Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast

The REAL Cost of Running a Trades Business in 2025 — What Most Owners Don’t Understand

Dec 30, 2025

Explore the surprising costs of running a home service business in 2025. Discover why plumbing thrived while HVAC struggled amid mild weather and shipment drops. Learn how financial transparency helped navigate tough times and why daily huddles revolutionized team alignment. Uncover the critical importance of recruiting amidst labor shortages and how quick hiring decisions can make or break success. Get strategies for 2026, focusing on gross margin as the key to profitability, alongside a 'Lean & Lethal' operational mindset for future growth.

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ADVICE

Always Be Recruiting

Always be recruiting even when roles are full to avoid capacity loss and revenue holes.
Treat recruiting as a constant pipeline: coffees with recruiters, continuous sourcing, and quick hires.

INSIGHT

HVAC Squeezed By Macro Forces

HVAC in 2025 faced unique macro headwinds: mild weather, refrigerant transitions, and shipment drops.
Those factors made variable overhead and nimbleness the critical operational lever for HVAC businesses.

ADVICE

Open The P&L To The Team

Share the P&L and financial details with frontline leaders to align decisions and behavior.
Use monthly net-profit sessions so teams see the tradeoffs and act to protect margin and reduce waste.

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We reveal the real cost of running a home service business in 2025. In this full debrief, we open our books to show why plumbing business growth exploded while HVAC stalled, and exactly how we navigated the hardest summer in years.

If you run a contractor business, you know 2025 was volatile. HVAC shipments cratered 49% YoY, forcing operators to face a brutal reality. In this episode, we break down the massive gap between our plumbing wins and HVAC headwinds, why "Always Be Recruiting" became our #1 survival rule, and how total financial transparency saved our bottom line.

In this episode, we cover:

The Industry Reality: Why mild weather and refrigerant transitions crushed HVAC demand.
The Recruiting Crisis: Why we lost key techs mid-summer and how we fixed our hiring pipeline.
P&L Transparency: The actual impact of overhead, margins, and "fixed" costs on a trades business.
2026 Strategy: Our plan for a "Lean & Lethal" operation and new acquisitions.

🚀 What You’ll Learn:

Why 2025 was a wake-up call for the home service industry (and how to adapt).
The danger of high overhead when revenue misses the mark.
Why recruiting is your biggest constraint—even when leads are flowing.
How to use daily huddles and "War Rooms" to fix operational drag.
Why Gross Margin is the only lever that matters for 2026.

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John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

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