The Costly Marketing Gap That Goes Beyond the Truck Wrap – Sarah Ghirardo

00:00From running 177 BevMo stores to “HVAC isn’t sexy”

Sarah Ghirardo: The point is is that you can go blindly from zero to five million without math, but you, once you hit that five million sometimes people you’re going to be like whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m not actually making any money. And then I’m throwing all this money at a website, I’m throwing all this money at ads that I don’t know where it’s going, I’m not keeping track of it.

Narrator: Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue collar owners and insiders spill the real story behind their hustle, building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts. We’ll dig into their journeys, from scaling chaos to growing the bottom line, with lessons and grit that pay off big.

Narrator: Here’s your host, the blue collar CFO, tyler Martin.

Tyler Martin: Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Profit and Grit. Today we’re sitting down with Sarah Girardo. She spent years helping HVAC and home service companies grow and she’s seen firsthand what works and what doesn’t. In this conversation, we cover some really practical takeaways.

Tyler Martin: You’re going to learn how she went from retail into HVAC and turned an unsexy industry into a career she loves. Why branding both your business and your personal brand matters more than ever. If you want to stand out and the steps contractors can take right now to build stronger connections with their community and grow profits, let’s get into it.

Tyler Martin: Hey, sarah, welcome to the Profit and Grit Podcast Show. How are you doing today?

Sarah Ghirardo: I’m great. How are you?

Tyler Martin: I’m doing okay. I always love to start a conversation where we’ve had technical glitches and challenges. That always makes it a little fun.

Sarah Ghirardo: You know working in tech, I completely understand technical glitches and problems Part of it, right?

Tyler Martin: Yeah, hey, you know where I’d love to. I’m just so excited to talk with you. I’ve just watched yourself for quite some time now, researched you to death, feel like you’re an old friend when I’d love to start just hearing your story and learning about you.

Tyler Martin: So you’re someone well-known in the trades industry HVAC in particular, I would say but it didn’t always start that way for you. You came into that industry from I think it was BevMo, if I’m remembering correctly. Yeah, when you got into HVAC, I think your boss even said, or as you were about to get into HVAC, he said HVAC isn’t really sexy, and your comment was along the lines like challenge accepted.

Tyler Martin: Could you tell me, take me back to that story and share with me how this all started?

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, most definitely so. I was working as a kind of like a director of customer service for a large retail alcohol company and running 177 stores, and it wasn’t what I wanted to do. It was something that I needed to do because of the recession in 2008.

Sarah Ghirardo: I have a marketing degree. I started marketing Lots of stories there, but I wound up knowing someone that worked at BevMo and that’s how I got hired there. But then I started making a name for myself at that company and didn’t really know that I had that much influence on a guy in marketing.

Sarah Ghirardo: And the guy in marketing went to an HVAC company and after about a year there he realized that he wanted to bring me in. I really didn’t talk to this guy ever and I was surprised. But he was like, look, I have a position.

Sarah Ghirardo: I know you’re here in the area the business is in. It’d be a short commute, but I want you to run the call center. And I was like, yeah, no, absolutely not. I want to get back into marketing, like I will do whatever it takes.

Sarah Ghirardo: And he was like, well, hvac isn’t sexy. And I was like I do not care, like challenge accepted, like I will figure it out. And that’s kind of how it started and they put me the company that I worked for, service Champions in Northern California.

Sarah Ghirardo: They invested heavily in people and they always said that and Kevin Comerford always said that the business is a people and experience business and that’s what I loved about the company. But it made me so passionate about people and it made me so passionate about the customer experience that I just could not not learn and keep going in this trade.

Sarah Ghirardo: So that’s kind of what I’ve been doing.

Tyler Martin: Did you? Once you immerse yourself in HVAC world, how did you feel about it being sexy or not Like?

Sarah Ghirardo: did you have a it was not sexy, right. I was like. I was like, how do I make these pictures fun and then take a brand that you know like is very stoic? And I mean, when I got there, there was an bald eagle on the truck and you can see like the cracks in its beak and I was like, wow, how do I take this?

Sarah Ghirardo: What do I run with? What is this? What does marketing and advertising look like in this? And then, yeah, it’s not sexy, you know, but I mean I think I make it pretty sexy, like just being around. No, but it’s fun because it’s a people don’t call because they’re excited to be like hey, you know what?

Sarah Ghirardo: Today I’m just so excited Like my air conditioner broke and I am so happy to call you right now Because I know that I just really wanted to spend this amount of money to replace it. It’s just so full of joy. It’s not right.

Sarah Ghirardo: And so you have to play with the problem solution in a way that helps people understand how to buy and why to buy, and it’s so. It has stimulated my, my thoughts. It’s taken it to the next level of you know, what does marketing and advertising really look like in this world and how can we make it fun, but also how can we just like create brands that are remarkable?

