Business Coaching from Red Barn Media Group
Empowering Service Contractors to Achieve More & Grow Their Business
98%
Retention Rate
1,650,000
Leads Converted
25+ Years
in Home Service Digital Marketing
Empowering Service Contractors to Achieve More & Grow Their Business
98%
Retention Rate
1,650,000
Leads Converted
25+ Years
in Home Service Digital Marketing
If you’re a service contractor who wants to take your business, and life, to the next level then you need our coaching program. We’ll empower you to grow your business and live healthier, free of excuses.
Our program is not for the faint of heart. You’ll get weekly meetings, recorded notes, weekly tasks, quarterly goals, and a dedicated business coach who knows the ins and outs of the industry, and most importantly, won’t sugarcoat anything. We’ll tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.
Our program is flexible, convenient, and affordable, but only if you’re serious and committed. You can choose from monthly plans that last either 3 or 6 months, or you can buy a single hour of coaching if you think that’s enough. To sign up or learn more, you can email, call, or fill out a contact form on our website, but don’t waste our time if you’re not ready to make some changes.
I started my HVAC business like many others before me. I had enough of working for someone else. I bought whatever truck I could afford, an extension ladder, and with my bucket of tools set to conquer HVAC. I had-no-clue.
I’d been around the trades my whole life and thought I could do it better than my dad, my uncle, or any of the countless others I’d watched work themselves into debt, failed marriages, and desperation. I was wrong.
Within a few months, I was part of the problem. I undervalued my work. I didn’t know how to begin to hire employees. I still had no idea what a business was. I was putting the livelihood of my family at jeopardy.
Eventually, I learned that the customers didn’t respect me because I didn’t respect myself. And that charisma alone doesn’t buy groceries.
It wasn’t easy, but over the next decade I built and sold a well-respected and profitable multi-trade enterprise in my community.
Here we are, 2024. Together, with Red Barn Media Group, we have started The Shop: to Empower your vision, Elevate your trade and Evolve your business.
By partnering with business owners, we’re restoring their vision for what is possible. No more will we get stuck working inside of the business. No more will we settle for the status quo. Let’s build our business to work for us and leave a legacy we can be proud of.
Every respectable organization operates by a code or a list of values. Values ground us. They provide navigation in murky situations. Without them you’re a ship in an unrelenting sea with no lighthouse to beacon the way. And what lies in wait are rocky cliffs.
This is how we navigate;
Take responsibility for your performance and actions. No throwing others under the bus or playing the victim card. It starts with you.
Life and business are challenging enough without pessimistic people hanging around. Everyone can have a bad moment or a shitty day, but overall, the cup needs to be half-full.
Be selfish when it comes to taking care of you and yours. Pay yourself first. Take care of your mind and body. Breathe, lest you suffocate.
Be excellent in whatever you choose to do. Always strive to improve the experiences you give each other and our clients.
Do what’s right ten years from now. No shortcuts. This isn’t about any single transaction. It’s about adding value for the long-term.
Don’t give advice or criticize without first understanding the context of someone’s situation or point of view. Ask questions and listen with genuine curiosity.
If it’s ethical, safe, and you feel it’s best for the relationship or the organization, then do it. You’re trusted to take the shot.
You have a responsibility to show up every day and earn the trust of your clients, your partners, and each other. Don’t expect to win today just because you did yesterday.
Complications create chaos. Keep things simple at all costs. Always look for the simplest level of any problem and offer the simplest solution.
How did you calculate your hourly shop rate? How much revenue should you expect from each truck in your fleet? Do you simply copy what the guy across town is charging for service repairs?
If this sounds like you then you are missing out on THE-MOST-IMPORTANT part of your business. Your business isn’t just guessing at pricing and hoping there is some left over. Your numbers are a form of divination. They are a road map and crystal ball. Learn how to glimpse the future by cultivating a deep understanding of your numbers.
