How to Protect Your Business From Scaling Mistakes
With Ryaan Tuttle and Cory Byron
-
Adam (00:21):
Welcome to Masters of Home Service, the best podcast for home service pros like us. I’m your host, Adam Sylvester, and I want you to crush it. In business, the most important part of the home is the foundation. If you want to have a strong home, you have to have a strong foundation. If you build your house on a weak foundation or on sand, it will collapse. We know this and business is the same way. If you want to build and grow and scale your business, it needs to have a strong foundation. Systems, processes, and my experts today are awesome at this. Cory Byron and Ryaan Tuttle. Their businesses are strong, and we have a lot to learn from them. We’re going to teach you how to build your business so that it’s scalable. If you don’t, you’ll be miserable. Cory, tell us who you are and what you do.
Cory (01:03):
Thanks. I’m Cory from Vancouver, Canada, and I have an electrical company.
Ryaan (01:07):
Awesome. I’m Ryaan Tuttle from Best Handyman Boston with a handyman business in Boston, Mass and New Hampshire.
Adam (01:15):
Awesome. Well, thanks for being here. Guys, what would you say are some indicators for our listeners to know if your business is a strong foundation or has a weak foundation? What are some indicators that they can see just by looking at their business?
Ryaan (01:27):
I’d say having systems in place, having a good solid team in place.
Cory (01:32):
For sure, systems. My mind goes straight to systems. If we don’t have strong systemized business, as soon as we’re going to start to scale, I think we’re going to start to have chaos.
Adam (01:42):
What are some things that you guys have done in your businesses to take it from being a weak foundation to strong and scalable?
Ryaan (01:48):
I mean, one of the issues I see is scaling today is a big buzzword if you ask me, and I know with my first business when we were trying to scale, all we did was scale the problems that we had, our inefficiencies and there was more fires to put out, so that was a big learning lesson from day one.
Cory (02:06):
And I think your systems want to be a little bit ahead of your scaling. They don’t want to be lagging, so if you’re going to start scaling your business, you’re going to be adding more clients, more leads. What is your client intake systems? How are they coming into your business? Is that a clean process or is that a messy process because adding more clients is only going to expose that weakness.
Adam (02:29):
Yeah. Give me an example. A really hard example in your own businesses that is a proper system in place that’s followed every day to make things run smoothly.
Ryaan (02:37):
Just even our estimate process, that’s kind of the beginning of each job and how it comes in, how we’re going to set our team up, how we’re going to follow up with the customer, and kind of close that same estimate out.
Cory (02:50):
I like that. Same with us. How is that client coming into your business? Who’s reaching out to them right away? How are they getting booked in for an estimate, who’s doing the estimate, when are they doing it? All these things, and you can talk about that all the way through the client journey.
Ryaan (03:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
Adam (03:06):
When you go to the hospital and it’s an emergency, it feels like they’re taking care of just you and you’re the only person that day, but there’s lots of emergencies that day. The reason it feels so intimate and so personal and so wonderful is because they followed a process and they do that over and over and over and over again, and I think our clients expect the same thing. Our clients should expect that from us, even though we should do it over and over again so that they get a consistent result every time.
Ryaan (03:33):
Yeah, I mean one of the beautiful things about Jobber is we’re able to eliminate a lot of those scaling issues just utilizing the software with job forms and checklists, and so our team is kind of unified through that. Everyone can kind of speak through the software on the backend, keep things organized.
Adam (03:50):
Tell me more about job forms. How do use those?
Ryaan (03:53):
Yeah, it’s something that we use for our team. As soon as they get to the job, there’s a specific checklist they got to use. We want to be a little bit early on every job. If we’re supposed to be there at noon, we’re going to ring the doorbell at 11:59. We’re going to review our work order with our customer, roll out the drop cloths, bring in the tools, do the work, and then we’ll do that in reverse order and kind of roll up the drop cloths, tools, check in with the customer, make sure they’re happy, and then we’re out of there.
Cory (04:18):
And we use the job forms in the end of the job. How are we going to leave this job? What are we going to check before we leave the home?
