The Home Service Expert Podcast - He Built Five Companies Then Admitted He Should Have Built One Better (LIVE)

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

🚀 FREEDOM 2026 Get your Tickets Today! https://homeservicefreedom.com/   Adam Shampaine went from Capitol Hill to CEO of HomeFix, a $68 million home improvement company, and then built his own supply company, finance company, and window brand. In this episode, Tommy Mello and Adam break down how vertical integration creates a moat competitors can't copy, why company DNA decides which growth channels actually work, how a door-to-door canvasser can earn $300K a year, and the one lesson Adam learned from building five companies: he would be richer if he had built one better. If you run a home service or home improvement business, this is the conversation on canvassing, financing, and focus.   🕐 TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Episode Open 01:52 Capitol Hill Origin 07:20 Part-Time to Sales 12:20 Always The People 18:00 Solar and Supply Stack 23:20 Pure Finance Origin 30:30 Finance Platform Growth 37:20 Company DNA Canvas 43:50 Canvassing As Math 48:50 Canvas vs Demand Leads 54:12 Brand Power vs Canvas 1:02:02 One Thing Regret   Questions this episode answers: 01:52 How did a Capitol Hill staffer end up in home improvement sales? 12:20 Is it the market or the salespeople when a sales territory fails? 18:00 Why would a home improvement company build its own supply chain? 23:20 Should contractors start their own consumer finance company? 30:30 How does in-house customer financing actually make money? 37:20 Can you change your company's culture and business model? 40:50 Why do canvassing consultants fail at most companies? 43:50 How much can a door-to-door canvasser make per year? 48:50 What is the difference between canvas leads and demand leads? 54:12 Does brand marketing beat door-to-door canvassing?   🚀 FREEDOM 2026 Get your Tickets Today! https://homeservicefreedom.com/   TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@officialtommymello Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialtommymello

The one thing that every founder screws up is they get sidetracked. I'm opening up a bar. I'm going to start flipping real estate. I got this and this and this. I'd be halfway to Tommy Mello if I just focused on home fix. I swear to God, I'd be so much richer. It's always the people. It's never the market.

You've dropped me anywhere and the same thing will happen. Jersey is the worst place on earth. Don't get me wrong. Don't open there. But the same thing happens. All right, guys, welcome back to the home service expert. Today I got Adam Champagne with me. He's an expert at scaling home.

improvement operations, multi-business portfolio building, vertical integration, proprietary product development, customer first culture, consumer finance and commercial construction. Today's episode is going to be about most home service owners build one company. Adam Champaign built a portfolio. He went from a part-time remodeling job to CEO of a $68 million company, then built his own supply company, his own finance company, and his own window brand. Today he breaks down how vertical integration creates a competitive moat that most remodellers can't replicate. Adam, how you doing, brother?

Good, man. Great. Let's just start. So you spent five years on Capitol Hill as a special assistant in the U.S. representatives. You were pursuing a career in politics and took a part-time job at a remodeling company and never looked back. What happened? Tell us the story. So my whole life,

I ever wanted to do was run for office. Like I was a kid, like when I was six years old, I knew what I wanted to do. I loved politics. It was a total nerd. And it was my hobby. It was, it was everything. So I really had a clear path my whole way all the way through college. I knew exactly what I was going to do. When I got out of college, I wanted to work on the hill, I wanted to write laws. I didn't want to be an intern. I wanted to get a real job on a committee. so I basically canvassed Capitol Hill for six months I would go park at the visitor parking going through the visitor entrance put on my blue blazer and just walk around cap like walk around the Capitol building trying to meet people just walking into meetings and walking into events and I did that for six months got a bunch of you know meet people they'd be like yeah come by my office tomorrow you seem like a sharp kid and I did that until there was a job opening on the House Science Committee interviewed there um then uh use some you know connections through my uncle to get my way to one of the members went and met with him and uh was this guy dana roerbocker one of the coolest dudes on capitol hill

he's one of the original libertarians and uh and he loved me and he helped me get the job so i started on the house science committee started as a staff assistant which is um you know like a step above intern but it's it's a real job and uh the first day i was putting mail on on on on the desk for the chief of staff and there was no one there and I was like who's you know who works here and he said oh he just got promoted to press secretary and so I was like well who's got that job and they said well it's open so I was like can I apply for that and and so the first day I applied for the special assistant chief of staff got the job and and it was it was an amazing path from there so basically for for

four years, I was this guy's just, I was his Mr. Smithers, like, I was just everywhere with him. And I got to be on his hip 24 hours a day. I would work, you know, people are on the hill till 2, 3 in the morning when we're in session. I'd be there until 4 in the morning. Like, I just, I just worked my ass off for four years, got to meet amazing people, got to do amazing things. And then at the end, he, you know, promoted me to legislative staff to actually write laws. Because it thought of what I wanted and I was miserable. It was awful.

You know, me behind a computer doing research and writing is not where I should be. So I figured I'd had to go to my next step. So I was like, you know, I'll go to law school. Not that I wanted to be a lawyer, but it seemed like a lot of congressmen were lawyers. Yep. So I got into law school, got into a few law schools when I ended up choosing University of Baltimore because they gave me a scholarship. Started there, had a little place in the city in Baltimore. And I was raised just by my dad growing up.

And my dad is like, he's, he, he, being in my household, raised my single dad. He was like, my only friend, my, just, my dad and I did everything. And I didn't do anything without him telling me what to do. My dad raised me with a very strict upbringing, especially around money. So like, I never, you know, I worked at McDonald's when I was 14 years old and I would give my dad my paychecks. When I was in college, I worked three jobs, and I would give my dad my paychecks, and he would dole out an allowance to me, and he would save all that money. So when I went to law school, my dad's like, you're not working, you're going to go to law school, and I'll give you

an allowance. And that lasts about a week, and my then-girlfriend, now wife, was a hairdresser, and she's making like 70 grand a year, and I have no money. And I was like, I have to get a job, because she's going to leave me if I don't get money. And so I went to my dad, I'm like, please, you know, let me work. And it's like my identity. I've always been that way. Like, when I worked at McDonald's, you know, in 14, like, I was the hardest working dude at McDonald's.

