How Video and Training Led to 3X Business Growth
Tripling a business doesn’t happen overnight. For Barron Heating, AC, Electrical & Plumbing, it came from two core commitments: finding the right people and building the right systems. Video became their tool to earn trust with customers and attract new talent, while training turned green hires into future leaders.
On this week’s episode of Cracking the Code, David Holt, General Manager of Contractor University, sits down with Brad Barron, CEO of Barron Heating, AC, Electrical & Plumbing; Dave Marrs, co-star of HGTV’s Fixer to Fabulous; and Josh Burdick, founder of Whole Home Media. They share how Barron built a $45 million powerhouse by using video to build trust, training to create leaders, and systems to expand sustainably.
From recruiting and training to marketing and storytelling, you’ll hear how to use storytelling and partnerships to scale a contracting business the right way—without the scars of going it alone.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:24:19
Video media as a central part of an omnichannel marketing approach. Yield success. How do we turn the tide of making the trades something that people are desiring to get into? We typically overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in three. Right. And I think that’s a real business owner mistake. You.
00:00:24:21 – 00:00:57:15
Hey, guys, we’re gearing up for the Aegean Epic conference at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. It’s happening Thursday, February 12th and 13th, 2026. One of the most anticipated breakout sessions is titled How Video and Training fueled Barron’s three x growth to 45 million bucks. That’s big dollars. That’s great. So with us today is Brad Barron, the fourth generation CEO of Barron Heating AC Electrical and Plumbing.
00:00:57:17 – 00:01:26:06
And with him is Dave Marrs, costar of HGTV’s Fixer to Fabulous. And Josh Burdick, founder of Whole Home Media. Welcome to Cracking the Code, gentlemen. Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for having us here. Your team has scaled from one trade to now many. Yeah. Getting 45 million in revenue without acquisitions or outside investors. That’s pretty rare. So how did your team do it?
00:01:26:08 – 00:01:46:23
Yeah. Overnight. Well, that’s what they all say. It was an overnight success. Yeah. No, I mean, that’s a really good question. And it actually is a great question too, because it all tie in to some of the things that we’re looking at helping contractors do and the whole Home Alliance as well. But when we were doing Hvac and, air quality.
00:01:46:23 – 00:02:08:07
So I combine those two because we also do duct cleaning and duct sealing as part of our Hvac trade vertical. One of the conversations I had with my dad before coming into the business was and this came from my engineering background, and seeing the benefits of design firms or contractors being multi trade was, hey, I think you’ve got a really great customer base, a really good brand.
00:02:08:09 – 00:02:33:09
And as a result of that we could talk to the customers about hot home solutions. But we have to find the right people and even ask the question, David, that how do you scale to other trades? It is with finding the right people. It’s also with having the right processes. We had to make sure our processes were dialed in the Hvac world in order to actually successfully scale into electrical, solar and then plumbing.
00:02:33:15 – 00:02:59:15
So I think process and people, those two pieces were vital to that success. Understanding how to scale an org chart, how to gain efficiencies, making sure that things were documented. There’s a lot of different, info out there on the different levels or stages of business growth. And almost anywhere you look. Phase two of large scale expansion is process documentation and refinement.
00:02:59:17 – 00:03:19:15
And if you plug the right people in that those processes, then that’s where the magic happens. So when you decided over time to add these new trades, I guess that was overnight. I didn’t mean to say over time. But when you decided to add those new trades, I mean, how did you test the viability and make sure you were expanding in the right way?
00:03:19:17 – 00:03:43:18
Yeah, you got to go slow, to go fast. And so, I actually, Tim West, who’s now one of our senior solar designers, but Tim, was doing, a 375 candle install at our facility. Good chance getting caught up with him and I made a decision without even knowing I was going to hire him to say, hey, would you go get coffee with me and buy coffee?
00:03:43:18 – 00:04:06:15
I mean, beers and buy Digital Domino with three beers. But over the course of those three beers and a nice evening, I asked him, hey, if I’m going to hire a manager for electrical, who is the type of person I should be looking for? And he actually helped me refine my own statement of expectations. And I shared this, by the way, because I think this is actually a really good strategy if you’re trying to grow in scale and do a deeper vertical.
