Escape The One Man Show

About Escape The One Man Show

Most contractors built a business that runs them, not the other way around. Escape the One Man Show is for trades business owners and contractors who are done being the bottleneck in their own company. Every episode Derek Cormier, founder of Climate Experts, a multi-million dollar home services company in Florida, breaks down the real tactics, leadership lessons, and culture shifts that helped him build a business that runs profitably without him in the truck. No fluff. No gurus. Just raw honest conversation from someone who has held the tools, run the calls, and built the team.

Publisher

Derek Cormier

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Apr 2026

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

28 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   He Scaled a Home Service Company From $12M to $50M in 5 Years. Then He Walked Away | Christian Rattin

   He took a home service company from around twelve million dollars to over fifty million in five years. Then he walked away from it.In this episode of Escape the One Man Show, Derek Cormier sits down with Christian Rattin, founder of B4 Growth Partners, who spent five years as President and eventually CEO of Five Star Home Services, scaling the company from the mid teens into the fifty million dollar range before leaving to start his own firm helping owners prepare their businesses for exit.Christian is brutally honest about what that scale actually cost. The tug of war with the owner over control. The mistakes made moving too fast. The real math behind gamifying a team without breaking it. And why building a leadership team, real 1:1s, real accountability, real systems, is the only way past the ceiling most trades companies never get through.Derek and Christian get into the transition from owner to real leadership, why some employees should be let go instead of coached, how to compress a three year plan into one, and what Christian is doing now to help owners close the gap between what their business is worth and what it could be worth.WANT HELP ESCAPING THE ONE MAN SHOW?If you're a contractor who's tired of doing everything yourself and wants help building a company that can grow without depending on you for every decision, schedule a FREE introductory coaching call with Derek.EscapeTheOneManShow.comNo pressure. The call is an opportunity to talk about where your business is today, where you're trying to take it and whether Derek's coaching programs can help you get there.WHAT YOU WILL LEARNHow to navigate the transition from an owner who controls everything to a real leadership team underneath him. Why a coach or a formal operating system like EOS or Scaling Up can save relationships during that transition. Why growth costs cash flow, and how to budget for it honestly. How to compress decision making timelines instead of letting projects drag. Why only a handful of numbers actually matter day to day, and why chasing every number overwhelms your team. How to gamify performance without letting it get out of control. Why A players get demotivated by C players, and why keeping a C player can cost you more than losing them. How often to actually run 1:1s and performance evaluations, and why they should never happen on the same day as a raise conversation. What it actually takes to build a leadership bench instead of hoping the right person shows up. Why some businesses aren't ready to sell for what the owner thinks they're worth, and what actually closes that gap.ABOUT CHRISTIAN RATTINChristian Rattin is the founder of B4 Growth Partners. He spent five years with Five Star Home Services, eventually serving as CEO, and helped scale the company from the mid teens into the fifty million dollar range. He now works with home service business owners to build leadership, systems, and value ahead of an eventual exit.ABOUT ESCAPE THE ONE MAN SHOWEscape the One Man Show is a podcast for contractors and trades business owners who are tired of being the bottleneck in their company. Host Derek Cormier shares the leadership lessons, systems, marketing strategies and operational frameworks that helped him go from working in the field to building Climate Experts into a multi-million-dollar home service business.Ready to work on your own business?Schedule a FREE introductory coaching call with Derek:EscapeTheOneManShow.comCONTRACTOR HOTLINEHave a question you want answered on the show?Call 321-495-7788 and leave a voicemail.Your question may be featured in an upcoming episode of Escape the One Man Show.

2. 

   30 Sept 2026

   Will You Be the Next HVAC Millionaire? Or Go Broke Trying to Sell? | Gregg Schonhorn

