Advertise on podcast: Restoration Pros Unplugged

Best month ever. $250,000 in revenue. Four thousand dollars in the bank and payroll due tomorrow. If you've lived that, this episode is for you. In part one of The Profitable Restorer series, host Clinton James sits down with Nikole Mackenzie, founder and CEO of Momentum Accounting. Nikole started out as a tax and audit CPA and has spent more than 15 years helping owners make sense of their numbers. Her team builds and runs the finance function for restoration companies inside Albi and QuickBooks Online. This episode covers the first two phases: Trust and Understand. You'll walk away with: Why revenue grows while cash shrinks, and what to do about it in the next two weeksThe three financial reports you should see monthly, and the one almost nobody readsThe 50-30-20 rule for direct costs, overhead, and profitWhy she always starts on the balance sheet, and the red flags she finds thereWhy a roller coaster P&L is usually an accounting problem, not a business problemThe difference between a bookkeeper, a controller, and a CFO, and which one you're missingWhat a real month-end close should look likeNikole put together four free tools for listeners: her Profit Points Assessment, the 2-Week Cash Planner from this episode, an Albi and QuickBooks Online job costing toolkit, and a Business Value Roadmap. One form gets you all four. Download them here:  https://momentum-accounting.quantogrowth.com/podcast Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com. Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

A lab tech showed up to an active hazmat job site in flip-flops, grabbed drywall with his bare hands, and dropped it in an open tool bag. The invoice was $600. That's the moment AccuGuard started. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Ben Doebler, founder of AccuGuard Environmental. Ben came out of restaurant management and hood cleaning in East Tennessee, moved his family to the Portland area, and found restoration through a Google search. He built the business to just shy of $18 million before selling it, and now he's franchising the mobile environmental lab he created along the way. You'll walk away with: How a nine-story courthouse flood became a $6 million job, and how they got paid after coverage was deniedWhy staying debt-free let them float that job for nearly a yearWhy he trained his management team for commercial large loss years before he needed itThe truth about "next day" lab turnaround and when the clock actually startsWhat skipping environmental testing really costs in fines, payment, and lawsuitsWhat selling a restoration company looks like from listing to closeWant to learn more about the AccuGuard franchise opportunity? Go to AccuGuardFranchise.com. Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com. Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

You pay to make the phone ring. Then a tech walks into a house, has a conversation you'll never hear, and that conversation decides whether you got the job. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Nick D'Urbano of Porter. Nick spent 20 years in investment banking, venture capital, and building software companies before turning toward the trades. Porter records in-home conversations and phone calls, scores them against your playbook, and shows a manager exactly where to coach. You'll walk away with: Why coaching a field team without recordings is like coaching a game you never watchedHow recording actually works in the home, including consent in two-party statesWhere most restoration teams sit on conversion, and where the top performers sitWhy incentives have to be in place before any of this worksWhy you should never hire just one salespersonHow this speeds up hiring and firing decisionsWhere to start tomorrow using the call recordings you already haveWant to see what this would look like in your business? Nick's team runs a free conversion and ROI assessment using your own numbers. Book one here: https://calendly.com/nick-runporter/porter-demo-wrm Learn more at runporter.com. Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com. Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

One 11-inch rain event cost Tyler Hendrix and his partners an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 in a single day, because they weren't built to handle the volume. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Tyler Hendrix, co-owner of Voda South Kansas City and incoming general manager of 1-Tom-Plumber Kansas City. Tyler came out of construction project management, building municipal water plants across five states. A ski trip with two friends turned into a business, and they opened their doors in April 2025. You'll walk away with: Why a year of trying to buy an existing business never worked outHow carpet cleaning gives them a non-emergency touchpoint and a steadier cash flowThe first hire they held onto too long, and what it cost themWhat the storm taught them about paying for capacity before you need itWhat a fractional CFO and a 13-week cash flow forecast changedWhy the plumber referral war pushed them into 1-Tom-PlumberWhy Tyler says restoration's low barrier to entry is just deferred---------- Want to connect with Tyler? Find him on LinkedIn or on Instagram at @TylerHendrix360. ---------- Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com. ---------- Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