Like, I loved it. And so to not have a job, I had no identity. So he's like, all right, but you got to work part-time. So this is, you know, 2004. So I go, I don't even think I had my own computer then. So I go on the internet and I type in part-time job. And the first thing that pops up on Monster is part-time work, full-time. time pay remember like it's yesterday i was like that sounds like a job for me so um it was in

glen bernie maryland go in interview who with who is now you know my partner but was then the founder of the company top lala dude is a absolute savage like one of the most impressive people he ever meet and you know we hit it off right away and when he saw me like i know now He was like this guy, you know, I could do something with this guy. But I was just looking for, you know, part-time work. So he's, you know, he's pitching me on this job. I never heard, I didn't even know sales was a job. Like, I've never, like, I never thought of being a salesman.

And the way we land people when we're hiring salesmen for a job, like straight commission job is we show them how much money they can make, right? So he had our old like pay system up on there and he's showing me these checks to this guy, Rocky Hawkins, who to this day actually works for me. And he was the top rep at the time. He was 19 years old. And he was drawing $2,000 a week off his books. $2,000 a week. I thought I was going to buy a helicopter. Like, you know, I thought I had, you know, that was Tommy Mello money. And I was just like, this isn't even real. And he's like, we start you at a $500 a week draw. And I was like, five hours a week. And this is all sold. Jumped down to my chair. Like, I'm in. So I call my

I'm like I found a job told him about he's like this sounds like a scam like Amway or whatever I'm like no no it's real he's like is it 1099 which it was I'm like no of course not you know he's you know full w2 benefits it's a 22,000 hour your salary and he's like all right you know go ahead so went into training um with uh with this guy that um again still with me you know 20 something years later and train me pretty quick and you know it was like so foreign to me but as soon as i ran my first lead i ran it with this kid rocky uh who i loved the death but he's a he's a complete idiot um he uh he is i love him the handsiest guy he'll ever meet but he is uh he's he's not in danger of being recruited by

medza so i ran leads with him four leads and i watched him do this and and i watched him just regurgitate everything that i was just trained exactly word for word like he He even said the typos wrong. Like he just said everything exactly the same. And the people said, I remember the first lady, it was this little townhouse. And the people said no. And he goes, okay. And he ended up partialing it selling these people the back of a townhouse.

And like it was just a, I was like I was in the Matrix just watching this happen. I'm like, I'm going to be, you know, this is going to be so easy. So the first lead I ran, I was in there. I like blacked out. I was nervous. I was in there for like 14 minutes and I was laying off price. What I called, you know, call my manager like, I don't think I sold after 14 minutes. He was like, get the hell out of there.

You blew it. So the next day was my second lead, Saturday morning, 9 a.m. lead in Edgewater, Maryland. I drive by the house all the time was for siding. And these guys were, this guy was like a big biker. My dad rides motorcycles. I rode motorcycles so I can, you know, talk to talk. I ended up being in this house for eight hours, and at the end, it was just, you know, write a contract. And that was pretty much the end of it.

Over the first 30 days, I was at home fix back in 2004, I ran 29 leads month one. Sorry, 30 leads month one, I sold 29. So I did not sell the first lead. I sold every single lead I ran after that. And it wasn't, I'm still not the greatest sales rep or like, you know, you know, you know, the greatest system guy, or, you know, I'd probably fail the test if I went through, you know, your training. But I was really good at making a friend with anyone I ran. I would run anything. And you gave me a storm door lead two hours away at eight o'clock at

night. And I was at the bar half lit. I would run that lead. Like, there is nothing I would turn down anywhere, any place. And I'd have an amazing attitude doing it. And just go in there and make a friend and it it was just easy. I enjoyed it. So I was in school for, you know, the full semester and I'd run leads at night. And for six months, the same thing. I net closed 80% of the leads I ran running all canvas leads. At the end of that, our Jersey operation at the time, so we were we were like an eight to ten million dollar company. And the model back then, and numbers are just different years ago but you know so being a 10 million dollar company was a decent size we had seven or eight little offices and they do like a million dollars each and our jersey offices

we had two were always like five six hundred thousand and and tope came to me said look i want you to go to jersey for 30 days i'm going to put you in a hotel my managers we've been through five managers in jersey and they keep saying you know the the prices are two too expensive there to sell it's too saturated you can't canvas you know all the different excuses why jersey we just can't operate and he said it's either the people or it's the market and if you go there and you can't sell it's the market and I'm shutting it down so for me like now I can't live 30 minutes without my wife but back then I couldn't wait to get away from her so 30 days at a hotel outside New York City sounded like amazing to me so they put me up in a hotel

And I ran Leeds and we all know you know the story anyway. It's always the people. It's never the market. You drop me anywhere and the same thing will happen. I just had, and Jersey is the worst place on earth. Don't get me wrong. Don't open there. But the same thing happened, right?

Well, I'm opening there next month. Yeah. It's tough. So that was, you know, that was the next phase. And at the end of those 30 days, he took me to lunch with his old partner. we want you to take over New Jersey. And I was like, you guys like, dude, I'm going to be the governor of Maryland. I'm not, this is not my future.

You know, this is a part-time gig for me. And they laid out an offer for me. And it was 5% of the office. So think about paying a manager five points on an office, just off the number now. I mean, that's unheard of now, right? Plus the salary. And I went to my debt. 50 grand plus your salary.

Yeah. crazy it's a lot of money so I go to my dad remember my dad controls everything and my dad's a really strict guy you know he's a you know both my parents are immigrant families my mom's a greek immigrant my dad was Jewish immigrants everyone becomes a doctor or a lawyer there's nothing else you know and I show this my dad he's like you should do this and I'm like well I don't have to drop out of law school and move to Jersey's like you should do it So I deferred, I finished semester deferred law school, went and got a one room apartment with my dog in Newark, New Jersey, and moved up there, and I'm now running New Jersey. There's no training program. There's nothing. Just here's your office. This is, this is, this is, you're running it.

And we, the office had done $400,000 a year before. We did 400 grand my first month there. How do we do it? Because I just kind of treated the people like my customers is all I knew. So I, I, I, I went. went with the canvas guys and I recruited every day on campus. I went canvassing at night if I wasn't on a lead of my reps. I sat in the call center and called leads to make sure they go out. I saved all the cancels and I'd give away all, you know, I'd run leads. I'd sell them. I'd give them to my reps and I just built an army of loyal, you know, followers in Jersey

that would do anything for me. So I was there for a year. We did $4 million. So we were, you know, the largest office by far. And at the end, I wanted to get back and I don't want my girlfriend to leave me. So I got to take over Virginia, northern Virginia, which is a money market. And my first year there is 2006. I did 10 million bucks.

