific marketing speaks to someone, and attracts the right people while repelling the wrong ones.
Ryan Redding, a marketing specialist who works with contractors, was emphatic: “You can’t do anything without going through that step” of defining your customer persona. This includes:
- Demographics (ZIP code, car they drive, number of kids)
- Psychographics (values, what country club they belong to, political alliance)
The alternative is “speaking to the world” with empty claims.
Ryan pointed out the universal contractor mistake: “Here’s a trick. You can’t tell people ‘we’re the best’ because guess what, everyone in your town says ‘we’re the best plumber.’ That’s empty marketing speak, it functionally means nothing.”
The point of differentiation isn’t to say you’re different from competitors. It’s to identify YOUR best customer and speak directly to their specific needs, fears, and desires. “We’re the best” speaks to everyone and persuades no one.
30. Raise Your Prices Every Year. Train Customers to Expect It.
One of Paul Jamison’s most impactful teachings from the Green Industry Podcast is also one of the simplest: raise your prices every single year.
“Every year in the spring in our industry, raise your prices at least 5%, but maybe even more,” Paul teaches. He provides a template: “I want to continue to provide you a high quality of service but our costs are going up, so therefore to absorb that we have to raise our prices.”
The impact showed dramatically in one listener’s story. Braden’s father had owned a lawn care business for 32 years and had never once raised prices. A $40 cut stayed $40 for 3+ decades. After hearing Paul’s message, Braden sent out the letter Paul recommended. Out of all their customers, only 8 canceled. They did less work and made $200,000 more.
Your costs go up every year. That’s just inflation. If you don’t raise prices, you’re giving yourself a pay cut annually. Train your customers from day one that annual price increases are normal. The customers who leave over a 5 – 10% increase weren’t going to be long-term customers anyway.
Specialization and Differentiation
Standing out isn’t about being louder. It’s about getting clear on what you do best, saying no to the wrong work, and building a niche people remember.
31. Specialization Can Succeed Despite Industry Skepticism
When you tell people you’re going to specialize in just one thing, they’ll often tell you you’re crazy. The most successful contractors ignored this advice.
Dan Waters faced this head-on. When he announced he was going to focus exclusively on decks, the response was brutal: “There’s people that literally scoffed in my face and laughed at me and said ‘you will never make it on just decks.’ ” What convinced Dan? His stepfather had driven to Minnesota and bought a car from a guy who ran a deck-only company. That single proof of concept was enough. Today, Dan runs 4 crews with 279 employees.
Eric Triplett became “The Pond Digger” when pond building wasn’t even really a recognized specialty. He was the only one in the Yellow Pages under “ponds” in his area. Then the market exploded. When 2008 hit, it crashed back down to just 3 companies. Eric survived because he was the legitimate specialist.
Sometimes you only need one example to prove something is possible, even when everyone says it won’t work. Specialization allows you to become THE expert in your niche, command premium prices, and build expertise that generalists can’t replicate.
32. Vertical Integration Solves Your Problems and Creates New Revenue
Sometimes the best new business ideas come from solving your own operational headaches.
Dan Waters didn’t set out to become a distributor. He created Deck City purely to solve his material problems: “I’m going to get a building, I’ll save money by buying in bulk and then I’ll package my own decks… so my guys would quit having to leave job sites.”
What started as a way to supply his own crews became a full distribution business serving other deck contractors.
However, resistance was immediate and intense. “The industry does not want me to exist,” Dan explained.
Lumber yards didn’t want Deck City because it pulled from them.
He’s been blacklisted, had distributions stolen, lost his treated lumber manufacturer when a bigger distributor threatened them. But despite all this, it’s still “beneficial even to fight all that.“
When you control more of the value chain, you can:
- Reduce dependencies
- Improve margins
- Serve other contractors facing the same problem
Solving your own pain points can create valuable new business lines.
33. A Good Contractor Knows When to Say No
Of all the definitions of a good contractor offered, David Peters provided one of the most unexpected and most important.
“A good contractor knows when to say no,” David said. He explained: “I feel like you want to be a help to everybody and sometimes you take on too much work and I’m guilty of this and sometimes I’ve said yes to too many things and then I’ve hurt my existing customers because of it.”