   Every week somebody online is telling you they sold their contracting company for fifty million dollars. Most of what you're hearing is wrong, and some of it could cost you everything if you believe it.In this episode of Escape the One Man Show, Derek Cormier sits down with Gregg Schonhorn of SF&P Advisors, a business broker who helps trades owners actually sell their companies, to separate what's real from what's guru marketing.Gregg breaks down how a business is actually valued, what EBITDA and addbacks really mean, why some owners walk away with far less than they expected, and what actually happens when you roll equity into a deal instead of taking the cash. Derek and Gregg go through the real mechanics of a business sale, from the letter of intent to non-competes to the biggest scams Gregg has seen owners fall for.This isn't about whether you want to sell someday. It's about understanding the game before somebody else plays it against you.WANT HELP ESCAPING THE ONE MAN SHOW?If you're a contractor who's tired of doing everything yourself and wants help building a company that can grow without depending on you for every decision, schedule a FREE introductory coaching call with Derek.EscapeTheOneManShow.com No pressure. The call is an opportunity to talk about where your business is today, where you're trying to take it and whether Derek's coaching programs can help you get there.WHAT YOU WILL LEARNHow a contracting business actually gets valued. What EBITDA means and how addbacks work. What hurts your multiple, and the lowest multiple Gregg has seen on a business over ten million dollars. Whether a two year old company with great numbers sells for more than a ten year old company. How much you actually get paid upfront versus what's rolled into equity. Whether you can lose money in a business sale. What a Letter of Intent actually is. How long the sales process really takes. Whether private equity wants the owner to stay on after the deal. How non-competes work, including starting a different trade in the same area. Why a broker can get you a better outcome than going direct. What broker fees typically look like. The biggest scams Gregg has seen happen in business sales.TOPICS COVERED Selling a contracting business. Business valuation. EBITDA. Addbacks. Private equity. Business brokers. Letters of intent. Non-compete agreements. Mergers and acquisitions. Exit planning. HVAC business. Plumbing business. Electrical business. Home service business growth.WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR This episode is for HVAC contractors, plumbers, electricians and other trades business owners who have ever thought about selling someday, who are tired of hearing unverified numbers from people online, or who want to understand what actually happens in a business sale before they're in the middle of one.You do NOT need to be close to selling to get value from this conversation. Understanding how the deal works now protects you later.ABOUT GREGG SCHONHORN Gregg Schonhorn is with SF&P Advisors, where he works as a business broker helping trades and home service business owners navigate the sale of their companies. ABOUT ESCAPE THE ONE MAN SHOW Escape the One Man Show is a podcast for contractors and trades business owners who are tired of being the bottleneck in their company. Host Derek Cormier shares the leadership lessons, systems, marketing strategies and operational frameworks that helped him go from working in the field to building Climate Experts into a multi-million-dollar home service business.Ready to work on your own business? Schedule a FREE introductory coaching call with Derek: EscapeTheOneManShow.com CONTRACTOR HOTLINE Have a question you want answered on the show?Call 321-495-7788 and leave a voicemail.Your question may be featured in an upcoming episode of Escape the One Man Show.

3. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Your Budget Tells You When to Hire

   Most contractors never plan their year. They show up in January, get busy, and figure it out as they go. Then October hits, calls slow down, and they're staring at payroll wondering what happened. In this episode of Escape the One Man Show, Derek Cormier breaks down why business planning season matters, and why the answer to almost every hard question you have about next year, when to hire, what to charge, when to raise prices, is already sitting in your budget. Derek walks through exactly what goes into a real budget, how to use it to know when to hire your next tech, how to plan pricing around gross profit and overhead before costs go up, and why a simple monthly check-in stops a bad year from becoming a payroll crisis.This isn't theory. It's the exact planning process running at Climate Experts today.WANT HELP ESCAPING THE ONE MAN SHOW?If you're a contractor who's tired of doing everything yourself and wants help building a company that can grow without depending on you for every decision, schedule a FREE introductory coaching call with Derek.EscapeTheOneManShow.comNo pressure. The call is an opportunity to talk about where your business is today, where you're trying to take it and whether Derek's coaching programs can help you get there.WHAT YOU WILL LEARNWhy most owners never plan their year, and what it costs them. What actually goes into a real business budget, calls, conversion rate, average sale, employees, turnover. How to break your year down month by month based on seasonality instead of guessing. How your budget tells you exactly when to hire your next technician. How to plan pricing around a gross profit and net profit goal before costs go up. Why you should raise your prices before the year starts, not after a bad one. How a simple monthly check-in catches a problem in month two instead of month eleven. Why waiting until you can't make payroll means you were already behind months earlier.TOPICS COVEREDBusiness planning. Annual budgeting. Contractor hiring strategy. Pricing strategy. Gross profit and overhead. P&L basics. Seasonality planning. HVAC business. Plumbing business. Electrical business. Home service business growth. Leadership.WHO THIS EPISODE IS FORThis episode is for HVAC contractors, plumbers, electricians and other trades business owners who have never built a real budget, who make hiring decisions based on how busy they feel instead of real numbers, or who find out too late every year that pricing or staffing didn't keep up with costs.If you've ever gotten to the end of the year and had no idea why it went sideways, this conversation is for you.ABOUT ESCAPE THE ONE MAN SHOWEscape the One Man Show is a podcast for contractors and trades business owners who are tired of being the bottleneck in their company. Host Derek Cormier shares the leadership lessons, systems, marketing strategies and operational frameworks that helped him go from working in the field to building Climate Experts into a multi-million-dollar home service business.Ready to work on your own business?Schedule a FREE introductory coaching call with Derek:EscapeTheOneManShow.comCONTRACTOR HOTLINEHave a question you want answered on the show?Call 321-495-7788 and leave a voicemail.Your question may be featured in an upcoming episode of Escape the One Man Show.KEYWORDSDerek Cormier, Escape the One Man Show, business planning, contractor budget, annual budgeting, HVAC hiring, contractor pricing strategy, gross profit, overhead, contractor P&L, HVAC business, plumbing business, electrical business, home service business, contractor coach, Climate Experts#HVAC #HVACBusiness #ContractorPodcast #EscapeTheOneManShow #ContractorLife #HomeServiceBusiness #HVACContractor #PlumbingBusiness #ElectricalContractor #TradesBusiness #BusinessGrowth #DerekCormier #HVACOwner #ContractorSuccess #SmallBusinessOwner #Leadership #HomeServices #BusinessPlanning

Who has been a guest on Escape The One Man Show

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Chuck Staszkiewicz
• Sean Michael Crane
• Joe

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

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