Adam (04:26):
I like the job forms because they give the answers to the test before they take the test. You’re telling your team, this is what you have to do. There’s no mystery. I’m not going to be like, I got you. You didn’t do the right. I’m giving you the answers. Just do these things and you win every time.
Cory (04:42):
And you mentioned inconsistent service. That is a way we can lose or the client can lose confidence in us, so when we’re following a form at the end of a job, we’re going to give that consistent service.
Adam (04:54):
A lot of people say they want to scale, but they don’t really know what that means or they’ve never really thought through, Well, what will life be like on the other side if we scale? What do you guys think about that?
Ryaan (05:06):
I think it’s really important to ask yourself why you want to scale and what you want to scale. That’s really important. I think that’s all for me. Having a business plan that’s been foundational for us in order for us to see when and where we’d like to scale the business and how we’re going to do it.
Adam (05:23):
What goes into business plan? Give our listeners some specifics in that.
Ryaan (05:27):
Yeah, we keep it simple. We actually go on Evernote. You can download their simple business plan.
Adam (05:32):
Oh my gosh, I haven’t heard of Evernote in 10 years. Wow. You guys are both using Evernote still?
Cory (05:37):
I was a big Evernote user back in the day.
Ryaan (05:39):
Oh my gosh, this is great. Okay. Yeah, so you could go on there and just download their business plan. Super simple. That’s what we use. Pretty much anytime we’re going to start a business, we start with a business plan. If you’re going to fly a plane somewhere, you’re going to know where and when you’re going to land that thing, so I try to equate that to starting a business. You want to know where you’re flying that thing and where it could land.
Cory (06:01):
I think to add on to that, I would say if you have some goal, I want to be a $2 million electrical company, have you made a budget for a $2 million electrical company? What does that look like? What would your staff layout look like at least so you can get a glimpse into the future? Is that something I actually want to do or not?
Ryaan (06:19):
I’m glad you said that because I think one of the other issues people and myself included could face is when you do go to scale the business, some of your systems and processes won’t work anymore. When we started to scale up past seven figures, we started blowing the doors and the springs off of things, and all of a sudden we were getting calls from the office and customers and we realized that we had to change some of the systems and processes.
Cory (06:43):
That old quote, right, “What got you here won’t get you there”.
Adam (06:46):
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Something I also like to do with the business plan generally is having an org chart that shows, okay, these are all the people we have now, and if we want to double, then we need to add in all these different people. They have question marks. Now we don’t know who those people are going to be, but building your business around positions not people is really key. Then you think, okay, well we have all these people. Will they all be direct to me? Well, no. Okay, we have a couple managers in there or they cost money. It just gives you a plan. It gives you a plan to aim for, and then you can go to your team and say, Hey, this is what it’s going to look like in five years. Hopefully you’re still here. Who’s going to fill these spots? Are we going to bring them in from outside or one of you going to fill those spots?
Cory (07:25):
This is huge for retention as well. These young people, they need to know there is sort of a plan. There is a place they are going to.
Ryaan (07:32):
Yeah. The org chart for us has been another foundational exercise when we’re starting a business, it’s eye-opening. If you take an organizational chart and you start to realize how many positions or people that are going to be taking those hats off of you, it could be eye-opening. You have legal, you have CPAs, marketing, sales. First we’re typically when you start a business, you might be wearing all those hats or taking on all those roles. Well, as you scale and the business grows, you want to be able to fill that chart in.
Adam (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, totally. We talk about systems a lot and processes. Our listeners are listening and a lot of them are thinking, yeah, I get that, but I don’t even know what to build a system on. How do I even know what needs a system?
Cory (08:15):
I think you can start with what is broken the most. This is a great area to go to. What is causing you the most pain? Let’s build a system around that to fix that, to band-aid that, and then we can move on to other things.
Adam (08:31):
Yeah.
Ryaan (08:31):
We use systems as we use first principles when we’re building out systems. Everything in the business, as you mentioned, like a hospital, they have systems for everything, cleaning, taking care of the patients, billing every part of the business, and you could use your org chart to look at and say, okay, we have sales. How’s the sales process going to go? How’s marketing going to go? How operations going to go, and then just first principles thinking that’s what we use when we build them out.
Adam (08:58):
I’m not familiar with that term. First principles.
