246. The $120M Blueprint for Scaling a Local Service Business

0:00Dominic Rubino:Here's something most people in the trades don't want to hear. Being great at your job has almost nothing to do with whether your business makes money. Dominic Rubino has watched talented contractors, skilled cabinet makers, and hardworking painters grind for years and still barely break even. He's seen it in his own family, he's seen it with friends, and early on he lived it himself. The problem isn't the work, it's everything around the work. The pricing, the systems, the hiring, the tracking. Dominic spent a decade in corporate learning exactly how to fix that. He built a$120 million company, putting those lessons to use, and now dedicates his career to helping trades business owners finally build something that pays them what they're worth.

0:42Dominic Rubino:I'm Ryan Atkinson with the Uplit Podcast, where we give you actual tips for your own business. And today, we're sitting down with Dominic to cover why trade businesses stay broke, building systems, and pricing right. Dominic, so excited for you today. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's going to be so great, but let's lay the foundation a little bit more about who Dominic is because you grew up in the trades family, built service businesses yourself, spent decades in corporate, then built$120 million company. Give us the 60 second version of your upbringing and kind of what you built.

1:12I grew up at a kitchen table, a great kitchen table. My dad was a welder. My mom, I like to say my mom manufactured red tape because she worked for the city building department. So anybody ever has to go for permits, you have to go past her. And that's a lot of red tape.

1:24Dominic Rubino:But I just, I grew up in a trades family, you know, but I'll tell you this, we didn't talk about business. We didn't talk about money at the kitchen table. It was a table full of love, but we didn't talk about money. What were the trade businesses your parents were in? So my dad was a welder and then I worked for my uncle and he was a framer. Did, you know, two by four construction framing. So I did that for a long time. From there, I went into painting. I actually sold a pool cleaning business kind of by accident when I was in university. And then I went into painting. Oh, that's super cool. So were you raised to be like entrepreneurial then it sounds like, or was it, when was it like?

1:55Dominic Rubino:I was more raised to be a worker. I remember one day I was getting ready for soccer and I was a captain. Like, by the way, house league, not good. But my dad comes in and he goes, you're painting a house today. And I was like, okay, what does painting a house mean? But you know, Italian immigrants, you buy properties, you fix them up and people rent, they move out, they destroy them. You go back in and fix them. So I went with my uncle to paint a house and I didn't play soccer. But that was how I grew up. If there was work to be done, you did the work first. That is so crazy. Can you tell us more about the$120 million company as well?

2:27Dominic Rubino:Yeah. Give us the high level of the, I mean, that catches my ear. I know that's going to catch a lot of the audiences there as well. So it's not a straight path. The company that I sold was at 120 million. I didn't get 120 minute when I sold it, but I got, I did very, very, very well, but it actually started as a business selling junk on eBay. I'm not kidding, man. I was selling used LED calculators, ColecoVision and Atari Intellivision games and systems. And from there, we started to branch out, but we were getting stuck. So it was a business I built with my cousin. We were getting stuck because you couldn't find enough stuff.

3:00And then if I did, shipping it was a problem and it was never consistent. And consistency is really the key in running a business. So I converted us to selling books. Books turned out really well. And then we started selling a lot of books on healthcare. And so from there, we started carrying over-the-counter medications. That turned into a mail-order pharmacy. The mail-order pharmacy, I had 120-seat call center. I had 40 pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working for me. What? And that's the company. Yeah.

3:26Dominic Rubino:That was a very fast story, man. That's at a super high level. And we could have a whole podcast on it, but we are going to make it actionable for the trades businesses today. So where does that lead us to today? I mean, you grew up pretty entrepreneurial, hardworking. I can definitely get that. Sold$120 million company. So what are you doing today? And that's going to really set us up for the rest of the episode. Well, you know, I, I get along best with trades people. They call it like it is. If they think you're full of it, they tell you you're full of it. If I think they're full of it, I tell them they're full of it and nobody's offended.