So things are good. You know, doing my thing. The owner just treated me like, he'd check in with me like every couple months, but he just let me do my thing. I got my own subs. I did my own, you know, I hired my own people if I wanted to hire run ads on Craigslist. I'd call them myself. I was like my own little company. And they're paying me well so you can do the math on $10 million.

I was making more money than any 26-year-old should make. And I was spending it as fast as I got it, so I need to keep working. And so I was happy. At the end of that, at the end of the first year, you know, look, you start, you know, all these other people that have left and started their own company. You know, you know how easy it is to do. I'm, you know, probably a little bit smarter than most of my competition. So, you know, I was a loyal guy, and I didn't think the grass was greener, and I made a ton of money. So I wasn't going anywhere, but we knew something needed to happen.

So eventually we came to the agreement, and Tope says it's his idea. I say it's mine that I would take over home fix. Let me run the whole thing, and I'm going to take us to the promised land. And at the time, we were really tight with the power guys. and you know I saw what power was doing they were they were actually smaller than us at the time it was amazing to say um and we were big grotto guys so like we'd meet with groso it is placing in lake george and meet with the power guys and it's kind of cool because you know university of Maryland I don't know if you know it was like ground zero for our industry and we actually

have an awesome black and white picture back in the day of tote my partner and his other partner george and they're in their like suits with their beepers and beeper chains and in that picture is adam calendar who founded power nathan wise from capital gary lance from um uh all the big company you name it there's like nine guys um ameritek is gary lans that worked at this one company in college park as sales reps are canvassers. So it's amazing the billions of dollars that have spun out of college park. And, you know, so these guys, so Tope was tight with Adam at the time. And I saw what these other companies were doing. And I wanted to do it, but I want to do it on a big scale. Tope really didn't want to. He wanted to just make money. He's like, I don't care about

being a big company. You know, I just want to make money. and but I'm gonna let you run so at the same time he wanted to get in the solar business so I was like this is perfect you go do solar grow that do your thing you know it was 2008 Obama's coming in the the tax credit started he had an idea to get into it and I wanted to you know grow this company so he bought out his partner and basically made me his partner at that point And that little solar company, he started end up becoming solar energy world, which grew to well over 100 million when he sold it to Comcast. We're still the landlord.

They're downstairs in our building. Comcast owns it now, and they're doing hundreds of millions. But, you know, that spawned from this idea. And I took home fix. And I was able to grow it through grit and hard work. to you know 60, 70 million at its largest. But like you said on your little sheet, I was a serial entrepreneur. So I wasn't really satisfied with that.

And I started and spun off a bunch of other companies kind of at the sacrifice to Home Fix. So Home Fix kind of got stuck at that size. It hasn't really grown much bigger. But I have, you know, founded and started quite a few other companies that are very successful. and kind of are in the ecosystem of home improvement. So one of them is installation services, which is an awesome business. We actually install.

We're a turnkey installation and supply company. Love that business. We started it by I purchased a company. So Mid-South Building Supply was the building supply company in my area. All these companies started using Mid-South. South to do their install and to get their materials. And there's a guy Norman Rails. I don't have you ever heard of him. He's a billionaire. Another guy, Harry Katz, they're like godfathers in this industry. And they were smart. And they saw all these guys, these sales reps that were at

these companies at College Park. And they'd be like, yeah, if you go start your company, we'll be your install and will be your credit line. And all these little companies spun out. So Mid-South at the time was installing for, you know, 30, 40 different companies. Power being their biggest. SRS ends up buying Mid-South. Power buys some other install thing and turns it into their own, so they leave Mid-South. Mid-South moves in the building next door and becomes exteriors, etc. And they are just a window, turnkey, window, and siding, supply company and install.

SRS takes over all the roofing. So that's the company I bought in an asset, purchase and all those people are still here today in my building running installation services and when we first took it tope was like look I don't want to install for my competitors if you the reason we wanted it was the people all the installers all the assets the trucks the knowledge you know the measure tax the systems to scale our install and they had a really nice commercial division I love you know I love the idea getting into commercial I want to get into scale and so I was like yeah yeah no problem I'm not gonna stall for my competitors so that lasted

like a day I sent uh you know I sent letters to you know whoever capital and long whoever they're installing for saying all right we're install your pipeline but at the end we're not taking anymore and you know I have too many friends in the industry and back then there was a lot of labor shortage and you know I'm friends you know with Harley and Aaron that that started one no nation and other guys and they're like hey why aren't you installing for us why aren't you installing for us and harley i was like first of all because you're an asshole and i don't want you yelling at me all the time which you know but second of all you're too big so i end up you know of course because i'm me uh starting to grow that business and it grew really fast so it we installed for window nation

we installed for for a lot of companies but at our our biggest we grew that business independently to 50 million of install but 50 million of install but 50 million of installs but 50 million of install is a big number because there's no sales there's no marketing there's no the cost is like nothing right so you're making a nice margin and you're just executing and I got really good at it and I really enjoyed it and that business is still there to this day I'm proud of it we've helped a lot of companies I've more I've shifted away from the window nation of the world because they almost put me out of business you know the demand and the volume and I'm more just small companies like hey you don't want to hire measure tax or get trucks

and you got to buy windows you know for two three hundred dollars a window from a bc i could sell you a window for 200 bucks and install it for 150 and you don't need it will be your back office and you know the other beautiful thing is people would you know i'm like i'm not one of those guys i don't sue people i don't you know people want to start their own company i just take it as a feather in my cap so there's probably 20 people that have trained and hired to start their own I'm like sure go and I'll install for you just become you know become my customer So I created a really nice healthy network of like 10 12 million dollar companies that we install windows for And then you know while I was doing it. I was like I got you know

I want to get in the finance business You know that seems cool because I loved that I didn't have to sell or market and I got all this volume I'm like what is the this is even easier the finance business I don't do anything And they go do all the work So I kept going to Tope. I'm like, it's getting the finance business. Let's do it. And he's like, you know, just can you focus on Home Fix for one day?