Increase Your Market Penetration with Social Ads. Facebook's extensive network provides a great opportunity for local service businesses looking to deepen their connection with the local community and enhance brand outreach.
Our approach to Facebook advertising focuses on creating compelling ad campaigns that resonate with your target demographic, fostering increased engagement and brand loyalty. Get started and discover the potential of Facebook ads in a strategy session that aligns with your brand's unique voice and goals.
If you are tired of your TM, marketing company, or any other networking asshole from the chamber of commerce asking you, “What is your marketing budget?”, then raise your hand. Some of you start to dance around that simple question like a bad primetime TV show. We never learned any of that crap. We are “one-of-a-kind” talents of our generation.
Not hot bags of wind shouting behind a megaphone to BUY NOW! The problem- the day you decided to be a business owner you quit being just a tradesman. And if the need for growth is a hunger in your belly, then you need to seed the fields so you can eat in the future. Let’s figure this marketing thing out once and for all so we can get back to doing what we really enjoy.
Let’s be real. Contractors live on top of (or underneath) a lonely hill.
Your family doesn't understand.
Your friends don't get it.
Your customers don't want to hear about it.
And your employees certainly aren't meant to shoulder the weight.
Not to mention contractors are amongst the highest divorce rates in the country. It's pretty simple how it happens. You dropped the glass ball instead of the rubber one. Your friends, your wife, and even your kids have been let down when you took a phone call at the dinner table. I’ve been there. In order to make that sale, that made money by the way (justification), you had to drop what you were doing. But how many times can you drop the glass before-it-shatters?
Let’s stop reacting and start plotting the course. Let’s get healthy and live in the present.
As with most good relationships, we want to start off with a conversation. Let’s get to know each other. And for those of you who already have their defenses up, please know that there is no obligation.
Then we will send you our questionnaire. This weeds out you tire kickers. If you aren’t willing to answer a few questions then what are we even doing here?
What we are offering is 1-on-1 access with personal coaching.
Fill out the contact form below and I promise you my rate sheet will be sent directly to your inbox.
My name is Jeremy Hesselink and I come from a conservative hard working home. But we were broke and broken. So broke that ducks would throw bread at us. And broken as a unit. While my parents shared similar values, they didn’t know how to treat each other. My dad was a TERRIBLE entrepreneur. He could never figure out how to make money at his business. So, he dropped what I like to call the glass ball A LOT. Eventually we cracked…then broke.
So, dad is out of the picture. I see Mom busting her ass to put food on the table. I will always be thankful for what she provided. But she was tired. She was unavailable. She was broken and we were broke.
Fast forward to high school. Over many years, I had seen my mom pump in the hours at whatever crap jobs she could get. I learned that it is tough being the single mother of 3, on your own, away from family and being broke. But I also learned how to work HARD. If you want to survive you better hustle.
Since work was all I ever witnessed, it is what I set out to do. I’ve heard it said that if you want to create good habits for your children then simply do them yourself. In this case it applied to me. I knew enough to know that I didn’t want to be broke(n). So rather than focus on education or athletics I went to work. I started working in the trades at 15 sweeping basements for remodelers. Then it was landscaping, framing, exterior construction, auto body collision repair and eventually HVAC.
I was bright, healthy, young and had a boatload of hustle. I was a G-R-E-A-T employee. People would ask me all the time if I would ever want to start my own business. Trigger: HELL NO! I have seen how that ends up. BROKE and BROKEN. But after 10 years in HVAC making someone else rich, I decided I wasn’t content…
I only took 30 years of living to figure this out, but I realized there are two solid ways to learn from a situation. You can emulate the right way to do something AND you can do the opposite of the wrong way. DING! I had lived and witnessed (from the outside perspective) how NOT to run a business from my father. Pair that with survival driven hustle and we might have something here…WRONG.
This was the birth of my WHY. More money, more freedom, more time…more for my family and I. The WHY which would be tested and inevitably be forced to evolve. But HOW do I start my own business? What asshole sold me this deal? Work 80 hours a week to hopefully only work 20 in the future.