3:53We just keep moving forward. Try saying that to a white collar business, like, oh yeah, they get all like snutty. So I'm a business coach for trades contractors. And what we do is we show people how to run the thing like a business, how to make money, how to have a life, you know,

4:09Dominic Rubino:all of those good things. Yeah. And that's what I think is the interesting part of running things like a business because I so my stepdad owns a flooring company up in Minnesota. That's how I grew up. I was watching him grind 60, 70 hours, any day, not seeing your soccer game, your first swim lessons, the things that are important, right? Yeah, it's the crazy part. And like, I just saw how like he runs this company and I know the exact persona you're talking about here. But you said you help people run things like a business. How do typical like people actually run their business that are in the trades?

4:40Dominic Rubino:How do they typically run it here? So typically they run it because they are the hardest working person, not only in the room, in the stadium. They can outwork anybody, right? I'm not kidding. Like hard work, not a problem. And I'm not saying that smart work isn't hard work, but at some point, you know, that same person stands up and stretches their back and goes, I got a business here. Like I got to run it different. Can I tell you a painful story? Of course, yeah. There's always this painful lesson, right? I was painting houses. Just a kid, painting houses. I didn't know how to paint houses.

5:08I just had a painting company. And I was so stressed out. My customers were not happy. Jobs weren't getting done on time. I had no money. I had people quitting. I drove through an intersection, hoping to get hit by another car. Oh gosh, dude, it was bad. But I also said to myself, I'm never going to have a day like this again. What am I going to do different? And I knew that I had to learn. And it was not an instant light. I started reading books. I started taking courses. You know, this is back in the 80s. You have to go to the conference center to see some guy on stage. You have to read a book, right?

5:40Or you bought a book on tape. And I mean cassette. Ryan, you don't know what a cassette is. But I had to buy those things. But if I was either going to invest in that or I was going to have the most miserable life ever. There's two choices. You can either choose to suck or you could choose to get better and suck while you're getting better. And I just chose to work through it. so that's what i would say the difference between trades look everybody's working hard i'm not taking away from anybody if they're watching the upflip youtube or listening to this podcast they're already on the right track you just got to move towards the business person mentality first

6:12Dominic Rubino:what does the business mentality look like and i love that like the people in the tradesmen's generally are like the hardest working people i have a memory of my my stepdad he with his flooring company during covid i remember just like there was one day he worked like 13 hours he's like 62 at this point like like no one will out work i mean like he is generally the hardest worker i know but like what does running it like a business mentality like actually mean put into practice okay let me i'll do it this way you have to want this i want to be a business person who just happens to run a flooring company i don't want to be a flooring guy who runs a flooring business or who does flooring jobs right so i want to be a guy who a business person who just happens to run a cabinet shop i don't want to just be good at making cabinets because banging together boards or raising sunken concrete, whatever your trade is, that's just the vehicle for you to run a business and have a life.

7:01And when you're a business person, you have the ability to impact so many people, first your family, but your employees, and then you can get personal freedom. You really can if you run it like a business, but if you run it like a trades guy, you just have a McJob. You just go work at McDonald's, man.

7:17Dominic Rubino:I like that. The freedom piece is so real. I was actually thinking about this today for like my own company I run. We are June 25th today. This is no joke. I kind of feel bad saying this, but it does speak to the freedom. I think I have taken almost like six weeks off already this year. Like we're, I think I've actually taken more off, but like six to six to like eight weeks already. It's just insane. Like the freedom is like so true. I want to ask about like the metrics people should care about that. And if they're going to say, okay, I'm a business person who does cabinets. I'm a business person who does flooring.