Oh, yeah, yeah, that'll be fine. So back then, Home Fix was with service finance. And David, who owned Green Sky, was trying to get our business. So I'm sure you know David or no Jesse or I'm sure you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, all those guys. Yeah, so Jesse was like, hey, you know, we want Home Fixes business. this is the year David was on the cover of Forbes so David wants to have you down to his house he wants to you know as a guest and he wants to um sorry um he wants to you know just

get to know you and see if you're some business from home fix and I was like yeah sure fly me down there so I go down so like I told you uh you know I'm good at making you know quick relationships with people. People always joke with me because I'm half Greek, half Jew. Like, I'm a Greek when I need to be. I'm a Jew when I need to be. When David Goldston was the chief of staff of the Science Committee, I was Jewing it up with him, you know.

And David from, you know, David of Green Sky is there, you know, I think his parents are actually Israeli preferred. They're Jewish immigrants, professors, brilliant people. So I made a quick connection with them. I was like, look, David, I'm going to be honest to you. I'm whatever about using Home Fixer Greenside, I want to start a finance company. I want you to help me.

And very graciously, he did and very generously. So I went back. I convinced Tope to do it, and we started Pure Finance. And Pure Finance at the beginning was really just an app where you'd get an approval and it would just go to Green Sky. It's all it was. Okay. And I hired one employee, which was a underwriter from another local,

finance company, Atlantic, just to kind of like take the files and, you know, do the fundings and stuff like that. And I had, you know, my, you know, 10 or 15 customers in mid-south that I could just sign right up and a couple friends sign right up. So I'm getting some loan volume. And now I've got a little company going. And, you know, it started to, you know, get 10 clients, get 20, started to get some action. I'm like, all right, I want to do something with this. So out of buddy, that worked at Wells Fargo. And to me, just a bank was a bank, so I figured if he worked at Wells Fargo

and he was really high up, he would know how to run a finance company. And so I took him to lunch and convinced him to leave his half a million dollar a job at Wells Fargo to come be the CEO of Pure Finance. And he shows up day one and realizes that Pure Finance is a cubicle in the corner of my office at Home Fix, but he's a CEO.

And my, you know, my, My part of pure finance kind of ended there in my story. And I passed the torch to him. And he has now taken pure finance and grown it to be one of the largest finance companies in the country. I mean, we're taking apps from, I think we probably took apps from close to 600 contractors yesterday. So we are, you know, we're a player in the business. And we also took that from being just a correspondent lender to a, to a, to a, to a, full-stack, full-service licensed lender. We're not a, you know, Green Sky actually isn't even a

licensed lender. Green Sky is a licensed finance company, so they can't hold any paper. We are a full licensed lender in that we can, you know, portfolio loans, we can, you know, get a bond rating, we can lend our own money. And because of that, our cost of funds are really affordable. It really can't be beat by almost anyone. We can create any program we want. We got great tech. I built it. for contractors and I knew you know they say that fees are important to them but and we are you know good fees but it's not what's important to contractors that it's really easy to use in the home that reps can get you know quick that they're create the fastest way to get a get a contract and then the acceptance too right like get more approvals second

Your my word, get the divorce approvals. And then, you know, cost is the third. And, you know, luckily in that period, Mark Birch, who owned service finance, kind of caught wind of what I was doing. And Mark, have you met Mark? I know Mark really well. Yeah, he's an animal. So Mark. An animal.

He's a workaholic. Mark rolls out the, I mean, he rolls out the whole, right, he rolls out the global 500 and everything. and I meet with this guy and man, it was like, dude, it was like, it sparks happened. So Mark and I hit it off really well. And he taught me a lot about financing. So first he was, you know, we were maturing beyond just, this is in between becoming an owner,

maturing beyond Greenskite. We were more of a broker, more of a correspondent lender. And we could sell deals to different. And service set up a real, you know, a real program for us that we could offer real finance and then sell the paper to service. And Mark always said to me, it's funny, you know, he gets with his whiteboards and his numbers and everything goes nuts. And he's like, showing me how to do it. And he said, I'll teach you how to do everything because you'll never figure out how to get your own money. And I took that as a challenge

and I joke with him when I see him now because I figured that out. And I wouldn't have been able to if it wasn't for him because I had to fake it that I was a real finance company first so I could actually go and get the money but but a lot if it wasn't for Mark I wouldn't have been able to do it but pure is uh is it's an amazing company we run it like a tech company um we uh my my other partner there was a home fix employee was like home fix employee number two so he knows in-home sales he knows what contractors want um You know, still to this day, you know, being in the B2B selling a contractor business, like, I take everyone personal. Like, it's just like I'll, I'll die before I have a contractor be unhappy.

Like, there's just nothing. And we kind of run the business that way. And we're very thoughtful about who we bring on. We got, you know, all of our contractors are just awesome partners. We don't put ourselves in a place where we can't service them really, really well. And that's pure. I love this story. Yeah.

I got a many questions about that. Do you guys API in any CRMs? So yeah. So that's a, so I'm really, you know, do you know Pat from Leap? I don't know. Pat Fingles?

No. So Pat found, you know, Leap, right? Sales Pro. Yeah. Yeah. So Pat was. Commercial on Fox News. It's like every other commercial.

So he was a home fixed sales rep. And then. He basically started the, he was the first digital contract. I mean, we were all on paper before then, and I wish I was still on paper because I love the paper days. But, and he grew that to a huge company. But he also founded this company called New Look, which was a home fixed competitor. And it grew it to 40 million. It's biggest.

And then he founded Leap and sold it. He ended up having to sell New Look because the private equity company wanted to. I bought that company. that's another story but but the API version so Leap is like I think one of the largest

finance like there's more financing that goes through Leap than most finance than like you know What's that guy's name again at Leif? Leap Leap Leap

Pat Fingles so sales pro Leap Oh Leap Okay I'm thinking about something else Okay all right I'm sorry Okay, I thought you meant Leap. No, no, no.

So, Leap is, you know, one of those CRMs that you want to be integrated with, right? Okay. So they're the biggest partner we have at Pure and that we're integrated into the LEAP system. So if you're writing your contract there, you can get the approval. And we do play around with the, you know, the aggregators of the world or the, you know, I don't even know what to call them, like the wanted funds of the world. We're not in one of fun, but I know those guys. I mean, I was hanging out with those guys at your Phoenix Open. I love those guys.

