The Battle Plan Marketing Podcast
Actionable advice to help grow your home services company. The Battle Plan Marketing Podcast is designed for contractors who are looking for effective tips and tactics to grow their business. Podcast topics include contractor marketing strategy, lead generation, web design, search engine optimization, reputation management, referral programs, content marketing, online advertising, social media, financials, sales, employee management, services, and general entrepreneurial interests. Mark Ambrose, host, speaker, and owner of Battle Plan Marketing LLC, has over 30 years experience in sales and marketing and over a decade in digital marketing and search engine optimization. Get more information at our website at https://www.battleplan-marketing.com.
Episodes
Welcome back to our Million Dollar Contracting series with author and contractor Kim Hopkins.
In this episode, we dive into the chapter that separates struggling businesses from seven-figure operators: PROFIT.
Kim breaks down:
- Why “breaking even” is a trap
- How most contractors underprice without even knowing it
- The 10% rule for long-term success (most skip this and pay the price)
- How to build a profit-driven team...
We’re back with another no-BS episode in our Million Dollar Contracting book series—and this one hits where it hurts: getting paid.
Author and 40+ year Operator Kim Hopkins returns in Episode 171 to break down:
- How he went from losing $80K at a time to collecting every penny
- The common collection mistakes that bleed your bottom line
- What to do when a GC, management company, or homeowner stalls (spoiler: it’s not small claims court) ...
In this power-packed episode, Tom Howard (VP at ServiceTitan + serial service business acquirer) lays out how he and his team took three underperforming HVAC companies and flipped them into a $25M machine—fast.
You’ll learn:
- How to spot opportunity in a dumpster fire of a business
- What radical transparency and equity can do for your team
- How AI is outperforming human CSRs—and cutting costs
- The real cost of bloated teams an...
Think great work is enough to grow your service business? Think again.
In this episode, we sit down with Kim Hopkins, author of Million Dollar Contractor, to break down the three skills every local service pro must master to scale—people skills, technical skills, and admin systems.
Kim built a multi-million dollar electrical business from the trunk of a sedan—and he’s sharing the no-fluff strategies that actually get you more jobs, b...
We continue the “Million Dollar Contracting” book review series with special guest and author, Kim Hopkins, Founder & Owner of The Electric Connection out of Los Angeles CA, in business for over four decades.
In this episode Kim we cover Sales, chapter 8 of his book.
Kim shared the lessons he learned on what customer types are ideal and which ones to avoid and the signals each one gives off telling you who the...
We continue the “Million Dollar Contracting” book review series with special guest and author, Kim Hopkins, Founder & Owner of The Electric Connection out of Los Angeles CA.
In this episode Kim shares two of the most important lessons he’s learned in four decades of running his electrical services company.
We also touched on a few key points of Chapter 7 of his book, this chapter is on Internet Marketing.
...
We continue the “Million Dollar Contracting” book review series with special guest and author, Kim Hopkins, Founder & owner of The Electric Connection out of Los Angeles CA.
Nearly the entire episode was devoted to the essential ingredients of a high-converting website for contractors.
From fundamental structure, to essential conversion elements, and how pretty it should look are all discussed.
Kim sh...
In this interview we explore Chapter 5 on Promotions of this “Million Dollar Contracting” book review series with special guest and author, Kim Hopkins, Founder & owner of The Electric Connection out of Los Angeles CA.
40+ years of promotional wisdom was shared once again in this episode. What channels wasted money and where he found his best returns through the decades.
Kim talked about growing repeat and ref...
Today we provide Chapter 4 of this “Million Dollar Contracting” book review series with special guest and author, Kim Hopkins, Founder & owner of The Electric Connection out of Los Angeles CA.
Promotion is the subject of chapter 4 and we had a fun time discussing many of the methods Kim has successfully used over the last 40+ years.
More of the good stuff here. Enjoy!
Buy The Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Mi...