7:47Dominic Rubino:I love that shift as well. What are the metrics they should start with. Profit. Profit rules all. It does. And you know what? It took me a long time to get there. I remember when I was in painting, I thought, well, I'm too busy to go back and look at my old jobs, like the job I just finished. I'm selling the next one. I'm staffing the next one. I'm finding the next one. I don't have time to go back and look in the past. But that's where I learned the lessons. Where did I make money and where did I lose money? Where did it take too much time? Where did we save time on that last job? The most beautiful thing about trades is you get to reinvent the business every gig you do.

8:17So you think about a plumber, HVAC, or somebody that does landscaping. Every time you do a job, you go from job A to job B. If I look at job A, I can learn from job A and apply it to job C. So the more jobs you do, the faster you do them, like painting houses. I had a Christmas light installation business. You can learn as you go. You know, people that are stuck in a longer sales cycle business, you can't do that. So you have to go look at your profits and your costs. What are your overheads?

8:42Dominic Rubino:What are your costs? Are you working a nine to five, but dream of entrepreneurial freedom? Look no further than the UFLIP Academy, the number one entrepreneurial platform with 20 plus step-by-step courses taught by active business owners, live workshops, hands-on skill training, a business idea database, and a thriving entrepreneur community to keep you accountable. Click the link in the description below to join the UFLIP Academy today and make this the year you stopped dreaming and started building your business without guesswork. Between the two here, I mean, profit just sounds so like intuitive.

9:18Dominic Rubino:Like how do you not know your profit? But I mean, yeah, it sounds so intuitive, but it really isn't. Yeah, it's not a straight story. So what are the best systems you have in place for that to actually track your profit? Do you do it per job? Do you do it monthly? What does that look like? I'm going to give you an answer to the question you didn't ask. Okay. You are not your perfect client. You're like, what? That's not even the question I asked Rubino, but I am a business coach so i'm supposed to mess with your mind yeah just put a hot marble in people's heads and now it's rolling around yeah don't price jobs like you would want to buy it i had a painting guy as a client once and awesome guy super funny his name is george jorge he was in la east la right and he was a house painter when i met him i'm like hey man how busy are you he goes well i take a lot of unscheduled vacations it's because he didn't have gigs right oh he thought wealthy people in big houses were mean because he lived in a small two-bedroom, no AC bungalow.

10:11So he would go price painting jobs like he would afford it. And we had to get him over that mindset of you're not your ideal client, man. Go and price jobs for people who actually want the work.

10:22Dominic Rubino:I got to do this. Can I do this? You can absolutely do it because I love that takeaway. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. Only speaking to the trades people, I want you to drive through a neighborhood and see how many people have a ladder at their own house. And then you can see the ladder on the outside, but imagine how many people have a toolbox in their house? And if they have a toolbox, do they know how to use it? The answer is no. They don't know how to fix a broken window. They don't know how to fix a garage door. They don't know how to raise sunken concrete. They don't have time to paint their house because they can't fall off the ladder.

10:47But you and I can. We are more valuable now than we, like ever in the history of humankind, this is the best time ever to be in trades. People will pay for that. You think they're paying you to paint the house? What they're doing is paying to not fall off the ladder and lose their job, which keeps their family going. So go and price accordingly for people who care about the value you provide.

11:07Dominic Rubino:Yeah, and that's actually where I wanted to go to for pricing here. It is, pricing is like one of the hardest things. So, and I'm gonna have a story before I ask this question. When I started my video marketing agency back in three and a half years ago, I didn't know anything about video. Literally didn't know, like I was like, yeah, I literally didn't know, like I promise. Our first video package was like 10 videos for like 7 ,000. Now our video package is six videos for 24 ,000. And why did you change the price? Well, we just learned more. honestly. And I was like, well, our videos got better.

11:37Dominic Rubino:The quality got better. I'm learning more. And like, we were so underpriced to honestly start. Right. Because you can't produce quality product at seven grand. Just can't do it. Exactly. You can't. You really can't. And like the thing with that as well, and I'm sure you can relate to this, is it is so true. The higher paying clients, less pains in the butts than the one that are paying 7 ,000 for 10 videos. Like it's an interesting psychology. So I want to ask the question though, what's your formula for like pricing? What's a formula, best tips for pricing so you're not underpricing. Yeah. So the first one is you got to grow a pair.