00:04:06:17 – 00:04:41:10
I just happened to find out that the strategy was a strategy after it all happened. But we got to talking and he sent me feedback. And about a week later he said, you know, Brad, I really love your vision for electrical, and I think I have some resources that could be of help. And so he actually came back and sought us out and finding the right person and plugging him into our systems and processes allowed us to scale from him as a he was running our electrical department and our only track to now having 12 electrical vehicles running, you know, every single day here at Brown and now making up 20% of our
00:04:41:10 – 00:05:00:01
total revenue. So when you find the right leader, I mean, he’s a good man. You know, faith aligned, core values aligned, and just a people person. And you have to find the right leader. And I actually had that opportunity and plumbing, too. Jordan Forbes, who is our plumbing manager, and he’s now transitioned up into the assistant director of operations.
00:05:00:01 – 00:05:16:15
But he was the same way we ended up. Tim knew him. So you find the right connector, then your network starts to go from there. And Jordan was looking to help scale and grow something different. And so he again got in a truck. Hadn’t been in a truck in a while, but knew what the vision was for scaling plumbing.
00:05:16:15 – 00:05:35:14
And now plumbing is 20% of our revenue, too. But you have to have the right systems and processes, and you have to find the right people. You also have to network. And one of the reasons these two gentlemen are with me here is that, best practices groups like Gea as an example were a huge part. Our success at their.
00:05:35:14 – 00:05:58:10
And you can’t do it alone. Our whole town alliance is all about that, making sure that contractors can come in and, expand upon what you learn, say, at contractor, you or the EJ conferences, being able to rub shoulders with noncompetitive, you know, home service allies and rise together. And so I learned a lot from the Gary Alex this other that we’re all the resources of the world that came in.
00:05:58:12 – 00:06:25:04
Initially as consultants and now as friends. Right. And people that help you get to that next level. And so that would be the third thing I’d add is you don’t want to do it alone. A rising tide raises all ships, and having an opportunity to work with a lot of people to get there is important. And that’s a great transition to my next question, which is, you know, you’re you’re talking systems a lot, and you’ve actually built systems to turn, green hires into future leaders.
00:06:25:04 – 00:06:57:13
I mean, that’s that’s obviously when you’re thinking about scaling, when you’re thinking about growth and you’re thinking about your future, and you want to be able to spend some time with your family occasionally as well as CEO. You got to bring in good leaders. And I love the fact that the, you know, kind of the connecting the dots type of personalities that you’ve, that you’ve hired to this point have helped expand the team through basically referrals, which is, to me, always the best because you kind of know what you’re getting yourself into upfront.
00:06:57:13 – 00:07:17:10
But, you know, how have you been able to take systems that turn green hires into into future leaders at Barron’s? You have to invest in your people, and when you reach a certain size, you actually have to create those training mechanisms to do it. And as a result of that success that we’ve seen in-house, that’s another thing.
00:07:17:10 – 00:07:43:08
We’re helping contractors with. And we’ll talk more, at the breakout, too, about is how do you build your own technician program? How do you lean in to trainings that exist and companies that have done it before and not recreate? But we are not saying make the same mistakes and get there. So our Barron Tech School, which is now called our home academy, was a big part of our success and how we were able to scale when that chasm continues to expand.
00:07:43:08 – 00:08:06:19
And I know they were just like, you could probably share a little bit in the contracting side of the, your world. You see, every single day that chasm expanding and the need to, educate people about the benefits of the trades and a career in the trades. Brad talked about this earlier about, like, relationship and what how that how that helps with hiring with your business, with scaling.
00:08:06:21 – 00:08:27:12
And, you know, I think if you look at any contractor, what do they love telling you about more than anything? It’s what they do. It’s what they’ve had success with. And it’s what they didn’t like. Yeah. And so I, I think there’s it’s through through HGTV. I’ve been able to experience a lot of not only America but the world.
00:08:27:12 – 00:08:52:07
And I will say America in that apprenticeship and that next generation, we are failing and you go to, I don’t care where else, anywhere else in the world. And they do. They are doing a much better job of bringing that next generation online. And this is this is something that’s going to become a real problem for us if we don’t start to address it.