Tyler Martin: Yeah, what would you say like what surprised you most about the trade industry in terms from coming from the outside?

06:10The math behind trucks, capacity and windshield time

Tyler Martin: Did anything catch you off like you didn’t expect? Or it surprised you?

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, that’s definitely. I didn’t understand all of the math behind it. You know, like it’s a lot of math. It’s a lot of like learning about capacity and learning about you know how many trucks in the road, the windshield time it is, I think, like why you know, and I went to college at an engineering school and I took a lot of statistics and logistics courses and now it’s like, oh my gosh, I can use them now.

Sarah Ghirardo: I never thought I would, but I understand it now. It’s like you’re constantly mapping backwards and forwards and understanding where in the math is the emotional experience, not only in your technicians but in the consumer behavior, and it’s so incredibly important to know.

Sarah Ghirardo: But I did not expect it, to be honest, and the only way I learned it was I had, we had a leader, Like I said, Kevin Hummerford. He’s just this incredible visionary, but also he explained the math to us so that we could operate the business as owners.

Sarah Ghirardo: That we could operate the business as owners and that’s so respectful, respectable and it really has taken that organization to the next level but also the people inside the organization to understand what they’re doing and what their why is and put it back to the numbers.

Tyler Martin: Yeah, that’s very cool. Hey, you know you’ve mentioned now service champions. You were very integral as part of your marketing, growing them from like 40 to 55 million. I kind of have a two part question for you. One, I’d love to know what impact did you have in helping that grow Like?

Tyler Martin: What were some key things that you did that influenced that growth? And then two, I’d love to make it very relatable to our audience. We have a lot of people out in the audience that are kind of in that two to ten million dollar range.

Tyler Martin: It very relatable to our audience. We have a lot of people out in the audience that are kind of in that $2 to $10 million range. I’d love to know for the Joe H, joe or Jane HVAC owner that’s made like $4 million a year, what should they be doing?

Tyler Martin: That might be applicable to what you’ve had in your career.

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, most definitely, and when I started they were $21 million.

Narrator: And when I left, they were $55 million yeah.

Sarah Ghirardo: And when I left, even more. They acquired more businesses and they merged into private equity. So they went big right. And what I can tell you is that even at 21 million, sometimes you get there without having strategic operations in place that you really understand of how to get there.

Sarah Ghirardo: Right. You’re just like I got here. I have a great call center, I have a great call center, I have a great whatever. But this new age of AI and automation it starts. It’s kind of like the internet starting over, right? So if you’re a small business, this is your time to play, this is your time to win, and I think that’s the coolest thing.

Sarah Ghirardo: It just sets the level again. And if you’re a large business, this becomes like a multi-operational kind of consumer behavior. But to get anywhere, you need to establish a brand in the community, and what I’ve learned is that doesn’t matter what revenue size you are, there are other local businesses out there that need to be promoted alongside of yours.

09:23Build the brand in your community before the truck wrap

Sarah Ghirardo: And when you bridge those two things together and you bring the community together with your brand, you’re unstoppable, right? And it’s the little things, it’s not. I watched Lees and Fresno go out on the street with video and they were asking people of like hey, what’s your favorite spot to eat in town?

Sarah Ghirardo: I mean, it’s the tiny things that you can do to be remarkable and leave a brand legacy. Now, often people think, well, it has to be like I have to have this beautiful truck, you have to stand out in the crowd, absolutely. But that truck has to have a story behind it and that story is your why.

Sarah Ghirardo: And so when you’re going into business, the first thing I would say for a small business is A what’s your exit strategy? B what’s your why? Align these two together. What’s the impact that you’re going to make? And then start building a brand.

Sarah Ghirardo: Obviously, the most contractors will start with word of mouth Great, well, where does word of mouth take you? It takes you everywhere. Mouth Great. Well, where does word of mouth take you? It takes you everywhere, right, you can put it in your pocket and give it away to whoever you see.

Sarah Ghirardo: You can hire and recruit. With business cards. You can look at exceptional businesses around and be like hey, I’d love to partner with you. What does this look like? I don’t know. Often, when we start businesses, we don’t know. So, finding a good brand and sticking with a name that makes sense, that’s searchable that makes sense to the search, developing your reputation, getting those Google star, those reviews, figuring out a way to get into ChatGPT and other LLMs for search and always, always up that Google business profile or whatever they want to call it.

Sarah Ghirardo: Those days that’s the easiest, lowest hanging fruit and all of the Google products will eventually be linked together. Now, right now, you’re seeing like a weird search and then another weird search and then a paid search and like Google wants to monetize everything.