12:07I have to add up all of my actual costs, just the hard costs. And then I have to add profit to that. And then it comes back to the other thing. You are not your ideal client. So when it comes out and it says your actual cost is$323 an hour, you can't look at that and say, oh my God, nobody's going to pay that. Keep in mind, anybody listening to this show is on the early stages of entrepreneurship. So they don't really have overheads. They don't have an office. They don't have staff. They don't have insurance. They're not paying out an old loan or paying out an old owner. Their costs are actually lower than other people.

12:41So if you look at your actual costs and I'll just make it up, it's$323 an hour. Them's the numbers. Now add profit to that and go find the client who will pay it or get out of the business. You're not in the right business.

12:51Dominic Rubino:Your head's not in the right space. Do you have a target like profit margin that they should go for each job. Obviously, it probably varies on, I need your gross profit margin to be north of 40%. I'd love it to be 50 % gross profit margin. Now, some people will come back and say, I can't do that on materials. I can't do that on labor. I'm going to go back to what I said a minute ago. Get out of your own head or get into another business. That's so good. I like that. So you're saying over 40 % just to fulfill the job. Do you know why 40 %? I am curious. Let me ask why. because if you're running your business properly and tight your overheads are 20 so now that leaves you with 20 gross profit but now you've got to take care of bad debt bank loans other expenses you hadn't anticipated taxes oh what's the other one oh yeah you getting paid yeah and out of that 20 you might be left with 10 now when you're running it really well you can get it up to 17 percent, obviously all inside that 40, 45 % gross profit.

13:51But unless you're aiming at that 45 % GP, you're not going to get 10 to 15.

13:55Dominic Rubino:That's really good. I love that. That's a phenomenal. I'd encourage you to actually rewind and listen to that as well. Okay. So we got our pricing down. We know we want to price a project. What does a proper like sales process look like in the trade business? What are your best practices now that we got pricing? Okay. I'm ready to go get some clients. What the heck do I do now? Well, first make sure you're aiming in the right direction. go after the right target market the people who can't afford and will pay for your services and i'd say that with all the pain in my heart for having sold to people who said yeah come paint my apartment building and then didn't pay me that hurt i painted an entire guy's apartment building on my own and he didn't pay i had no way to go whose fault is that yours yeah thank you it's my fault i should have known i should have taken a deposit we should have had progress payments but i didn't i went against my own rules so first of all when we're talking about sales you have to go after a well-qualified prospect that means they have the budget they can pay they have the need for what you do or service you provide budget need they have timing so they're going to buy pretty quickly here so i don't want to talk to let's use house painting as an example but it goes to anything i don't want to talk to somebody who wants to paint their house next year that's nice but we'll talk next year man you're next year dominic i need somebody who's going to paint their house in the next three weeks and then the last one is trust they have to have some sort a relationship or trust with me.

15:11So that goes to branding. Are we dressed nicely? Do we carry ourselves professionally? Are we smoking on their lawn and throwing the cigarette butts in the landscape? Like don't do that stuff, right? They don't trust you. So it's always budget, need, timing, and trust. On top of that, there are two additional things that people must have in order to buy from you. And those you got to go find out. It's technical. I don't know what it is. Now technical, let's again use house painting as an example, but I could use pool cleaning or cabinetry.

15:38Dominic Rubino:We'll use painting. Maybe they really care about the environment and their really big thing is how are you going to dispose of the unused paint? That's their technical thing. Maybe they've got a cat. Oh my God, the amount of cats I've had to work around. Maybe they got a cat. They're worried because their cat's a flight risk. How are you going to ensure their cat doesn't bolt from the house or doesn't get scared? Maybe they love their wisteria. Wisteria is the bane. Okay. What are we going to do about your wisteria lady? But I say it like, yes, I noticed you have a wisteria. It's my pride and joy.