Today we provide Chapter 3 of this “Million Dollar Contracting” book review series with special guest and author, Kim Hopkins, Founder & owner of The Electric Connection out of Los Angeles CA.
Marketing is the subject of Chapter 3 and Kim shared his four decades of experience highlighting the need for a mixture of slow and fast marketing and why budgeting for marketing is crucial to long term survival.
Kim als...
Today we review chapter 2 of the book "Million Dollar Contracting" with its author and special guest and author, Kim Hopkins, Founder & Owner of The Electric Connection out of Los Angeles CA.
From this chapter, titled “Setting Up Your Contracting Company Properly” we discussed seemingly simple but very important things like naming your company for future use, domain names, professional email, insurance, banki...
Today we start a special book review series with special guest and author, Kim Hopkins, Founder & Owner of The Electric Connection out of Los Angeles CA.
Kim started his electrical services company in 1979 and today, nearly 45 years later, it thrives and operates with minimal involvement from him.
Kim decided at this point in his life he’d like to share the knowledge he acquired over all of those years of oper...
Today we have a special guest on the podcast, Jakob Kirschner, Peak Advisory Fractional CFO out of Woodland Park CO.
When it all comes down to it, we’re all essentially in the profits business, so knowing our numbers and consulting with those who specialize in them best is a smart move.
Learn what a Fractional CFO is and how they’re an essential ingredient to make your service business more profitable or take it f...
Today we have a special guest on the podcast, Osh Sawa, of Mile High Plumbing, Electrical, & Air out of the greater Denver area.
Discover how Osh, his wife, and his best friend John started plumbing and grew it in just a few short years to expand into HVAC and now electrical with a good sized team.
They developed referral relationships within the community to create a constant stream of incoming leads.
Today, we have a special guest on the podcast: Rebecca Ramirez of Rambo121 Moving & Storage Company in the greater Phoenix AZ area.
Five years ago, Becca and her husband Oscar quit their jobs, bought a moving truck, and started on their path to owning and operating a successful moving and storage company.
See how they sought out relationships with referral partners to keep a steady stream of business flowing a...
Today we have a special guest on the podcast, Dominic Arsenault with Domination Plumbing out of Leominster MA with locations in 3 cities.
In just five short years Dominic has started and grown his plumbing & HVAC company from zero to 28 employees and expanded into three cities.
You can quickly see why he’s been so successful and his growth so rapid, because Dominic is all about taking care of people - his empl...
Today we have a special guest on the podcast, Don Hilderbrand, from PlumbSmart out of Asheville NC.
Asheville NC and dozens of cities and towns across the southeastern U.S. were hit hard or completely devastated by Hurricane Helene.
In this discussion, Don talks about how unprepared most of us are for such events and how you can take action to help ready yourself, your business, and your community for such tragedi...
Today we have a special guest on the podcast, Erik Bon Fleur, MBA, owner-operator of Andy Frattin Plumbing in Ormond Beach Florida.
After spending over a decade in the corporate world, Erik caught the entrepreneurial bug and went on a path to buy and then run a service business.
We explore his path, why he chose a plumbing company, and where he took it from there.
He grew the company fast by implementing ...
Today we have a special guest on the podcast, Brett Neal, CPA, and Co-owner of High Velocity Accounting, who specializes in working with home service companies.
Running a service business is hard, and getting the numbers right is the most important ingredient to success.
Working harder when the numbers are off just accelerates the challenges and stress.
Accounting and bookkeeping are usually not the stron...
Today we have a special guest on the podcast, Ian Schotanus, the “H.R. Guy”, and co-owner of The Big Picture Consulting.
Is your company compliant with payroll and Human Resources?
If you have employees, you are subject to payroll, safety, and other H.R. compliance laws.
Today’s episode discusses many of the legal requirements of operating your Home Service company and some simple solutions to cover your ...
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.
"SmartLess" with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett is a podcast that connects and unites people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity. A nice surprise: in each episode of SmartLess, one of the hosts reveals his mystery guest to the other two. What ensues is a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the SmartLess mind. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!