Ryaan (09:00):
Breaking everything down to the smallest component, so we discussed estimate requests in the beginning and how that process goes, so how do those estimate requests come in? For us, there’s only one way you can get an estimate that’s through our website. You can do whatever you want, but until you go through our website and you get plugged into our CRM, we can’t help you.
Adam (09:23):
Oh, interesting. Let’s hang on that for a second. Our listeners would say, Oh, if you want to, I’ll get a lead no matter what. I’ll take a lead, but you’re saying customers can’t get a quote from you unless they go through the online system first.
Ryaan (09:36):
Correct. Yes.
Adam (09:37):
They can’t weasel their way around. That’s a system right there.
Ryaan (09:40):
Correct. Yeah. We’ll have people that will get our email address or word of mouth referrals, and so the only way in our system to get an accurate estimate within 24 hours is to go on our website.
Adam (09:52):
Why? What was broken at the time that made you decide that?
Ryaan (09:55):
It creates too many problems on the backend. There’s too many variables, so we found the best way is to get all their information, their project description, and their photos, and once we have all that, we can plug it right into Jobber on the backend and the CRM. We can provide them their estimate.
Cory (10:11):
You streamlining essentially.
Adam (10:13):
Yeah. Guys, this is fantastic. I’m going to pause for a minute though to talk about Jobber and why we love Jobber so much. Cory. Ryaan, how has Jobber helped you scale?
Cory (10:23):
For me, it’s the hub of my business. Everything that happens in my business is typically going through Jobber and all my information is in there start to finish for the client journey.
Ryaan (10:32):
Same. Jobber has been foundational for us. It’s the home base for our business. It’s almost a living, breathing place organism.
Adam (10:40):
It’s a brain.
Ryaan (10:41):
Yeah, exactly. I mean it keeps everything in there. It’s our central database, not only for our technicians in the field, but also for our office admin as well.
Adam (10:49):
Talk about scaling on a firm foundation. There’s nothing more foundational than having a solid CRM from the beginning. You don’t open up a bank account five years later. You open a bank account now even if you only had $10. Same thing with CRM and Jobber is the best CRM for that.
Ryaan (11:02):
For sure. Yeah, agreed.
Adam (11:03):
If you’re not using Jobber for your business, then you are behind. You need to go do it right now. Go to jobber.com/podcastdeal, get the exclusive discount and get the digital brain Jobber today.
(11:15)
Scaling exposes weak systems, I would say.
Cory (11:18):
Yeah.
Adam (11:19):
Give me an example in Vancity because you guys are very system-heavy, just a practical thing that you guys have done over the years that made your business more enjoyable for you.
Cory (11:27):
One random system. This is something I’ve recently just got so dialed, I’m loving it is invoicing. We can talk about these systems all the way through the business, but if your current system is I’m going to invoice as much as I can at the end of the month, that’s not really a system, right, and so when you turn that over, give someone proper training, proper procedures, and then they take it and in their first month they’ve got you invoiced right up to date. You’ve never been so invoiced up to date and now my admin has it to where she’s got us invoiced up to the week. Right? It’s just like, oh, so something that I was trying to do myself with no system is now being done way better by somebody else.
Ryaan (12:13):
Yeah. One of the questions I see a lot in the Jobber forum is people asking when to invoice or how long they should wait.
Adam (12:22):
Now. Invoice now.
Ryaan (12:24):
I’m glad you mentioned that, Adam, because we invoice right away, and your payment is due upon receipt. You then have 24 hours to pay that invoice, and if you don’t, we will charge your card, which is an amazing feature that y’all have.
Adam (12:37):
Exactly how we do it.
Ryaan (12:38):
Oh, I love that. Yeah.
Cory (12:39):
Same. 30 days I run the card.
Ryaan (12:41):
There you go.
Adam (12:42):
The process that we have for clicking payment changed a couple of years ago because I used to think that I was the only one smart enough in my company to invoice. No one is nearly as good as me. I’m El Hefe, I’m the best. There’s no one who just oozes confidence and competency to me and it was foolish, and so now we have a very simple, very similar to you where our technicians will give the client the invoice, they’ll email it, they’ll text it, they’ll send some photos with it, and then if they don’t pay within one day, we charge the card because payment collection is so important. It’s one of the most important things to systemize in your business or else you’ll just go out of business. You don’t make money.
