Most remodelers call an HR person when something is already on fire. Somebody quit, somebody needs to be fired, or a role has been empty for three months and the owner is covering it at 9pm.

In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan Shinholser sits down with Bryan Williams, owner of Squirrel Solutions, a fractional HR and operations firm working with remodelers and custom builders across the country. Bryan's whole premise is that the hire is almost never the actual problem. When an owner calls him about a designer or a project manager, his first move is to figure out whether it's a hiring gap — not enough hours in the day — or a role design gap, where the work is unclear and another body just adds confusion. He walks through the time study he uses to tell them apart, and the client in New York who set out to hire a project manager and ended up hiring an estimator instead.

From there the conversation turns to the stuff owners already know they should do and keep putting off. Job descriptions dated 2016. KPIs nobody checks. The performance conversation that should have happened three years ago and is now costing real money. Bryan lays out the people audit he runs before pushing any change through a company, why he identifies his cheerleaders before he announces a decision, and the "I do, we do, you do" onboarding framework he uses instead of trial by fire — including how to run it when you only close three custom homes a year and don't have enough at-bats to train on. Logan pushes back throughout on what's realistic for a 20-person shop versus what sounds good on paper. The section on niceness versus kindness is worth the listen on its own.

If you've been avoiding a hard conversation with a long-tenured employee because you're worried they'll quit, this episode gives you the case for having it this week instead of three years from now.

Resources Mentioned in the Video:

Squirrel Solutions https://solvethesquirrel.com/

00:00 Where the name Squirrel Solutions comes from
05:36 The hiring gap vs. the role design gap
06:58 HR as preventative care instead of an ER visit
11:01 Job descriptions from 2016 and new hires who fail on arrival
18:58 Putting a number on every seat:
29:00 The people audit
34:39 "Allow an adult to be an adult"
45:41 I do, we do, you do: onboarding without trial by fire
55:14 Performance reviews and rocks

Most sales training tells you to talk about your past projects. Mark Dixon talks about spaghetti.

In this episode of the Contractor Growth Network podcast, Logan Shinholser sits down with Mark Dixon, co-owner of Odd Fellows Contracting in Michigan and a remodeler with more than 40 years in the trade. Logan first heard Mark speak at the Rise Conference earlier this year and expected a talk about project storytelling. Instead he got Italian food. Mark walks through the three analogies he actually uses in the field: the spaghetti dinner that explains why nobody can price an addition over the phone, the client who told him remodeling is exactly like giving birth to a baby, and the tomato aisle that dismantles the "all remodelers are the same" objection without ever mentioning what remodeling costs.

The conversation gets into the mechanics, not just the metaphors. Mark explains why he asks questions inside the story instead of narrating it, how he lands on four possible decisions at the end of the spaghetti dinner — including the fourth one, going hungry, that nobody ever picks. He talks about when he chooses not to tell the story at all. There's a stretch on why he uses clients' real first and last names when he tells these stories in someone's living room, plus the dumpster he wrapped in a three-foot red bow and the kids' drywall paintings he cut out and framed as a closing gift. Logan pushes on where a contractor who isn't a natural storyteller should begin, and Mark's answer starts at the dinner table with your own family.

If you've ever watched a homeowner's face go blank while you explained your design process, this episode gives you three stories you can borrow and a method for building your own.

Timestamps:

00:00 — Why every story Mark tells comes back to food
00:55 — Two guys doing odd jobs: how Odd Fellows got its name
03:06 — The spaghetti story: what happens when you push the cart together
06:33 — You don't know the price until you get to the checkout
11:47 — The four decisions every homeowner makes, including the one nobody picks
14:52 — Read the room first: when Mark skips the story entirely
19:29 — A client tells Mark that remodeling is like giving birth
26:37 — Not all tomatoes are created equal
33:38 — The dumpster with a three-foot red bow on it
45:24 — Where to start if telling stories feels unnatural

Your next project is probably within a mile of the one you're finishing right now.

In this live session, Logan Shinholser breaks down how to systematically market the neighborhood you're already working in. It starts with a story about his neighbor Bo — a basement remodel, a nerdy Gantt chart, a Friday pizza party, and four of that contractor's yard signs appearing within a half mile over the next few months. The problem with the Bo model is that it depends on Bo. So the whole session is about taking what happens offline, by luck, and rebuilding it as something you actually control.

Logan walks through five stages — pre-construction, day one, during construction, project complete, and on repeat — with roughly 20 tactics spread across them. Ask for photography access before demo starts, not after you've been in someone's house for six months. Shoot before photos from the exact angles your photographer will use at the end. Size your yard sign to the size of your projects, then strip the copy off it, because nobody reads your license number at 45 miles an hour. Paperclip a real gift card to your door hanger, not a $5 Starbucks card, which is worse than giving nothing. Film your process videos on the job site instead of in your home office. And when the job's done, turn it into a featured project page — the page everything else points back to, from social posts to $5-a-day geo-targeted ads that act like virtual yard signs around neighborhoods you want to be in.

The back half gets into the five types of after photos every project needs, why a real-estate-photographer look actively hurts you, why videography is a 4.0 problem and not where your next marketing dollar should go, and a closing Q&A on incentivizing your project manager to actually put the sign out, plus how information gain and E-E-A-T factor into showing up in AI search.

If you've ever finished a great project and had nothing to show for it three months later, this session gives you a sequence you can start on the next job you sell.

Resources Mentioned in the Video:

Your Guide to Great Project Photography
https://youtu.be/BvwhM1gx-hY

One Mile Playbook — Slides, Prompts, and Replay
https://www.contractorgrowthnetwork.com/webinar/one-mile-playbook/

Timestamps:

00:00 — Bo's basement, the Gantt chart, and how one project became four yard signs
02:50 — The five stages, and why picking two tactics beats attempting twenty
04:32 — Get photography permission before the job starts, not after
07:40 — The "pardon our dust" postcard and the 25 houses that matter
10:30 — Before photos: same angles, more of them, and shoot them before demo
14:37 — Your yard sign is a truck wrap, not a magnet
19:21 — Door hangers, coffee gift cards, and the $5 Starbucks mistake
28:27 — Three kinds of job site video that actually work
35:12 — The five after photos every project needs
44:10 — Featured project pages and the virtual yard sign play