At 20, Caleb Owens took over a $525K mitigation department that had bad hires, heavy churn, and stolen equipment. Fifteen months later it was running at $1.5M with 37% profit. Then he left, liquidated his Roth IRA at 23, and started his own company. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Caleb Owens, owner of Kern Water Damage Restoration in Bakersfield, California. Caleb is 24, came up through demo and containment work, and is now building AI systems most restoration companies twice his size don't have. You'll walk away with: How he grew a small mitigation department more than 3x in profit in 15 monthsWhy his first AI build wasted four hours on a 20-minute email, and what he changedHow he connects calls, texts, email, and documentation so AI can actually helpHow his system drafts carrier responses overnightWhy most owners let their inbox decide their prioritiesHow he answers the premium-increase objection with real numbersWhy he gives his whole SOP library away for free----- Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com ----- Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Rick McGuigan asked Larry Braun to join his company for ten years. Larry kept saying "you can't afford me." They finally settled it on a napkin. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Rick McGuigan and Larry Braun of Pine Ridge Cleaning and Restoration in Cleveland, Ohio. Rick bought a small carpet cleaning business in 2003 and grew it to $3.5M largely on his own. Larry came out of 30 years in steel. Together they've taken Pine Ridge into mitigation, reconstruction, and contents. You'll walk away with: Why the visionary and integrator split works, and why two visionaries would have sunk themWhy Larry spent a year learning the business before changing any of itHow they built a contents division in eight weeks after avoiding it for yearsWhy they hired a department manager with no restoration experience at allWhy Pine Ridge doesn't use job titles, and what that does for the cultureHow they handle disagreements without letting them fester---------- Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit https://restorationprosunplugged.com ---------- Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Malik Stevens believed what everyone says about TPAs. Then he ran five fire claims in six weeks, and the first one billed almost $60,000. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Bobby Thomas, CEO of Extreme Services, and Malik Stevens, a Louisiana owner converting his independent company into an Extreme franchise. Bobby came up from carpet cleaning to technician to owner and runs corporately across five states. Malik covers Lafayette, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge. You'll walk away with: Why the margin vs. volume argument doesn't hold up once you run the numbersHow to find margin on a job when the obvious line item isn't billableWhy getting approvals before work starts ends billing fights before they startHow tighter documentation on program work improved every job they runWhat the independent side actually costs you in waiting, guessing, and unpaid workWhy Bobby caps his franchise growth on purposeSubscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com. Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Most restorers think contents is easy. Put stuff in a box. Kristen Stein says the box was never the hard part. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Kristen Stein, owner of Blue Kangaroo Packouts in Randolph, New Jersey. Kristen came out of international trade, bought a restoration franchise three years ago, and now runs 20,000 square feet of storage serving New Jersey, New York, and parts of Pennsylvania. You'll walk away with: Why contents is an owner-operator business, not a passive oneHow to set homeowner expectations when a job runs three to six months instead of three weeksWhere contents companies quietly lose money on box sizing and inventoryHow to push back on carrier guidelines with documentation instead of argumentsHow she uses video and AI estimating to size crews and trucks before anyone rolls outWhat restorers should ask before handing a contents company a client's entire home---------- Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Michael Harrison told his insurance agent he'd do $250,000 his first year in business. He finished at $1.6 million. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Michael Harrison, owner of Mid-South Restoration Services and 1-Tom-Plumber Memphis. Michael started in the trade at 14 as his brother's helper and spent 20 years learning it at franchises and independents before two phone calls on one drive home pushed him to go out on his own. You'll walk away with: How he built a 100% referral business on insurance agents and adjustersWhy he tells agents straight when a loss isn't worth filing a claim onWhy his $6M year was less profitable than his smaller yearsWhy he turned down a TPA that wanted a cut of referrals he already earnedHow he cash funded a 1-Tom-Plumber franchise to be the first call when a building floodsThe culture decision he sat on too long, and what it cost himWant to connect with Michael or learn more about Mid-South Restoration Services and 1-Tom-Plumber Memphis? www.1tomplumber.com/memphis-tn www.midsouthrestoration.com ----- Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com ----- Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Most restoration business owners only show you the highlight reel. Not this episode. Raul Gonzalez of WonderBuilt Restoration and Construction gets real with Clinton James about the two times his business almost didn't make it — bad hires, a cash crunch, a lawsuit that blocked his SBA funding, and high-interest loans just to cover payroll. He shares exactly what it felt like, what he got wrong, and how he turned it around by finally asking for help instead of trying to do it all himself. If you've ever laid awake worrying about making payroll, this episode is for you. Raul's story is proof that the struggle isn't a sign you're failing — it might just be the price of building something real. Sales SOPs. KPI tracking. Job profitability. Getting financing-ready. These are the exact things that almost sank Raul's business — and they're the exact sessions at the Restore Scale Dominate Summit, Aug 27–28 in San Diego. Apply now at RestoreScaleDominate.com  Seats are almost gone. ---------- Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Tunde and Moji Adefolaju opened their SERVPRO one week before COVID shut everything down. Six years later they're running six territories and 15 service vehicles in Northern California. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with the husband-and-wife team behind SERVPRO of East Concord / Brentwood. Neither came from restoration — Tunde managed construction projects, Moji came out of banking and oil and gas. One 40-minute phone call with a franchisee they'd never met sent them into the industry. You'll walk away with: - How they survived a launch that landed on top of a global shutdown - Why they built SOPs and culture early, before they had the crews to run them - The collections fight every restorer has, and how they shortened their payment windows - How they split residential and commercial: Google for one, relationships for the other - Why they added a 1-Tom-Plumber franchise, and how the two brands feed each other - Moji's advice for women getting into restoration ---------- Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com ---------- Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Nine months into business, Dwayne West landed a $100,000 job off his second lead. In this episode, he tells host Clinton James how he did it. Dwayne owns Firehawk Restoration in Jasper, Georgia. He's a Navy veteran who grew up working construction with his dad, then built a career flipping houses and running a general contracting business before jumping into restoration. You'll walk away with: How a $875 pay-per-lead buy turned into a six-figure mitigation and rebuild jobWhy Dwayne skipped third-party administrators from the startHow his construction background let him launch offering full mitigation and reconstructionWhy he invested in a 1-Tom-Plumber franchise to build commercial relationshipsHis advice for anyone thinking about starting a restoration companyWant to connect with Dwayne or learn more about Firehawk Restoration? Visit firehawkrestoration.com Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com. Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Running your restoration company on gut feeling and bank balances is a quiet way to stay stuck. Real growth comes from installing hard numbers and accountability into every job. In this episode, host Clinton James sits down with Larry Braun, VP and Co-owner of Pine Ridge Restoration in Cleveland, Ohio, and a featured speaker at the Restore Scale Dominate Summit in San Diego. Larry spent 30 years running an industrial steel plant before joining the restoration business just two and a half years ago. He brought a manufacturing mindset with him — and it worked. Pine Ridge had been stuck at $3M since 2005. Larry helped push them past a $6.3M forecast, chasing an $8M stretch goal. You'll walk away with: How Pine Ridge ties technician bonuses directly to job-level profit marginA field accountability system that catches costly mistakes before they become callbacksHow to get clean financial visibility between your emergency response and reconstruction teamsWhy niche-focused BDRs are outperforming generalists in insurance and senior living verticalsWhy ranking on Google isn't enough anymore, and what AEO means for your next leadWant to see Larry break down these exact systems live? He's leading a hands-on session called “Behind the Dashboard” at the Restore Scale Dominate live event in San Diego, August 27–28. Early bird pricing expires tomorrow, July 18th, and saves you $150. Apply now at https://restorescaledominate.com Subscribe to Restoration Pros Unplugged and visit restorationprosunplugged.com. Running a restoration company and want to get more jobs from your online marketing? Book a free discovery call with Water Restoration Marketing at https://waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Most episodes of this show feature a single guest sharing their unique path through the industry, but today we are completely flipping the script. In this special roundtable edition of Restoration Pros Unplugged, host Clinton James brings together two of the sharpest tactical minds in the home services space: Chris Nordyke of Floodlight Consulting Group and Nikole Mackenzie of Momentum Accounting.  If you are a restoration business owner generating anywhere from two million to ten million plus in annual revenue and you feel like you have hit a glass ceiling, this transparent, no-nonsense conversation is your blueprint to breaking through. The panel tackles the real friction points that keep growing companies stuck in a loop of high stress and stagnant margins, unpacking the business across three critical domains: sales, marketing, and financials. - Chris Nordyke targets the foundational flaws in traditional B2B sales pipelines, challenging owners to aggressively move past the old school "candy and smiles" route marketing model. He explains how minor behavioral changes can transform underperforming field reps into high-producing B2B sales assets.  