Ryaan (13:21):
Yeah. The cash flow is so important. We hear it all the time. It’s the blood of the business. Let me ask you, did you have a lot of, what was the challenge with that? Was it your team seeing the payments or the money involved?
Adam (13:33):
I was just a really lousy middleman. I wasn’t on the job. How am I supposed to invoice for something I wasn’t there for? It makes so much more sense for the technician who did the job to invoice. He knows, Oh, we didn’t do this. We added that. We’re going to change this. He knows all that stuff, so why play middleman? It makes so much sense to train your people. It’s not very hard to just invoice.
Ryaan (13:50):
Well, one of the nice new features that Jobber just came out with is now you can tap by card.
Adam (13:55):
Yeah.
Ryaan (13:55):
On the phone. That’s pretty cool, so you don’t even have to invoice. Now the tech can take the payment right at the job, which is great.
Cory (14:02):
When we talk about this scaling too, when you have a huge accounts receivable that’s 30, 60, 90 days, you need that money to scale. You might want to pay for marketing or branding and this kind of stuff, but that money’s not in your account. You can’t really do that stuff.
Ryaan (14:19):
I’m glad you mentioned that. That’s one of the reasons why we don’t work with commercial companies. We do not do commercial work because we need cash in order to run the business and we like to stay cash ahead so we can make better decisions. One of the things that’s been really successful doing that is having a recurring maintenance plan where we’re able to have predictable income coming in every month.
Adam (14:40):
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Ryaan (14:41):
That’s been very helpful.
Adam (14:42):
What are some data points, some metrics that companies need to be focusing on to scale properly?
Cory (14:49):
I think if we’re talking about it would have to be lead sources. Are we measuring and tracking these lead sources? Which lead sources are good? If you’re just out there saying, I crush on Google. Okay, what? Google, right? Google Ads, Google Local Services, Google My Business page, organic, Google. There’s a lot of Googles going on, so I think if we’re talking about scaling, we need to have our lead sources rock solid.
Ryaan (15:15):
Kind of to touch upon what Cory was just talking about too is customer acquisition cost. We need to know how much those customers are that we’re finding or what’s really like our marketing dollars, where those are going.
Adam (15:27):
I definitely think lead attribution is really important, knowing where leads are coming from because then you can isolate and if you find out that one of your lead sources is really crushing it, just put more dollars towards that lead source. It’s kind of simple, but it’s also not very easy to do, and so our listeners have to, this one takes a little bit more work really knowing where lead sources come from, asking clients using some data. There’s resources out there to find help on that, but knowing where your leads come from really matters because when you scale, you need more and more leads and you can’t just scale a business with the same number of leads you had before because that’s called the same size, and so I just want to encourage our listeners to make sure that they really know where the leads are coming from because that’s really important.
(16:06)
In terms of finances, cash flow, profit and loss balance sheet, what are some things that really matter for scaling?
Cory (16:13):
I was just looking at a plumbing company a little while ago, and I was looking at their books and gross margin really stuck out to me. I’m a big gross margin guy, and this company, it was just a very low gross margin. That kind of scared me away a little bit. I just felt like were we going to be able to double those prices to move forward? So I would just be watching that. You’re thinking about scaling, but are you making money on the jobs you already have before you go buy more jobs? Yeah.
Adam (16:42):
If you’re sloppy, small, you’re sloppy, big. Scaling a low gross margin is going to get you a larger, smaller gross margin, right?
Ryaan (16:48):
Yeah, that’s right. My first business I started when I was 25. I had that for 10 years. We’re doing just about a million a year, but there’s no profit in the business. We’re barely keeping the lights on, and I’m taking home a hundred, 150,000 a year thinking the business is doing great, and until 10 years later, I start working with business coaches and they’re like, I don’t know how you’re even keeping the lights on with this thing. Generally a business needs 10, 15% in profit just to keep the lights on.
Adam (17:16):
Yeah. Cory, gross margin is what exactly. For our listeners.