00:08:52:07 – 00:09:16:18
And so as as interested as me and my wife are in sustainability and taking advantage of all the new technology that we have, none of that’s going to be possible if we don’t have people that can do it for us. So, Brad, let’s let’s kind of shift corners and grab grab Josh into this conversation. How has video marketing helped Baron build trust, drive leads, and even support your recruiting efforts?
00:09:16:20 – 00:09:43:06
Yeah, well, I’ll definitely make sure that Josh has the ability to talk to that one, but I can share. We made the decision last year to acquire, Josh’s company, a media company, because of the fact that we believed and still believe and have seen the results of this, that video media as a central part of an omni channel marketing approach, yield success and we’re very data driven.
00:09:43:08 – 00:10:16:00
There’s there’s people that I administer both with, but say, in God we trust everyone else bring data. And I align with that, that no. And so I don’t just want to do video because it looks sexy or because it’s, you know what I think I should be doing. I want to understand what it is driving leads. And this is an important one for people that maybe aren’t as marketing savvy, that it converts the leads to and converting to begins with a position of trust, and video can help establish that position of trust.
00:10:16:00 – 00:10:39:21
It tells your story, your brand, and we were investing heavily into that. Again, one of the, I think main reasons why we saw it. And you you alluded to this to Dave. There is internal and external success that’s required in order to grow. So video and media does both of those. For us it tells parents story. It builds a position of trust.
00:10:39:23 – 00:11:02:10
And so on the external side it builds brand awareness, builds trust. It tells your story. Whether it’s about culture or about your services. You have to tell both. But then I think the last thing before I pass over to Josh, it also tells your story and helps retain team members as well through training, recruitment, culture, videos like we have a whole video series.
00:11:02:16 – 00:11:17:07
It’s a long first day at bear, and when you come on board, there’s a lot of information thrown at you. But what we do is we open up our library and we use video to tell our story. Now, they’ve already seen it because we have a lot of videos out on our website and YouTube and Wistia and all those places.
00:11:17:07 – 00:11:37:01
But at the end of the day, you have to tell your story. And then I, as a CEO, is spending six figures on video a year. I want to make sure that I’m getting my return on investment. We saw that ROI, we’ve leaned into it, and as a result, over the last probably seven years of working with you guys and now the last year being actually in the Barron team, we’ve seen a significant success.
00:11:37:01 – 00:12:00:03
But, Josh, I don’t know if you want to add me figure out, but that from my perspective, that is what video is all about here. Yeah. Well, you mentioned that, you know, I wanted to hear the story of Barron and that that legacy, one of the first projects that we did as a team, as a vendor at the time for Barron, was creating this 50th anniversary video that really celebrated the culture and the team and the legacy, the generations of you know, of work behind that, the current team.
00:12:00:05 – 00:12:21:12
And to see that, see old photos come through and interviews from, you know, the original owners and like all of that came together. And I think that’s been one of the most successful marketing pieces to that. We’ve had just to be able to talk about the legacy that we have as a locally owned business in the community. And there’s a few ways you can tell that story as effectively.
00:12:21:12 – 00:12:38:17
I mean, that video, I think it was a longer video in terms of what we produced. It was closer to eight minutes long. But was captivating enough that people are watching it and we’ll have conversations in the communities like, oh yeah, we saw your video, and thank you for being so involved in the community. And that just is, it’s cool to get that kind of feedback.
00:12:38:19 – 00:13:09:03
I know. On the recruiting and team development side, we’ve also done a lot of work with telling stories of people that are involved in the trades. Our trade story. And so we literally with all the trade stories, where we interviewed technicians and other folks around, around the team, telling their story about how they came into this career, the benefits that that’s had to them and their life, and how that’s really propelled them into the next, you know, so helping other people see that and come along for that journey through the power of story has been just an incredible tool.
00:13:09:05 – 00:13:46:15
And then there’s the, you know, there’s the advertisements and the OT and CTV and and placements on social and things that are important and are part an important part of the overall omnichannel marketing mix. And we’re able to kind of tailor that in strategically. And that’s what I’m really excited about. Two of the whole Home Alliance and being able to take what we’ve learned at Baron in our sandbox of content creation over the last and the data that we’ve collected over that, and apply that so that other people can benefit, and really rolling that out in some really compelling, you know, products, over the last year or two has been been an incredible boost
00:13:46:15 – 00:14:08:19
for the industry. That’s awesome. So so, Josh, I mean, you’re helping contractors use authentic video storytelling to get their point across. So what makes videos such a powerful tool in our industry? And what do you see as the biggest mistakes that contractors are making when they try to do it on their own? There’s a lot of, generative AI out there now.