And in fact, the owner was our lawyer at Solar World. So we got a lot of, you know, cross worlds and they're great guys. But so, yeah, we play around that world. Now, here's the thing with it is you're going to pay a fee or a scrape to be in those. So is the volume worth the scrape? Yep. Right? right and the way we're set up now you know it's you don't want to be in too many so we're in

leap we don't know if we want to be in that many more because we're bringing on enough contractors monthly that I'd rather just give them the you know it's a really competitive it's a race to the bottom right so you can only go so low you can only lose so much money on the loans good thing that we're an actual finance company so we service our loans you know so there's there's multiple layers of revenue to be made on each one but because we service everything and we also are a full payment platform so you can run all your payments everything right through our platform and then everything's paid and then we'll integrate with your CRM we'll API into anything you have you know so for me as a customer of Pure everything that

happens with Pure is instant in my CRM. get approved, they pick the plan, it's in my CRM. They sign it, it's in my CRM. You know, they get the Stips, it's in my CRM. So we can integrate with almost anyone. Like I said, we run it like a tech company. We have quants and geniuses, you know, galore over there running that place. You, uh, you said Northern Virginia is a money market. What a, I'm not in Northern Virginia yet. I'm just curious, what are some of the better markets in the Northeast? So, But Northern Virginia is still probably ground zero for home improvement. I mean, it's crazy.

I'm on that SRS trip, which is top contractors for SRS everywhere, and they're all D.C. metro area contractors because the Washington, D.C. is just an endless faucet of money that just spills out into the suburbs around it, which is why it's such a good market. And there's just so many homes. I'm in, so I am in, I'm from Jersey. Right now I'm from South Jersey to North Carolina. So I'm in, you know, kind of that South Jersey, Philly Market, the Maryland market, Northern Virginia, Richmond, Virginia, Norfolk, Virginia, Raleigh, Charlotte. And then I was in Tampa.

When we sold Solar World, who was also in Charlotte, Tampa, we made the decision, I made the decision to actually close those offices for Home Fix because it just, home fix was not doing good at the time and we can talk more about that. and I was like I just need to consolidate my efforts and Tampa is just too far for me to touch even though I love the market. So we so right now North Carolina, Virginia, you know, we're spread over six, seven offices in that mid-Atlantic. I love Raleigh. That's an awesome market. I love Norfolk, but they're canvas markets. So they're really tough. I mean, especially Raleigh or Charlotte. If you don't canvas, I don't know anyone. I mean, when donations shut down Charlotte, I think it's the only location they've ever shut up.

down. Charlotte's tough. And I know. Yeah. And I think power even struggled in Charlotte. I think it's their worst office. Like, well, but they canvass.

Anyway, if you canvish, you could kill it in North Carolina. If you don't, it's tough. The credit is tough. The approvals are really tough. The aggregators are going to give you a lot of shit. And the digital just doesn't really work there. Maybe for a services industry like you,

which I love, you know, I'm a total, you know, we're not, I'm trying to run my business like a service. is business now, but I'm not. But for retail roofing and retail windows, it's tough if you don't canvass. So we still kill it in Raleigh, and I love that market. When you knock on a door there, I still canvas all the time. I've knocked on thousand doors. I don't canvas in my home market, because I went out with them one time and knocked on this husband and wife I went to college with, and it was the most embarrassing thing. So as much as I have no pride, I don't want to knock on door people I know but I when I go to Raleigh I knock almost every time I go to

visit them and and I always I'll get more leads and I always tell them I'm gonna get more leads than your best guy out here now I would never want to be the salesman that runs my leads but I'm gonna get them because if they open the door they're signing up but the people are so nice and they open the door like hey look there's somebody out here it's got a roof estimate honey come on over like it's completely different than you know canvassing in Jersey or northern Virginia so I do dig the southern markets a lot and I'm still you know I've been a canvasser since day one we're a canvas company we've grown through canvassing we tried to change our DNA the last few years and it was a

total flop because I really think companies have us a DNA and like a soul they do and you can change you can change all your people and it doesn't go away and we are a canvas company and your sales reps have to be the type the problem I have with canvassing because I'm not good at it is and I'm jealous is you build the man where it doesn't exist and I'm so used to yeah exactly I get yeah 34,000 leads a month and I that's in right but but but your your garage doors right so yeah one thing is so if I was a services company right HVAC or or you know more what the garage doors I love I was actually in the garage doors yep yeah I was in the garage door business with installation services for a while we were a clopay

dealer and an armar dealer and we self-perform the install and I self-perform the install and I killed it and the beautiful thing about is you're not competing as much for the leads and leads for services or for you know repairs and service are easy to come by and you can convert them into replacement um so that's one i'm also like i said i'm not generating you know leads any other way i tried in 2020 when everyone when leads were just raining from the sky from covid you know during covid and everybody i knew i remember i was on the phone with ed augustine who i love from paramount buddy of mine and he's like we we just their canvas company like we just did a TV ad we did you know two million dollars in a week or

something i was like man i'm missing the boat so i tried i actually hired window nations tv guy like to make commercials and then i found out that i don't even know how to answer the phone i literally had never taken an inbound lead we had no way of taking a lead and setting it because we're so used to canvassing and it was a total like flop where i am like the you know everything of that i love about canvassing is I don't care what the economy is I don't care what the turn down rate it is I don't care is like I can literally just write my my volume that I want on a piece of paper and just reverse engineer it right back into recruiting um it's it's just a simple you know algebraic equation to how many people walk into my door for a canvas interview that go out and knock on the knock on a door is how many leads I'll generate and it's it's it never fails

It just doesn't. No, I agree. I mean, how big is your installation company? So at our biggest, we were covering almost the whole East Coast. I mean, I was installing on the border of Canada and down to Florida. Now, it's modest. I'm just basically installing within, you know, 90 to 100 mile radius of where our home fix is. and where the nice benefit of that is is I have a really healthy inside sales program,

you know, over the phone sales. And, you know, it's not a secret, but it's easier to generate leads in areas where there's not a lot of people and not a lot of demand because not a lot of people are fighting over the leads. So we get from the aggregators all these leads that no one wants in these remote areas, but I can install there. So we're selling a lot over the phone that way. So it helps us add a footprint. Are you spraying in the foam or just adding the stuff up top or what type of insulation?

No, no. Installation, not insulation. Oh, you don't do. Oh, it's all install work. Yeah. So I'm installing for my competitors, basically. Man, I'm mishearing. I'm sorry.