Cory (17:20):
Gross margin, it’s you bill a hundred dollars on a job, you make 50, that’s 50% gross margin, and that $50 goes towards your fixed expenses.
Adam (17:30):
So you’ve got revenue minus labor materials, and the number under that is gross margin.
Cory (17:37):
And to get your 50%, it’s easy. It’s nice when you’re quoting, right? If something costs you $50, you’re going to sell it to the client for a hundred dollars.
Adam (17:44):
Yeah.
Cory (17:45):
Doubling everything.
Ryaan (17:46):
Yeah, just that’s where you’re going to want to know what your markup is going to be. That’s going to help you get those margins.
Adam (17:52):
Any other financial things that really matter? I think cash flow matters a lot. If you have a lot of cash on hand, you can do so much. You can pull the marketing lever like 10X if you have cash, but if you don’t have cash, then you’re just really strapped down. You can’t do a whole lot.
Cory (18:07):
I think accounts receivable, that’s why I brought that up. And the other one would be lines of credit, stuff like that. A good rule of thumb is 10% of your revenue, so you do a million dollars, you want a hundred grand, a line of credit.
Ryaan (18:20):
Yeah. I think it’s important too to know your burn rate, what it’s actually costing you to run this business every month, which you can break down per day if you really wanted to.
Adam (18:28):
Ryaan, what is this thing that you call goal-setting? Hip pocket thing? What is that? Tell me about that.
Ryaan (18:33):
The goal-setting, “hip pocket framework”. It’s something I learned in one of the courses I took. Generally, I try to reinvest 5,000 to 20,000 a year back in myself by educating myself, working with business coaches, joining masterminds, and taking college courses just to cut the learning curve with things. A hip pocket framework is something you can keep in your back pocket, and it’s just a simple little diagram you could use, and you could draw it out, and I use those in order to explain things better. So earlier I was talking about setting goals, a hip pocket framework for that, I would draw out a little airplane on a runway, so if you’re going to go somewhere and set a goal or you have a plan, you want to know where you’re going, how are you’re going to get there, so I’d just draw out a little airplane on a runway and then that airplane’s going to take off, get to cruising altitude, and then you actually want to know where you’re going to land that airplane, so you’ll draw it on your little runway on the other side.
Adam (19:32):
Cool. Okay. Awesome. Cory, what about tech stack? You’re a huge tech guy.
Cory (19:36):
Love tech stack.
Adam (19:37):
Loves tech. It can get a little out of hand if you’re not careful. And so how do you find a balance between systemizing your business using a lot of tech? Tell us more about that.
Cory (19:45):
I’m a firm believer that, yeah, I love my tech stack and I’m in front of a computer all day, so I can handle Asana, Jobber, all these other things, but my guys are in a service van. They have their tool belts on, so I’ve taken a real precaution to keep them only in Jobber. The only other thing they would go in is train for training, but most of the time they live in Jobber. They don’t leave Jobber, so I think that’s important. I also don’t ask them to get Google reviews, invoice, upsell on-site. I’m not asking them to do any of that. I just want them to be able to be great electricians.
Adam (20:22):
Yeah. You and I have talked about that before where you don’t want to overburden them with all this other stuff. I’m the opposite. I ask them to do a lot of that stuff. You want them to just be able to focus on their job on the electrical work and not have to be distracted by anything else. There’s value to that. I totally see that.
Cory (20:38):
And they have job forms. They have things they need to do in Jobber, but yeah, I’m going to keep it as simple as I can for them.
Adam (20:46):
Who reads the job form?
Cory (20:47):
Sometimes nobody.
Adam (20:49):
Okay.
Cory (20:49):
Right. It’s just a checklist for them to make sure we leave that site in a great condition. It is part of their bonus plan, so I do like to see whether they’re doing it or not, but yeah, I don’t go through every single one. We do have a checklist for service calls, so if it’s a service call, they are filling out some pertinent information on there for invoicing. But other than that, yeah, some of the job forms is just an SOP for them. How to do a hot tub?
Adam (21:19):
Yeah.
Cory (21:19):
Could be a 10-step checklist for how to do a hot tub.
Adam (21:22):
Do you guys take photos on the job site?