Ashley Smith lives this principle. She turns down jobs where price is the customer’s number one concern because “that would make me remove pieces of my system to hit that number and I’m not going to do that.”
Almost every business problem (missed deadlines, quality issues, burned-out teams) can be traced back to an inability to say no. Saying yes to everyone means saying yes to no one well. Knowing your limits and protecting them isn’t weakness. It’s professionalism.
Social Media and Content Strategy
Marketing works best when it looks like real work, not a polished ad. These lessons break down how honest posting build trust before the phone even rings.
34. Social Media Success Comes From Authenticity, Not Strategy
None of the contractors with massive social media followings started with a content strategy or a goal of becoming influencers. They just documented their work honestly.
Kevin Choquette’s breakthrough came from a single video demonstrating how to cut bevels over 55 degrees. It wasn’t meant to go viral. He was just showing a technique. The video exploded. The reason it worked, Kevin explained, was that “people commented… everybody fucking commented and that was [why] that video went viral.”
Matt from Working with Matt accidentally tapped into the Milwaukee tool cult following. He spent $20,000 outfitting a trailer overnight because that’s what his business needed. He posted about it “without knowing about the ‘Milwaukee cult thing.’ ” The authentic business decision, not a calculated content play, launched his entire social media presence.
Don’t try to be an influencer. Just show your work honestly.
Authentic action attracts audiences naturally. Strategy and optimization can come later, but authenticity has to come first.
35. Post Your Work. Even a Small Following Creates Trust.
You don’t need thousands of followers for social media to help your business. Even a small presence makes a difference.
Landon Nortune of Kaufman Construction made this point directly: “It doesn’t make sense not to post your work because if a homeowner or another builder wants to see you before they hire you, at least there’s some work. Even if you have 10 followers, at least there’s a repertoire of what you’ve done, what you’ve built… people kind of feel like they know you before they even met you which is a good thing.”
David Peters noted that when he started, he had about 1,000 Instagram followers, nothing massive. But potential customers would see his work, “notice when you were doing jobs” in their area, and that “was the validation they needed. They would reach out.“
Jesse Demler, known as SlimBrick, went from reluctantly posting on TikTok to humor his wife to creating an audience of 300,000+ total followers across platforms. His breakout video (making fun of office workers trying to do his job) hit 9 million views in 48 hours. He’s since doubled his income, traveled internationally for brand partnerships, and recruited crew members through his content. “If you told me five years ago that this person would have zero clue what was on the other side of this, I’d have no idea.”
Homeowners and builders Google you before they call you. What do you want them to find?
Nothing? Or a stream of recent work showing you’re active, competent, and professional?
It doesn’t have to be viral. Just show your work.
What Actually Makes a Good Contractor
After analyzing every episode from both seasons, a clear pattern emerged that transcends trade, geography, and business model.
Good contractors share 5 non-negotiable characteristics:
- Character over credentials. They prioritize integrity, honesty, and reliability over impressive resumes or flashy marketing. They do what they say they’re going to do, even when no one’s watching.
- People matter as much as profit. They genuinely care about customers, employees, and vendors. They understand that sustainable business is built on relationships, not transactions.
- Never stop learning. The world is changing, the industry is evolving, new products are emerging. Good contractors maintain a learning attitude regardless of years in business.
- Long-term thinking. They play the long game: building reputation over decades, not chasing quick profits. They turn down bad-fit customers, raise prices annually, invest in their team, and make decisions that compound over time.
- Lift others up. Every single successful contractor viewed mentorship as central to their identity. They share knowledge freely, give second chances, and see their success as a responsibility to help the next generation.
What’s most striking is what didn’t define a good contractor. Nobody emphasized being the fastest, the biggest, or having the most sophisticated equipment. Nobody led with revenue numbers or market dominance.
Instead, again and again, they emphasized character, care, continuous improvement, and community.
As Kevin Choquette put it: “The people that are good quality, talented, smart and show up… all they do is lift other people up.”
That’s the real secret.
That’s what makes a good contractor.
All quotes from The Good Contractor Podcast, Seasons 1 and 2. Hosted by Luke Hansen and John Talman. A CompanyCam production.