So what happened in the garage? So you were doing installs because they needed garage doors as well. yeah yeah yeah and i liked that yeah so it basically i stopped doing that because um everything that i slowed down to do is because home fix was just not doing well and i had to it was going to die without me so i had to really pure finance had a great CEO and their own team they in fact they locked me out of the building pure finance doesn't even want me there they just they have a head of risk there and i'm like they consider me like public enemy number one because i'm a you know a fucking home improvement savage so you cannot run a finance company the way you run a home improvement company

it's a complete opposite actually so that company's fine solar world built the most amazing team on the planet you know they're there um so home fix needed me bad and so you know that's why i had to rein in a lot of the other things i did and jump back in this business in in with every fiber of my being you know because at the end of the day I'm the CEO and you know responsible for it um so so as I sit here in 2026 I try and stay out of as much as I can it's not um home fix oh and I also so I end up starting a commercial construction business as well called top key construction which is uh another you know kind of independent business which which does commercial construction and also as a great CEO.

Do you think if you took your best canvassers, I'm just curious, and this is just more of a hypothetical, but... Okay. Do you think garage doors would work for door to door? I'll sell anything door to door. We had a bath business for a while. Again, I slowed it down. I wound it up because I just wanted to focus on home fix, but we were canvas. Everybody said he'd canvas for bath.

We were camping for walking tubs. You can canvas for anything. And in fact, I would love the canvas for garage doors because it opens up a whole bunch of homes that you can go to new construction. You can go anywhere. The reason I ask is because the problem I have is the garage door average ticket is just so much lower than a bathroom model or windows or roofing or switching your cable out because that's a SaaS product. So I know these guys pest control. So my idea, so right now I got 100 canvassers. that just go put a sticker in the garage.

They say, we're just here to lubricate your door. The neighbors broke down the street. We put our sticker in there, a free service call when you need us. But out of like all the canvassers, they're the ones that were the rejects. They're the guys that just aren't comfortable with confrontation and sales.

But my question, I guess I'm working towards here in the future is if I get an A plus canvasser, could they turn over those leads? Yeah, see, I don't know the economics on the average job size and the cost. And what if I just gave them 20 bucks for every time they give me an opener with a brain in it that Amazon could deliver? See, my theory is they're not going to make a killing, but they'll get a yes every three homes they're in. And so they're not going to turn over as quickly.

It's like really easy because it's a small ticket just to sell an opener for $500 and say, hey, you can get Amazon or Walmart to deliver. I could pay them more on the upsells of there. But I think the good news about it is, man, if you're getting one out of six, you. 60 yeses, that sucks. But if you're getting that motivation of confidence level, like, man, I'm getting a lot of yeses. I don't know. Yeah. But I mean, that math

is right too. Like when I tell you, you got to knock on 100 doors. But if you do it, it's just math. I tell people, you know, you're not going to 100 doors, whatever you're made. I always tell my canvester is just do the math. You know, here's how what you make per, you know, here's how many leads you generate. Here's how many go out.

Here's what you make. And because my best canvasser ever was this guy, He was a knock, he used to do security, and I brought him over. He would knock with a golf ball, loud as hell. Bop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And he was like the first guy that put, like, the construction outfit on when he's canvassing. And no one did that yet. And he would, back then, I was paying him $100 a called in lead.

So just calling the lead. I'll give you $100. But the math worked, because you get me 10 leads. It's $1,000. I run three of them. So I'm running three leads for $1,000. That's $333. a pitch. I sell one.

Average sale, 15 grand. I'm paying a thousand bucks for $15,000 sale. It works. If you got the right camser. Seven and a half percent. He would go until he, sometimes he'd make, you know, get, he would get 10 liens a day. This guy was making 300 grand a year canvassing. So he figured out he made $9 a door. And he would just hammer, boom, pop, blah, blah, blah. And he'd spit out his pitch.

They'd say no. He'd spit out a quick exception. They'd say no. Boom. Thanks for the nine bucks. Move to the next one. and just roll through it. But the point is, you know, I've never had canvas for garage doors, but I believe you could canvass for anything. And canvassing will never stop working as long as, you know, I'd canvas during COVID.

I canvass. The one thing that does shift a little in canvassing is labor wages just become more expensive. so to get people trained and up and running is more expensive because the hourly wage has gone up so much. No, that makes sense. You know a guy named Matt Esler? That's my dog. I love him. I love him like he's my brother.

You know, I got to meet him at the remodeler event. Is it amazing how much he's like, I mean, I guess you're the same. but I mean because you guys are so big much bigger than I am but how involved he is and how like on the level thing to me is I feel like I could still like I'm still a student for life and I feel like I can learn a lot from him because I haven't figured out events I haven't figured out but by the way I'm not just going to dabble when I go into something I go all in like I don't I'm not in home Depot or lows or Costco or Mnards or Ace Hardware I just think they're kind of this Omni, the thing that really I think is affecting him is that you got to sell within the dealer

network. So the multiple, it's like, why would I ever sell? Because I can never get, you know, eight ones worth 1520x. I think he taps out about five X, you know, but one point what, $2 billion, $1.3 billion. He's amazing. And he's a learner too. If you talk to him, he's listening. Like he wants to learn more. He's listening like it's his first day. It's amazing. But you mentioned, so I'll tell you, we're, we're successful in retail. I don't do the BJ's stuff because I don't want to pay the fees, but we're in Walmarts very successfully. We're in, you know, other any retail spot, but it's just canvassing. Like, it's all, I just train you out of canvas.

If you're at a home show, you're not at a booth, you're canvassing. You are just, there just happened to be a place where people are aggregated and you are going to grab them and drag them into the demand cycle. but you know I don't why does all these companies fail at canvassing even though there's all the you know the yoho method or or Tony Hody or all these people to train you out of canvas or these consultants why do they all fail and telling you it's because the DNA because if I if I walk into an office and interview and someone's like hey I'm interviewing this rep he's leaving you know he's leaving window nation or he's leaving Anderson I'm like if you're coming here for leads our leads suck you're at the wrong place and you probably shouldn't come here because you're not succeed. You know what? That's so freaking true. Yeah. The mindset of a sales rep here when we train them, we train them as canvassers. Like you were just showing up to a door that you're going to have to recanvass when you get there. I'm just pretty sure someone's going to open it. Like that's what we're training them. And it's just a totally different mindset. Here's the crux of it. If I train,

a lion how to kill a demand call. I mean, they're spoiled. They go out. It's a busted door. I need this fixed. I'm trapped. I miss my son's baseball game. And then you go to a non-demand call. And it's a complete different approach. We're spoiled. So we go and we're like, we're trying to treat it the same way. But the client's like, it works fine. So. And you can say, I'll give you an analogy. All right. I tried to hire different. So I run sales. And I've tried over the. years to get somebody to run sales.