Cory (21:22):
Absolutely. A lot.
Adam (21:24):
Where do the photos go?
Cory (21:25):
All in those job notes. We take a ton of notes and photos.
Ryaan (21:29):
Do you have CompanyCam hooked up as well through Jobber?
Cory (21:32):
I don’t. I haven’t used CompanyCam. I always felt like what Jobber had was good enough for me. I love CompanyCam.
Ryaan (21:39):
I tried it out. Wasn’t a huge fan of it. It seemed like it added too many more steps to the system for us. We try to keep things as basic as possible. Cory, one thing I wanted to ask you. Do you have employees or do you have subcontractors?
Cory (21:51):
All employees.
Ryaan (21:52):
Okay, and do you have a system to hire those employees as well?
Cory (21:54):
I do have a thought-out hiring funnel.
Adam (21:58):
Why do you ask?
Ryaan (22:00):
I ask because that’s another place where we have checklists and forms set up. We actually use subcontractors for all of our work, and we recruit and try to hire all year long, and one of the things we did on the backend was we created a scorecard so that way I don’t have to do it all the time. One of the admins or the assistants can actually run the ads, they can respond to the ads and then run them through a scoring system to find out and make that system a little bit faster.
Adam (22:30):
Interesting. Tell me a little bit about that. You’ve got a scoring system. What are they scoring?
Ryaan (22:36):
What we do is there’s basic questions. We’re going to ask those subcontractors, do you have insurances? Are you up early in the morning? Will you be the one doing the work or are you going to have one of your employees? All these basic questions, and so we’re able to score those on the backend, so generally it’s going to be one through 10. We know that if those subs don’t score a five or higher, then they’re not a right fit for us right away.
Adam (23:02):
Gotcha. Okay.
Ryaan (23:03):
And that eliminates a lot of time back and forth.
Adam (23:06):
Yeah. Last question for you guys. I want to see if you guys have a good system in place for office stuff. There’s a lot of office-related things that happen throughout the day. Any tips with our listeners to make sure that the office runs smoothly because the office interacts with the clients a lot.
Cory (23:21):
I think it’s the same as the field. It’s very system-related. I use, what is it, Zoom clips. If I want to do a Loom video, show my admin this is how I invoice this kind of job. We would save that in Trainual so she can go back to it. We use Missive Email, which is kind of neat. Me and my admin can message back and forth about the emailing. I can assign emails to her. Yeah, it’s kind of team email.
Adam (23:49):
What is it called?
Cory (23:51):
Missive. Yeah, so there’ll be an email and then me and her will chat below the email about the email, and so me and her are just in constant contact.
Ryaan (24:01):
We have something similar as well. We use Spark Mail that allows us to do the same thing. And then recently what we did with one of our developers is we hooked up Jobber through Zapier to Airtable. And so every single estimate request that comes in and every email that comes into the office gets set up in Airtable, and we use it kind of like Asana where there’s cards and we know if it’s in progress, if it’s started or stopped, and we communicate through that.
Adam (24:29):
Interesting.
Cory (24:30):
Same thing with us, Adam. I also use Airtable, and that’s a whole other conversation, but we use Asana for production basically.
Adam (24:38):
If you’re staying in Jobber all day, then what’s the point of that?
Cory (24:42):
My business partner is project manager of all our jobs, and so we do a hundred electrical jobs a month, and so he needs a place where he can see them all in a pipeline, and now I know Jobber just brought in the pipeline and I think that’s going to get better and better and eventually I’ll get rid of Asana, but right now we can see every job. Does it need materials ordered? Does it need an electrical permit? Has it been final invoiced? All in a glance from it just helps them keep track of stuff.
Adam (25:12):
Does Asana talk to Jobber or is it one-way?
Cory (25:14):
Through Zapier.
Adam (25:16):
Okay. It goes both ways.
Cory (25:17):
I don’t need it to go both ways.