00:14:08:19 – 00:14:27:00
So a lot of contractors are saying that they’re like, oh, I could just put this into AI and and spit this, you know, these videos out. You can do that. But what we find is the videos that we’re creating are really authentic and grounded in relationship, you know, so the videos that we produce here, we try to get our techs on camera speaking.
00:14:27:00 – 00:14:47:00
We try to have Brad as a face of the business. We’re really intentional about that, not just kind of throwing throwing an AI generated video that’s informational but doesn’t really land because it’s not relational. We want to keep that that authenticity alive. So we’ve got playbooks where we will go out, we will spend a day with a contractor.
00:14:47:00 – 00:15:15:20
So we prepare them so that they’re they’re ready to go. And it only takes a day of their time. And it is a day it it’s, you know, a considerable investment in time. Say you mean 12 to 16. It’s it’s an intense day. But in that day we’re able to capture, you know, customer interactions, your tech getting ready for the day or the, your team’s getting ready for the day, your huddles really showing the people behind the operations and humanizing that brand so it doesn’t feel like it’s this impersonal brand you’re interacting with.
00:15:15:20 – 00:15:34:04
It’s really someone that you could, you know, you like you trust you, you want to do business with while also. Yeah. And I said on the I excuse me a the not going the AI route, but looking at how that type of athletic video helps with search engine optimization and actually taking those. That’s right. Yep. We deal a lot with that.
00:15:34:04 – 00:15:55:17
And we have alpha beta tested. I produce videos and we’ll do it ourselves versus our own. And every single time the authentic videos that we produce outperform anything that we can create with that help. And so and I think that is to your point, a mistake that can be made, people need to get started on video whatever way they can’t.
00:15:55:17 – 00:16:25:22
They got to tell that story. But authentic storytelling is different. Okay, yeah, I think I think just grabbing your phone and doing a selfie type video is better than I because it’s really you, right? Versus, you know, versus some ginned up kind of thing. So, Brad, from a contractor’s point of view, as it relates to this whole idea of authentic storytelling, I mean, why does it matter so much not just for leads, but also for like, helping homeowners buy into your high performance solutions that you offer?
00:16:26:00 – 00:16:44:12
Well, so there’s the story about brand and culture, and then there’s the how you enter interweave, I guess, or weave in the products that you you sell and that you are actually installing at a home. And so I would say, I know we’ve highlighted a lot about the culture and brand side of things. There is a technical education component, you know, data.
00:16:44:12 – 00:17:08:06
And I know we’ve talked a lot about selling. There’s a right way to sell. I believe in a wrong way. I think education is the correct way to sell. You want to be the ultimate consultant and I think video allows you to do that. So like, for example, when we send out a, you know, confirmation for an appointment, whether it’s sales or service, every single confirmation has videos and video links that tell the story about what we’re doing.
00:17:08:07 – 00:17:27:08
You know, I might hear it might be a video about what our process is, right? So that they’re familiar with that before the contractor. Excuse me, the contractor and the tech even show up at the house. Right. And it could be about why duck sealing matters, right? Because there’s a lot of box sweepers out there. We’ve also talked about that.
00:17:27:10 – 00:17:49:01
But we are a performance driven contractor, and I hope more people get into performance contracting because you can take an 80% furnace. I put a heat pump in, but if that duct system is leaking 30%, that is your efficiency. It is 70%, not 97. Right now, a lot of homeowners don’t know that, but video can help tell that story in an authentic way.
00:17:49:01 – 00:18:11:23
So what we observed in education with brand authenticity, well, is that then you build trust, right? Yeah. Yeah. You have a as soon as you, you, you go in and you show someone that, hey, this was leaking, this was failing. We fixed all this. Every homeowner is just like all of us. Everyone wants to have a guy that they can research or a company that they can refer.
