Next Level Pros
Why Most Trades Owners Can’t Scale Sales (And the Fix) Built on Doors, Not Google: The $500M Growth Playbook How Door-to-Door Scaled a $500M Company and Why It Works Anywhere
22 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: How was a $500M pest control company built through door-to-door sales?
You're about to hear how a $500 million pest control company was built through door-to-door sales. Now, if you're in roofing, HVAC, plumbing, or solar, don't tune out. This company didn't scale because of pest control. It scaled because of a culture and a recruiting system that works anywhere people drive growth.
As you listen, stop thinking about pest control and start thinking about your team, your turnover, and your growth ceiling. That's where this conversation gets real. So David, you're the king of door-to-door. You've been in the space, what, 24 years? 24. 24 years. Why do you think door-to-door is such an incredible market, a way to go to market regardless of what service you are?
I think the beauty about it is you're not waiting for somebody else to call in. It puts you in control in the driver's seat to be able to drive your growth to whatever level you actually want to grow it to.
Yeah, we work with a lot of, like, guys in the trades. You got the HVAC, plumbing, electrical.
Chapter 2: What cultural shifts are necessary for trades businesses to scale?
Most of these guys, they would consider themselves demand services, right? They're waiting for the customer to call that says, toilet's broken, you know, HVAC isn't working, and I'm hot, I need this or whatnot. And so during those times... you know, life is good. And then it's interesting in that same space, they have these spots that they call the shoulder season, right?
And the shoulder season is when demand goes down and a lot of them struggle. What kind of advice would you give to those type of guys?
Sounds like the perfect time to get out and knock doors, right? Like even for HVAC, I think about that, like I'm allergic to dust, right? And so like, you know, some sort of a plan for somebody to come out every three or four months to, you know, switch on my filters or whatever is key.
And like, you could literally go door to door and just asking people that, and you may pick up other additional business along the way too.
And you've been a part of like some large door-to-door organizations. Like what was the largest organization you ever ran from a total rep, revenue, some type of situation?
Yeah, so I owned Aptiv Environmental. We just sold last, or I sold out last year.
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Chapter 3: How can seasonal demand impact service businesses?
We were doing about $508 million in revenue a year.
That's a decent amount of revenue. It's not bad. I mean, average contract in that space is worth how much?
It's probably like 800, 900 bucks. There's some that go up to a thousand, but.
So, I mean, 500, I mean, we're talking about 500,000 customers plus, I mean, 600, 700,000, if they're at a eight or 900.
Right.
Yeah. Contract value. That's crazy.
Yeah. And multiples, you know, they're anywhere from one to three times revenue. So.
I mean, that's, that's decent.
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Chapter 4: What strategies can help transition from technician to manager?
Yeah. So, I mean, you've made a little bit of money in your day. We have. That's awesome. But like, I mean, how do you get to six or 700,000 customers that like most guys watching this are like, dude, I'm struggling to get a hundred a year, you know, let alone six, 700,000.
Like what was it that allowed you to one recruit the talent to be able to do this and then do it the vast majority through door to door?
Yeah. So it's, it's all baby steps, right? You start with a single location and little by little, you start figuring things out. Um, it's, it's a very complex answer if you really want the whole story, but you know, most people start out as a technician probably, right. Or, or a sales rep and they go, okay, I'm going to go get a few friends.
Uh, you know, once they get going, uh, they're probably very likable, you know, they're, they're good with customers. They'll bring a few friends in and then they get stuck where they're kind of like, I call it like the tech technician mindset. Right. And for that spot, it's like you got to get your head out of the business or out of that mindset and start managing people.
Chapter 5: How can businesses create effective training systems?
And it's hard because it's expensive for most people to go, I'm no longer going to be servicing customers. And then there's this new mindset. You get into the manager mindset and you're managing maybe 20 different people, 30 different people. But then it's like, how do I actually scale? And that's a whole other skill set. And so like what got you here won't get you there.
And then what got you here won't get you there. You have to keep developing and learning along the way. So then it becomes all about building systems and processes and training manuals and training videos and trying to get all of your secret sauce from your recipe into practice.
So what was the shift for you? Was it because you were always just like sales forward and then figure out operations or like what made the shift of like, oh, I can take and scale this thing? Hey guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and like and subscribe. That way people just like you can find this content for free here on YouTube.
Now let's dive back in the show.
Chapter 6: What is the importance of employee equity in company culture?
So initially, uh, when I first got in sales, I was horrible. I sold zero for five days and everybody else around me selling one to four accounts per day. And I'm going, all right, am I going to go home? Like, this is like, am I not going to have to quit? And I went to a Barnes and Noble, but you know, six sales books and just started reading.
Yeah.
Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, all the legends, you know? Yep. And, yeah, by the end of the summer, I was number one sales rookie. I have a couple hundred reps and, you know, I'd figured it out. But that's kind of where my obsession started and, you know, getting excited about something. I got passionate about it because it was such great money.
You know, with commission, you're incentivized to do better.
So if I'm a plumber watching this right now, I'm thinking to myself, well, David, do you got... you got your start completely different than me.
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Chapter 7: How can business owners foster an obsession for growth?
Sure. Right. Like I used to freaking turn wrenches. Right. And then I started running my own, my own company. And I, it was a one man band. Yep. Then I hired a buddy to do the same thing. And now we have two vans or now I finally got out of the van. I got three vans and I, Like not many people got the opportunity to be raised in sales the way we were. Right. Right.
Like the, and for those that are watching the summer door to door model is unique. Right.
Chapter 8: What are the best practices for building a strong sales organization?
And it's not like anything else in the home services. Like most, most of these guys are just trying to hope to get another customer by having their Google LSA dialed in. Right. That their phone number rings and, They have their CSR that sets the appointment and hope that the plumber closes the deal. Not a salesperson. The plumber closes the deal when they go out to the home.
So like that's the lens that most of these guys are watching this thing from. And then we come from a background of like, dude, we're competing on the doors while going to college. Right. Right. Reading the Brian Tracy books, getting paid 100 percent commission, going and like scaling sales teams through pizza parties and everything else. Right. Like that.
How do we bridge that gap for the guy that's watching this right now? And he's like, dude, there's no way.
You know, I think one, if you can see the growth opportunity and you're excited about it, start reading about it. Start reading about sales, start training. And, you know, there's so many great systems out there to learn. Like I think of like us, like we just put everything in a training manual over time so that we could replicate that with each sales rep.
And a lot of that was because of my horrible experience. And so, yeah, if you want to get good at whatever it is, you got to put in the 10,000 hours, you got to practice or whatever, probably not 10,000 hours for sales. You know, it's not, it's not that hard. If you already have a great mind around what is the service, that's like half the battle.
Then it's just how do you deliver the message in a way that people can hear you and that you're persuasive, right? To show that you're a confident, competent service professional.
yeah so yeah uh start reading some suicide start watching sales videos about how people close and and then start creating that practicing back and forth we used to record our sales reps and then we'd have a big screen tv in every office and we put them up on the big screen tv and we'd usually have 15 people and we'd say okay if you like something you don't like something tell us we'll press pause and then we want you to give you know the sales rep feedback on how to improve
And we just keep going all the way through it. And that's how we get everybody better.
So what is your thoughts for like a business owner that's never been a great salesperson, right? Like they just had a desire to grow a business and they've figured it out a little bit, right? But they have no idea how to train. They know how to, no idea how to script.
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