People say that when you “jump off of the cliff,” you have no choice but to succeed. It’s supposed to be some cathartic experience of freedom that leads to flight. What a romanticized pile of bull. You hit the ground. Albeit, some landings are softer than others.
We had just been blessed with our first-born-son, my wife was laid off (RIF) from teaching due to budget cuts, and I had 2 months’ worth of cash in our account to provide for my family. My WHY was all of them, was it not? More money, more freedom, more time...more delusion! There was no safety net for us. No family bail out, no government loan, and all my bank could muster was a $500 credit card. Pressure cooking time. My WHY, no matter how noble, was not enough. I made what will arguably be one of the best moves I have ever made – I hired a business coach.
I made a decision to be humble. I wanted to be the best student my business coach had ever worked with. Don’t offer resistance. Absorb everything that I can. DON’T WIND UP BROKE(N).
The next 10 years can only be described as a rocket ride. There were ups and downs to be sure. I-made-money. I spent ample time with my family (and still do). I enriched the lives of my employees. I created a business to be proud of in my community. I was happily content. My family and I stopped a generational cycle. We were not merely broken and surviving. We were healthy and thriving. I truly found what I was put here to do…for that time in my life at least.
I cannot say I knew the exact moment things changed. The contentment I enjoyed slowly left. We weren’t broke(n). So, what is the problem? I was bored. I was on cruise control. I was having a vulnerable moment. And wouldn’t you know it? That is when the wolves appeared.
It was around this time I began coaching football for my son’s youth tackle team. What a freaking rush! Now remember, I didn’t get to enjoy many organized athletics. I survived, hustled, and worked. But with the skills I had acquired, after starting and running a successful company, I was confident I could handle it. This planted a seed.
It was 2021. While COVID madness was still prevalent nationwide, much of my area was getting back to normal. The business was admittedly shaken, like anyone’s, at first. But as many contractors I know, 2020 and 2021 was a full-on-sprint once the doors were back open. I was tired. Like many of you I received a lot of solicitation from Private Equity (PE) firms interested in buying my business. I was tired. I believed I had taken my business as far as I could. And with many PE firms buying up companies in my area I felt new pressure to compete. I was tired…I was sold.
I sold the majority share of my business, was placed as CEO, and ready for a new rocket ride. It was time to take my business to the next level or so I thought. It turns out that “money guys” are subject to the same sort of scrutiny as anyone else. Just like there are good HVAC companies, there are bad ones. The same can be said of anything really. From teachers to doctors, there are good ones and bad ones. I will let you guess which sort of PE firm I was now yoked too.
I thought I was done learning from the way NOT to do something. The lesson; there is always an opportunity to learn in all of its forms. We grew from my 2 locations to 4 in total. I went from 12 employees to 50. We went from 10 trucks to 40. I went from enjoying a healthy income as the president of my own, well running, business to the CEO of chaos. I traded the dream of a 20-hour work week to go back to 80 hours a week.. Aside from starting my business, it was the hardest I would work in my adult life. It was not sustainable.
I was dropping the glass ball. My health was cracking, my family was cracking, I was headed toward broke(n). The company culture I had built was dying. The pressures of Private Equity were becoming too great. Yes, we had grown, but I was far from accepting its cost. All the reasons I loved HVAC had been reaped out of me. It was time to leave, so I sold my remaining stake in the enterprise. After taking some time to let the world settle, I remembered how much I loved the coaching aspect of my career. Creating something from nothing. Molding willing individuals into something great. Challenging people around me to be better than their own expectations. Sharing in the success of those within my gravity.
Empower. Elevate. Evolve. It turns out my passion, while clouded, was always these things. Empower myself and those around me to succeed.
Elevate myself and those around me to a higher quality of life. Evolve myself and those around me into something more. Let’s Rock and Roll!
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