And, you know, I get the Bricks to do my recruiting and I think Bricks is great. And they'll bring me people from these big companies that don't canvas, but have run these massive sales teams and they don't work here. And it's because it's so like just even like they're trying to talk about offers, like financing. You cannot walk into a Canvas lead start talking about two years saying this cash laws because they don't want you there in the first place. So they're not thinking about how they're going to pay for it where they don't want you here.

In canvassing, when I offer you one year no interest no payment, it's like I literally made it rain in front of you. Like I parted the seas like Moses at the end when, you know, I've told you how amazing our product is and how, you know, what you're, you know, one day when you replace this. And I've made you think, wow, I actually may want to do this one day. and I will never be able to afford it. And then I make magic happen, right? Or if you walk in there and say, oh, here's our five years of interest free or here's our buy two, get one free,

they just don't care. Right? So it's just such a different mentality of trying to sell on price or offer than creating, you know, then creating the demand while you're there. And the other thing is we don't compete on price. Most of the people,

run have never had a quote before. I never had an estimate. No. Like I never see, ever see, you know, Anderson or, you know, any of these competitors at any of our leads, ever. Well, that's what's interesting is, look, my uncle got an Anderson's quote in Gilbert.

And it's amazing how much more expensive they are. I mean, literally, like, triple the price. And they get it all day. But they've mastered the system that, quite frankly, we only $4,500 a window. It's unbelievable. It's insane. But here's the deal. How much do they spend on branding? I mean, they're on every commercial. They're on radio. They're at every, they're running 350 events in Phoenix. I mean, you catch them at a high school football game. I mean, and the deal is their brand actually allows them to charge more. And I will say they've got some of the best financing I've ever seen. I mean, they're so good at it. They're amazing. I admire, well, I, like you say, you're jealous of Camstein. Like, I'm jealous of a brand.

I'm jealous of that, that somebody might have heard of me if I open the door or if someone, you know, actually wants me there. We compete against Thompson Creek here. Their brand is, everyone knows them. If I want to say what I do for a living is somebody, I said, well, have you heard it for Thompson Creek? I do that because everyone's heard of them, right? It's totally different.

And I constantly like, you know, listen, we spend $500,000 a month on canvassing. I could take that and spend it on SEO or, you know, pay-per-click. or TV ads, whatever I want. But I've just found that it's like it's one of the other. Harley Magnin always tells me that. He's like you don't limp into branding and digital marketing. You don't just sound like an all-a-card menu. Like I'll run some SEO or SCM.

No, there's a lot of money. It takes a lot of time. It's a long-term investment. It's not just you can't just spray and pray and dabble. You got to have the booking rate dialed in, the conversion rate, and the average ticket and then you've got to monitor the cost per lead and it's it's you know

but what's great about it is the LLMs are starting to really understand that when I win all these awards and the brand and I'm getting the searches and I think Google's going to win the long term because they got more data and I was talking to a buddy of mine and he goes Tommy you're going to win

because you've got the highest domain authority you've got the most links that's the trust signals and the LLMs were dabbling with Reddit and BBB and trust pilot and all these other things, but they're starting to go back to what Google figured out. It is a legitimate company. Their hours are open.

They answer the call. Right, right. So it's the phone we call. Well, that's big. Yeah. I mean, literally like, it's huge. Google figures out who's going to give my clients the best

so they come back to Google to use us? And that's why they get such, you know, that's, they treat their users for free, but I'm paying for another backing with PPC and PMAX and LSA ads. And that's why I, I can't risk it because if someone calls off a local service ad and they can't get through because my 30 people, the calls that are on with the 60 canvassers confirming their lead so they can't get to the lead.

And we missed that call and Google pings us for it. They're not going to send us any more leads. It's, and it's, I wrote down here, I'm going to need to start a new business as a division of A1 with separate technicians to run those. That's, that's a massive takeaway because I don't want the guys running the same leads. It's almost like you need, like, demand lead channel and then canvas lead channel or like the or events. Yeah. Or Walmart.

Totally different. Yeah. And yours, the guys can sell. I mean, the roofers that get it right. My buddy, American home contractor, I love their model. They're just selling roof services and the technicians are converting them. And they're doing, I mean, they have a zero percent marketing cost. They get paid to come out there.

And they're converting 15. $20 million a year in roofs from their services. Yeah, I mean, we turn over a product just under 10% of our service calls to new doors. And it's not where I want it to be. I've got technicians at 40%. It's just really hard because sometimes these technicians think they're McGiver and because they wouldn't buy it because they live in an apartment. And I'm like, dude, you ever watch Remodel Magazine seven years in a row the number of,

the reason it's the number one ROI is because it's a shittiest industry. I hate to say it is because every guy that's on Facebook, talking about charging too much is living at his mom's basement and they act like they have a business and the business doesn't remember without him. There's a good garage door guy I met at a ProVia trip in Ohio. It's a really good business. I don't know if you know him. What's his name?

I can't remember right now. I love the garage door business. Yeah. I don't know. Somewhere in Ohio. They got a big business. I think I know you're talking about the problem is he does mostly commercial. commercial and that's a whole different model than me.

Right. I love commercial, though. There's a shit ton of money in commercial. Problem is with commercial, you got to do do do dox levelers, storefront, be a locksmith, you got to do closers. You know what I mean? There's, you got to do high speed lifts, but there's a fortune in it. Another thing you can't dabbling.

Well, the thing is you got to have a jack of all trades and you got to have torches on the truck. You got to have welders on the truck. Like for me, we've got a much smaller average ticket, no contracts, none of that. stuff but I could make I got 70 technicians this month that we're training do you self-perform all the install yeah everything for us is W-2 100% yeah I don't think so so what the reason Comcast loves solar world is I don't know what the exact number at the time of the transaction was but it was something like you know 500 employees and

it was mostly installers it was a hundred percent self-performed and there were no we were one of one there was no other solar company that was from lead to install. Everyone was either just a little sales and marketing company. Yep. Or an install company. No one did at all. And certain businesses, you just have to self-perform.