00:18:12:01 – 00:18:41:05
And you, you do that one time for a homeowner, they’ll be your they’ll be your salespeople for you cheerleaders. Exactly. So so thinking about this, Dave, from your perspective, I mean, you’re a homeowner, you own a home, you’re also a celebrity. And from a trust building perspective, how how does how do you see the video side helping get the point across to homeowners and and prospective customers?
00:18:41:07 – 00:19:04:03
Right. Well, I mean, you said that your testimonials are is huge. I think, you know, with video, it’s it’s showing the problem. It’s showing that, you know, the problem that a lot of homeowners are seeing. Here’s a solution to that problem. In, in in our show, we, we show a start. We show mid time work when you’re working on it middle of the road.
00:19:04:08 – 00:19:22:10
And then we always show a finish. And that’s what people want to see. They want to see. Hey I had a tech that came in they were respectful. They were clean. They put their booties on, they gave me a fair quote. They went in there and they took care of the problem. And if there was ever any issues, they were back the next day to fix it.
00:19:22:12 – 00:19:44:17
And I think the video side of it, it just helps. It helps to tell your story. It helps to tell the tech story. But the trust of that is people. They know an expectation. They know what their you know, what they what they expect to get as far as service and what your company is going to give to them when they come in.
00:19:44:17 – 00:20:06:14
And I, I just video to me is, I mean we, we see it in our show all the time. It’s it is trust building because people are invited into your life and into your story and into your living room. And when you talk about, hey, we are a community business, we are here, we are working with your neighbors.
00:20:06:16 – 00:20:31:06
That’s a trust builder right there. Absolutely right. So for each of you guys, let’s circle back to epic 2026. This has been super powerful, by the way. Thank you so much for your feedback on this stuff. And I know you’re going to be hitting a lot of those bases in your upcoming, breakout session at epic. So what’s one strategy attendees can expect to walk away with when they join your breakout session?
00:20:31:06 – 00:20:51:13
Bread Trading Systems multi Trade growth maps. What kind of things are you going to bring to the table? What are the things that I really want to make sure that if you attend our breakout at contractors, get out of that is a roadmap, a simple roadmap to be able to grow sustainably, whether it’s within their trade or adding a trade vertical.
00:20:51:13 – 00:21:18:11
And we’re going to be talking about both those things and really specifically, we’re going to be looking at how media has helped Baron with an advertising side of things, but also a, storytelling side of things. There’s the training component, there’s video associated with training, but then there’s also everything from technician communication to technician school building to, you know, how you recruit well and utilize those tools to recruit.
00:21:18:11 – 00:21:39:15
So we’re really going to be hitting everything from marketing to people operations, right. And and everything in between. And I want to be able to tell the story from our own to I think one of the biggest things, hopefully there’s a better benefit to contractors that attend the breakout is that if I could like, help them with one day is not making the mistakes that I have made over the last eight years.
00:21:39:15 – 00:21:59:23
Just running, running, bare and right as a cow. And then CEO, my my dad, John, you know, always he’s been with the company for 46 years now just to this 46th anniversary. And he is, you know, in that semi-retired mode, he’s going to Hawaii a lot more. And traveling with my mom. Well-deserved. But he used to always say, you know, like, if you could only see my scars, right?
00:21:59:23 – 00:22:21:13
Like. And there’s no physical scars. But if you could only see my scars. And I think that, you know, and I’m, you know, I’m a 35 year old that has not been doing this in here as long as John. My dad has. But I have my own scars over the last eight years. And I think that one thing that a lot of people don’t realize, and I think that men and women and business owners can be really stubborn.
00:22:21:15 – 00:22:40:06
They think I can do it myself. And by the way, I’m going to put my finger at me. That was me and my first three years, and I’m like, I got it. I need to reach out. I, you know, whatever. I I’ll figure it out. I’m a smart guy. I got an engineering degree. I’ll figure it out. And then again, you walk away with those invisible scars, and I don’t want anyone in the breakout session to feel like they’re doing it alone.
00:22:40:06 – 00:23:02:06
That’s why I’m bringing Dave in to talk about the partnership that we have with Oakland Alliance, and everything from media to training and all of his experience to Scott as a contractor. So ever bringing Josh in to have those conversations about how you can utilize video. Well, there’s a lot that you can do to scale. Don’t scale alone and don’t do it in a way that’s not sustainable.