Adam (25:20):
Guys, that was great. I’m going to boil it down to three things I think our listeners can do right now to go scale their business better. Number one is you need to have a business plan that might include an org chart where you look at all the people that you’re in need to hire down the road. You need to know how many leads you need to have and what’s your cash flow going to be like. You need to have some sort of plan in place so you know what your business will look like one year, two years, five years down the road. Number two is ask what’s broken. A great place to start there is lead intake, quoting and invoicing. Maybe like job completion. Ask yourself, what do I get the most phone calls about? People just keep calling me about this, this, this. That’s a great place to start systems hunting and fix the broken systems. And number three is keep it light on your staff. Allow your technicians to do technician work. Be focused without overburdening them with all these other things. Cory said, reviews and tips, and just do the job with excellence. Cory, Ryaan, that was awesome. Thanks for being here. How do people find out more about you?
Cory (26:17):
Hey guys. I’m Cory from Vancity Electric. You can find Vancity on Instagram or me under my name at LinkedIn.
Ryaan (26:23):
Ryaan Tuttle. You can find me on LinkedIn or Instagram under @besthandymaninc.
Adam (26:29):
You guys are crushing it. Your teams have a great leader. Keep it up. On the next episode, we’re talking to a former police officer who traded his badge for a business and built it into a multimillion-dollar company. We’ll get into how he made the jump, what he learned along the way, and why betting on yourself can completely change your life. Follow or subscribe today so you don’t miss out. And thank you for listening. I hope that you heard something today that will help you scale your business on a firm foundation. I’m your host, Adam Sylvester. You can find me at adamsylvester.com. You can find me there and ask me questions. Tell me what you like about the show. Love to hear from you. Remember your team and your clients and your family deserve your very best. So go give it to ’em.
About the speakers
Adam Sylvester
CHARLOTTESVILLE GUTTER PROS AND CHARLOTTESVILLE LAWN CARE
Website: adamsylvester.com
Adam started Charlottesville Lawn Care in 2013 and Charlottesville Gutter Pros in the fall of 2020, in Charlottesville, VA. He likes to say, “I do gutters and grass! When it rains the grass grows and the gutters leak!” He got into owning his own business because he saw it as a huge opportunity to generate great income while living a life that suited him. He believes that small companies can make a serious impact on their communities and on every individual they touch, and he wanted to build a company that could make a big difference. His sweet spot talent is sales and marketing with a strong passion for building a place his team wants to work. Adam values his employees and loves leading people. While operations and efficiency is not something that comes naturally to him, he is constantly working to improve himself and his business in these areas.
Ryaan Tuttle
Best Handyman Boston
LinkedIn: Ryaan Tuttle
Instagram: @besthandymaninc
Ryaan Tuttle is a Boston-born service business operator and investor with nearly two decades of hands-on experience. He started working in the trades at 17 and launched his first remodeling company at 24. Early on, he saw that many great builders struggled not because of their work, but because their businesses lacked clear systems.
Since then, he’s built and scaled multiple seven-figure home service brands, including Best Handyman Boston, a Best of Boston winner. He’s advised Y Combinator startups and SaaS companies like 1Build and Jobber, authored, The Automated Home Service Business, and consulted for Home Depot and ProRemodeler. Today, through Birch Road Investments, he acquires and grows established service businesses or partners with owners ready for their next chapter, focusing on building durable systems using practical technology, automation, and AI.
Cory Byron
Vancity Electric
Website: vancityelectric.ca
Instagram: @vancityelectric
LinkedIn: Cory Byron
Cory Byron is the owner of Vancity Electric, an award-winning residential and commercial electrical company based in Vancouver, Canada. With over 20 years in the trades, Cory has built a reputation for pairing customer service with strong tech stacks and operational systems. He’s also the founder of Next Step Systems, a consulting and coaching company helping small trades businesses streamline their operations through modern tech stacks, automation, and data-driven decision-making. Passionate about elevating the trades, Cory speaks on topics such as scaling service businesses, client experience, and using technology to unlock freedom for owners and teams alike.
SIGN UP FOR the masters of home service newsletter
Get monthly updates with news, tips, and advice on how to run a 5-star business. You don’t want to miss out!
Interested in being a guest on the show?
Are you a home service professional eager to share your insights and experiences? Apply to be a guest on the Masters of Home Service Podcast, and join a community of experts committed to helping others level up through knowledge.
Automate admin work. Save time.
With home service software, you can take on more work without hiring more staff.
Compare plans