And so that's the other reason. Like, I used to self-perform gutters. I used to self-perform garage doors. But it's like, you know, it's an endeavor. The trucks and the training. Here's why I win. I spend $70 million with my vendors. I also spend a fortune with service time and with Enterprise.

But as far as my vendors go, if someone spends a million dollars with me buying grocers, they pay less. If they spend $10 million, I don't have anybody spending a million or $10 million. But my point is, once you spend enough money, you're going to get buying power. And that's why people are like, how do you win this game? I'm like, well, vertically integrate,

but I've got more buying power. And, you know, I think that I think home services over time with AI and what's happening in the world with robotics, I think it's going to start to get more commoditized. It's not going to get commoditized overnight, but it's starting to. And people want to know what the price is going to be, and they want to know before you get there, and they want to know the quality, the warranty.

I think we got some time, but I think, you know, a robot's going to be able to do stuff pretty soon, but the deal is a robot's not going to build the garage door. You're going to have to have the machinery to still do it. Yeah. That's why I hired. I've got some geniuses that I've hired, and their goal.

is like they said what is your fear what do you want to beat I'm like I want to be set I want to build my inside sales to the point where I could that could roll into anything I want like you could to where where I'm I'm I'm I go first I'm selling over the phone that I'm just selling you know I want to be a set up that if that's where the world's going that I could sell with a click of a button you know we've we and you know I'm not I don't know if that's where it's going to go and I'm going to start testing it with rehash and you leads that didn't go out like blasting them with a click to buy you know just because you know we can we can it's so easy like I can I can send 10,000 people a link to price their own gutters out and

click to buy right there will they buy them we'll see but um they click to price it I can at least convert it to a phone call and sell it over the phone I was on the phone with BJ's team on they've got that that app to kind of see you kind of like yeah yeah what it's called but I love that because I'm not, in the next two years, I don't want to do this, but it would be awesome if I own the garage, where I could set up your storage, insulate the ceiling and the walls, do the garage floor, I could do the mini split in the garage, set you up completely.

But if I had all the dimensions and I said, I could do all this for $147 a month. And then I partner with all the workout equipment that no one has room for a gym, but the garage is perfect. I partner with them. And I could even let them finance it and pay me. I don't really like whatever it works. I mean, these bigger companies, you think about like I talked to P90X.

They're out of North Dakota. Yeah. And he's like, guys, you can fulfill everything. We'll pay you a percentage of the ticket. But that's perfect for me because it's an uninsulated door. They're going to need their floors done. We install the equipment. And then what else comes on top of that?

Or even. Do I love that? Or Brunswick, pool tables or ping pong tables. Like people are like, why would you partner with them? Because nobody has room for them in their house. So they put them in the garage. Yeah, yeah. I like that.

I love my, I spend so much time in my garage. It's like my happiest place. I got the mini split. My garage is heated and cooled. I got the storage. I got the floors. I'm in heaven.

And then I got a sick gym. I'm like people, I tell people all the time, like you put a great gym in your garage, your house. You change your life because you add two hours to your day, maybe more,

because you're not driving there. You're not bullshitting with somebody. You're not getting back in the car and drive you back. And you can wake up and having a good hour workout, but you've got to make it as desirable to be there as lifetime fitness. You know, it's true.

And you can do that in your garage. Yeah, no, it's, it's, I got a little man cave in mine as well. I still like going to the gym just because I like having a trainer. But I like somebody to spot me when I'm lifting heavy, but I only go to the trainer two to three times a week. Adam, I got to get running here. Is there any books that changed your life? Yes.

So I'll say Atlas Shrugged is the easiest one. Yes, don't take away all the brilliant people because they leave and they stop trying. So that's it. I mean, I read that book. There's a picture of me in the crib with that book, believe it or not. My dad was a huge Outta Shrug guy. So that, I mean, that's the easy one. And then, you know, I'm a Winston Churchill fanatic.

so I've read everything I can that is about or you know remotely tangentially connected to Winston Churchill I think he's just I could do an entire podcast on you know his effect on me but between Iron Rann and Winston Churchill

yeah but I have like 15 copies of Atlas shrugged over there if somebody hasn't read it I sent it to him you know it's a great book I don't read a ton of like the the the the books that you know everyone reads like the self-help whatever. Yeah, that's all I read. Yeah, I listen.

What I do if I get one I like, I listen to a podcast with the author on it. Yeah. But I love the book, the one thing. Like that book. Yeah, Gary Keller. Yeah. Like that book, man, if I just center myself on that, it's written right here on the wall. Yeah, it should be on your doorknob.

I'm busy working on. I love that you started all these things that succeeded. I did a shop tour yesterday with 30 people, and I said the one thing that every founder screws up is they get sidetracked, I'm opening up a bar, I'm going to start flipping real estate. I got this and this and this. And very few people I know, you're rob and Peter to pay Paul. I'd be halfway to Tommy Mello if I just focused on home fix.

I swear to God, I'd be so much richer. Well, look, I think it's good advice and simple things. Like I used to think, man, if I get two full-time mechanics, how much money could I save buying old trucks? I didn't realize I could get the tax advantages and the optics for the technicians to drive in a brand-new truck. I mean, I started focusing on. I did the same thing. IP-QI, I was like, I'm just going to buy trucks. It's going to be amazing.

And now I'm just with Enterprise. And it's like, that's the secret. Literally another thing, I started wrapping my own vehicles and outfitting them. And I'm like, dude. And then all of a sudden, that's a whole other business. And you got to run a P&L and the people don't, like, dude, it's all a distraction. Yeah, it's all of it. Close us out, brother.

What's the final thought? Just savage mentality right now, man. So anything, anywhere, the answer is always yes. Whatever I got to do, my sales reps call me, my manager, like, just do it. Whatever it is, I don't care. Just do it. Does it get leads in the house? Does it get revenue?

Do it. Make mistakes. Break shit. I don't care. The answer is yes. And that's in this market. environment that's how you got to operate it's not it's it's it's people first hire savage people and just let them run free that's what uh so Steve Jobs says

listen I really enjoyed your story today and I'm definitely gonna reach out because I've got so many more questions but we'll do it offline but this was been cool an amazing podcast my friend I really appreciate the time and uh thanks for doing this thanks brother