Chris introduces the power of the "pain-seeking question" as the definitive tool to disrupt entrenched vendor relationships and secure lucrative commercial accounts. Furthermore, he analyzes the toxic internal friction between sales reps and operations teams, outlining how to build a unified system where fulfillment consistently executes on the promises made in the field. - Nikole Mackenzie exposes the operational vulnerabilities hidden within fragmented back-office structures. From relying on well-meaning spouses and office managers to fighting chaotic data streams inside job management software, many operators are completely blind to their job-level profitability.  Nikole demystifies cost structures by introducing the 50/30/20 framework, designed to inject simplicity into complex financials. She details how clean, standardized charts of accounts enable companies to implement precise department-level benchmarks and execute technician incentive programs that maximize cash flow. Crucially, she explains how tracking true cash health protects growing businesses from looking profitable on paper while bleeding capital in reality. - Clinton James grounds the conversation in the shifting realities of digital lead generation, detailing how rapid developments in AI search engines threaten to make legacy marketing tactics obsolete. He breaks down what it takes to prevent your brand from becoming an "invisible restorer" to modern consumers and outlines how to claim dominant local visibility outside of low-margin third-party administrator networks. To bridge the gap between theory and execution, Clinton, Chris, and Nikole pull back the curtain on a collaborative, highly exclusive live intensive they are hosting this summer. The Restore Scale Dominate workshop is a rigorous, two-day event taking place on August 27th and 28th in San Diego, California. Hosted inside a functioning multi-million dollar restoration facility, this application-only masterclass is strictly limited to forward-thinking owners who want to walk away with fully customized strategic asset toolkits, standard charts of accounts, and live interactive operational audits.  Listen in for a masterclass on cross-department execution, and discover how to claim your market before your competitors beat you to the punch. ----- Apply for the Live Intensive Workshop: Ready to sit in a room with elite peers, dissect your market's data, and install these frameworks directly into your business? Space is strictly limited to ensure high-level collaboration. Secure your seat before the early bird pricing expires on July 18th. Apply to attend here: restorescaledominate.com ----- Scale Your Lead Generation: If you want to stop guessing on your ad spend, optimize your local maps presence, and ensure your business dominates both Google and AI search engines, let's look at your market together. Book a free digital strategy session with the Water Restoration Marketing team: waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/

Most restoration owners have a crazy story about how they got into the business, but very few have survived a first job so brutal it almost drove them out of the industry forever. In this episode of Restoration Pros Unplugged, host Clinton James sits down with Andrew Rickabaugh, co-owner of Rick and Ball Restoration and a One Tom Plumber franchise in Huntsville, Alabama. Andrew pulls back the curtain on his non-linear path to entrepreneurship, spanning roles as a paramedic, firefighter, Huntsville police officer, and a 20-year career in the Marine Corps. The real turning point, however, came at age 24 when he was hired into a restoration firm as an area manager, only to find himself leading an operational disaster. Handed a mountain of derailed reconstruction files, Andrew spent his days visiting furious homeowners and eating crow for mistakes made by completely unmanaged crews. The experience was so exhausting that he quit after 364 days, vowing never to set foot in the restoration industry again. The story didn’t end there. Years later, a call from his brother-in-law and business partner, Kevin Ball, convinced him to return on his own terms to launch an independent company. Andrew breaks down how they put their heads down and did the dirty grunt work themselves, organically climbing the organic rankings to become the highest-rated restoration firm in a hyper-competitive market. He details their strategic expansion into the commercial market, explaining what it takes to find and manage a high-performing business development rep who isn't afraid to pick up the phone and build long-term relationships with property managers. To eliminate the expensive, margin-choking bidding wars over third-party plumbing referrals, Andrew and Kevin made the bold choice to buy a One Tom Plumber franchise. Now managing a team in the mid-30s with a fleet of 15 service vehicles, Andrew shares raw insight into how they handle modern operational constraints. He explains how they utilize AI tools to audit scopes and counter insurance adjusters using strict IICRC guidelines, and why they are aggressively pivoting toward a customer financing model to bypass carrier delays and compress their average 30-day reconstruction start times. Whether you are a military veteran looking to make the leap into home services or an established restorer feeling trapped as the bottleneck in your own business, Andrew’s perspective on efficiency, tech integration, and self-reliance will reframe your growth strategy. He leaves listeners with a powerful reminder on the true value of entrepreneurship: if you don’t own your business, you can't control your future. - Connect with Our Guest Learn more about Andrew and his team: www.rickandball.com - Scale Your Restoration Business Want to generate exclusive, high-intent water damage jobs and build an inbound marketing system you actually own? Book a free strategy session with the Water Restoration Marketing team: waterrestorationmarketing.com/discovery-call/