00:23:02:06 – 00:23:21:04
And I think that my younger self was like, you know, what’s the what’s the adage they say, you know, we typically overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in three. Right. And I think that’s a real business owner mistake. But you can get a lot more done in a year if you’re partnering with other people and they’re helping you anyway.
00:23:21:06 – 00:23:44:17
So without a doubt, especially people that have already, you know, scraped their knees a few times on things like that, and we’ve all got those battle wounds, there is no doubt about it. Dave, one of the things I’m challenging you for at epic is I really want you to know, and I really want you to focus on the human and relationship side of storytelling because, I mean, what is HGTV other than a storytelling platform, right?
00:23:44:17 – 00:24:07:15
It really is. I mean, it’s about it’s about, like I said earlier, inviting people into your home and build that trust with not only your not only your homeowners and your subcontractors, but really like people on the other side of the screen. And we talked about it. You touched on it. And I really thought that was great when you said about humanizing things and people people aren’t stupid.
00:24:07:15 – 00:24:33:14
They have a really good base, meter. Most people do, and they can tell when someone is genuine and someone is real. And, and I think if, if nothing else, when Brad and I started talking about this and Josh about, hey, how do we tell the story of, of bringing contractors together across America and helping each other so we could all help ourselves?
00:24:33:15 – 00:24:55:12
Yeah. And we kind of we were a little bit of a test. I called and I said, hey, this is what I want to do. I want to scale out something in Arkansas that I think you guys are doing really well. This just happened to be solar. And in Washington. How do we do that? And so, if nothing else, I can be the testimony that, hey, we did it.
00:24:55:14 – 00:25:18:21
We did it across, you know, half of the country and it it is I the amount of scars I cut out of having to learn by having Tim and Brad and Josh assist me through this first, you know, this first little foray into it wasn’t little. There’s no spirit of the finish. It was a lot of yeah, it was a it was a big deal.
00:25:18:21 – 00:25:38:23
But it was it was made easier by someone that has done it and I, I if nothing else, let’s just help each other out. And it it from there we can go to I mean one of the things that I’ve been very blessed with is I am trusted by in people’s homes. And that took a long time to build.
00:25:39:04 – 00:26:00:17
So I want to I want to partner with companies that I trust that I have used, that I can verify and tell people, hey, you’re going to win going with this company. And you know what if, if, if we can do that, we’re going to make the trades and all of our businesses more successful by it, by doing that, without a doubt.
00:26:00:17 – 00:26:24:01
And so, Josh, you’re batting cleanup. I’m a contractor. I’m coming to sit in your session. I’m looking for some video and marketing strategies that I can implement immediately. You’re going to you’re going to hit that ball out of the park. Absolutely. We will. Yeah. We’re going to have some great, inspiration. Hopefully we’ll pull out some of the things that we’ve done from the Barron Playbook and some of the other clients that we’ve worked with over the last couple years.
00:26:24:01 – 00:26:52:06
And, really give some people some ideas for strategy and what content to create, whether that’s working with an outside vendor or doing it yourself. Like you mentioned, there is a place for those authentic phone videos where you can engage with your customer base and have that, that, you know, relationship that way. So there’ll be some some good case studies, definitely some good strategies to think about and that you can walk away and apply tomorrow and somehow some way they’re going to get all that done in only one day.
00:26:52:06 – 00:27:19:10
No, I’m sorry, it only one hour. Gosh. It’s it’s never enough time for sure. But we’re super, super excited to have all three of you participate. Guys, don’t miss their workshop. How video and training fueled Barron’s three x growth to 45 million. It’s happening 1:00 on Thursday, February 12th at the Bellagio Hotel in beautiful Las Vegas as part of the Epic 2026 conference.
00:27:19:12 – 00:27:54:13
You can register today at Epic 2020 6.com and join other contractors ready to grow their business in 2026. I’m David Holt, general manager for Contractor University. Guys, thanks so much for your contribution to the success of our industry, and we look forward to seeing you in February. That’s going to be awesome. Thank you, I appreciate it. I said you.