16:04We hear that a lot. Here's what we do for wisterias. That's the technical thing she's listening for. I got to find out what their thing is because nobody called a house painter by because they're bored. Nobody called a pool cleaner by because they're bored. Nobody has a, let's talk about sunken concrete because they're bored. They have some level of interest. I have to parse it down. I've got to, now we can talk about solving their solutions. And all I want to do is help. My sales approach is I can help. And I feel bad for you if you go with somebody else because I know how much care we take. I don't know how much care they take.

16:35Dominic Rubino:That's really good there. So I want to go back to that qualified perspective because I heard budget, need, timing, and trust. And obviously you just broke that down and then the technicals as well. When it comes to those four, what's like the biggest hurdle to get over for someone in the trades business? Is it identifying a budget? Is it identifying a need? Is it getting urgency with their timing? Is it trust? Which one is it? That's a hard question. So it's a good question that you asked. I think the owner, because we're speaking to the owners here, They just have to have the ability to ask the question.

17:08I'm not going to say, Ryan, what is your budget to paint this home? Right? I've got to find another way to say that. Like, have any of your friends had their house painted? Yeah. You know, they spent$10 ,000 and they're sure they got ripped off. Okay. Back away slowly and leave. Yeah, that's fair. I can't, I can't paint. There's no way I'm painting a house for 10 grand. Right? Just, but, but I have to find out their budget. Man, I can say, do you have a budget set aside? Usually they'll say, I don't know. We just started. We're going to call three contractors. Wink, wink. We're going to find out the best price and then we'll go with whoever's the best.

17:38Like, all right, let me know if they show up. That's great. Those other guys aren't going to show up, right? But anyways, I need to find out their price or their budget. And I need to really find out why. When you find out why somebody wants to do it, why you want to paint the house. Again, we'll use paint the house as an example. Hey, we want to paint our house. Yeah, great. Here's the price. It's$30 ,000 to paint the whole house. Again, it doesn't matter about the number. Okay. I leave there feeling pretty good about it, right? Yeah, of course. If I asked one more question, why do you want to paint your house?

18:06my daughter's getting married. It's going to be a garden wedding back here. You see the wisteria? Beautiful wisteria, right? Okay. Now we got something. Your daughter's getting married. We've got pride. We've got your little girl's wedding. This house has to look great. So now the 30 grand is really not the issue. The issue is we got to be out of there in time. It's got to look fantastic in the pictures. It's got to be impeccable. The site's got to be clean, all that stuff.

18:29Dominic Rubino:Now you're making the sale. That is so, so good. That is such a great breakdown. I absolutely love that. The timing one, though, I want to really hone in on that one because it's from my own sales process. That's what I run into the most where it's like, uh, like, you know. Ask him. Why now? Yeah. I mean, I didn't. You know, no. Why didn't you call me two weeks ago? I just, I really, you know, today's Thursday, right? I appreciate the fact that we're on the phone, but it took you three days to book a time. So is the time an issue? No, no. Yeah. Why didn't we have this conversation? Ask him. Why didn't we have this conversation last week?

19:03Or why aren't we having the conversation the week after? And then they'll tell you, actually, there's a trade show coming up and we need that video package done for the promo in our booth. Whoa. But you're going to need to see it in advance before it goes live in the booth, right? Yeah. Well, how long is it going to take your team to do that? A week. But the event's in four weeks. Yeah. So that gives us three weeks to make it. Yeah. But I need two weeks to shoot it. Yeah. We should have met last week, man. You don't have a lot of time. There you go. Right? That's called calendar selling forward or calendar selling backward.

19:29Just talk your way verbally through the calendar and show them that without benefit, I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to swear. Show them they're in trouble.