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

From $10M to $100M: How Home Service Companies Scale Sales Fast

Oct 21, 2025

Zach Dearing, founder of Mantel, specializes in transforming how contractors sell home services. He discusses the shift from traditional proposals to interactive shopping experiences that empower homeowners to make confident choices. Key insights include the importance of response time and 'eyeball time' in closing deals, and how a 10-point increase in proposal strength significantly boosts ticket size. Dearing also highlights the need for pricing transparency, the growth of remote selling, and the contrasting strategies between $10M and $100M businesses.

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INSIGHT

Homeowner-Driven Shopping Wins More Sales

Top contractors build homeowner-driven shopping experiences instead of lecturing with specs.
Giving homeowners choice and control increases trust and often raises average ticket size.

ADVICE

Measure Response And Eyeball Time

Measure response time and proposal view time and coach sellers to improve them.
Faster follow-up and longer 'eyeball time' both correlate with higher close rates.

INSIGHT

Proposal Strength Predicts Ticket Size

Proposal strength combines range, personalization, add-ons and option variety into one score.
A 10-point bump in proposal strength correlates with about $960 higher average ticket.

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John sits down with Zac Dearing (Mantel) to break down how top HVAC, plumbing, and electrical companies are moving from “proposal tools” to true shopping experiences that help homeowners buy with confidence—and help teams close more, faster. They dig into hard data from Mantel’s platform and homeowner survey: why Tuesdays are the biggest sales day, how response time and proposal view time (“eyeball time”) predict closes, and why a 10-point jump in proposal strength correlates with ~$960 higher average ticket.

They also cover remote/virtual selling (and what a high-fidelity, open-cart experience can look like), pricing transparency (69% of homeowners try to find a price online…only 15% find something clear), extended-warranty strategies, and what changes between a $10M shop and a $100M shop (hint: ruthless simplicity). If you want a concrete playbook for modern sales—benchmarks, coaching levers, and systems that scale—this one’s for you.

💡 What You’ll Learn

Shopping-Experience Selling: How Mantel helps contractors present interactive options, not lectures—and why FSM “order recorders” miss the moment of influence.
KPIs That Move Deals: Response-time and proposal “eyeball time,” plus how to use them to coach sellers.
Proposal Strength → Revenue: Why better option range, add-ons, and personalization lift ticket size (~$960 per +10 points).
Benchmarks That Matter: Calibrating close rate, average ticket, attach rates—and avoiding dirty denominators.
Remote/Virtual Sales: When to use it, how big firms are testing it, and the emerging “open cart” follow-up model.
Simplicity at Scale: The shift from 2–3 sellers to 30–40+, standardization vs. autonomy, and raising the floor without capping the ceiling.
What Homeowners Actually Want: Clear pricing, reputation, comfort, utility savings > brand logos—and how to price extended warranties for real adoption.

🎙️ Host
John Wilson

🎙️ Guest
Zac Dearing — Mantel

Homeowner Shopping Attitudes Survey 2025

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

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