Sarah Ghirardo: So like that’s a game, right. And the last thing I would say is to really understand that marketing and advertising is an infinite game and that means that there are players that are playing every single day, and what one person says is right could be black hat or gray hat, which means not tested or just testing, because the internet is basically starting over.

Sarah Ghirardo: Testing because the internet is basically starting over. So, yeah, I would just say now is your time to play. And if you’re ready to play, then hit the ground hard and guerrilla market it with community. First build your brand and, you know, never think that just because you’re small doesn’t mean that you can’t be big.

Sarah Ghirardo: The smaller they think you are, the bigger you’ll become.

Tyler Martin: So I want to dig a little on a couple of things. You said that was all really good gold stuff. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be big. The smaller they think you are, the bigger you’ll become. So I want to dig a little on a couple of things.

Tyler Martin: You said that was all really good gold stuff you talked about when we first started that conversation.

12:15Why your exit strategy matters when the kids don’t want it

Tyler Martin: You said come up with your why and then also have your exit. Do you mean when you say exit? Do you mean your exit plan in terms of someday selling or getting out of the business? Is that what you mean? Yeah, you can’t be in there forever?

Sarah Ghirardo: right, and what if it doesn’t? What I’ve ran into is what if the family doesn’t want it? Right, and what if? Like? What are the what ifs? And I feel like sometimes we’re always like, well, we’ll pass this down to family and this is gonna be a family generated business.

Sarah Ghirardo: But there are millions out there right now that are like tired of being the person in the truck and are wanting to sell and retire and their families don’t want to take it over. So think about an exit strategy that’s aligned to your why, and your why is probably your family.

Sarah Ghirardo: Your why is why you started this. Your why is the problems and solutions that you wanted to solve for people. But like, there’s got to be a way out, right, we can’t do this for the rest of our lives, right?

Tyler Martin: right. No, that’s good feedback. It’s funny. I um, you know, in my, my practice I see a lot of family-owned businesses and it’s always just funny to see the dynamics in a family-owned business, one that sticks out to me the father likes to do a certain type of business and the son likes to do something else and he’s like the minute my dad retires I’m doing what I want to do and I don’t care what he says.

Tyler Martin: So it’s just kind of funny how you get to your point, you get these dynamics that just because it’s family doesn’t mean it’s forever.

Sarah Ghirardo: Right Forever in a business right. And the business could evolve and it could be whatever, and I’m not saying don’t think about that, but like, sometimes your kids don’t want it.

Tyler Martin: True, true, I said it, it’s true. And then the other thing that I wanted to mention. You brought up the word brand a lot. When you’re saying brand like in your mind, where do you think like the owner should be branding themselves versus the business also branding themselves?

14:06Personal brand is the opportunity contractors keep missing

Tyler Martin: Could you get in a little bit deeper on both those topics?

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, most definitely so. A brand is a person, a thing or a logo. It can mean a lot, but it’s about your mission, your culture, your vision, and that’s really what a brand can start with and stand with, and you can build that with AI.

Sarah Ghirardo: Just put in your thoughts, dump it like it’s a brain dump and say help me make a brand of this company. This is what I envision, this is what I say. Now, a personal brand that’s connected to your business is incredibly important, and I think that the majority of contractors miss out on this as the largest opportunity to speak, to say what you have to say, to teach what you have to teach, because we don’t know what we don’t know.

Sarah Ghirardo: I go out and I built a personal brand. I started doing this in COVID. I learned that no one was speaking about marketing and I was like I need help. I was like I need to crowdsource logic and ideas and I need help, and what I found were communities out there that were already talking about business, but they weren’t talking about marketing, and I was like I’m going in, I told everyone at about marketing and I was like, going in, I told everyone at where I worked.

Sarah Ghirardo: I was like I’m going in, I’m going to go and help Because I came from a larger contractor, so I do have larger, I had a larger budget, I had larger things I can say that. But I knew that people needed help and I knew that they didn’t know what I knew.

Sarah Ghirardo: And so how dare I not share that? How dare I not help, was my thought, and that’s always aligned back to my why. So building a personal brand that’s connected to your business will only help your business grow because they will see you as a leader in the community.

Sarah Ghirardo: They will see you as a leader in the industry. They will help to. It just builds connections, it builds bridges and I think that’s the biggest thing. So if I could tell any owner right now, go out there. And I think like that’s the biggest thing. So if I could tell any owner right now, go out there.

Sarah Ghirardo: And I know video is hard and I know posting on social media is hard, but life is hard. Choose your hard. You know you can do. This is all I would say, that’s good feedback.

Tyler Martin: So you would say it sounds like you’re a strong proponent of the personal branding as well as the business branding.

Sarah Ghirardo: Oh, most definitely yeah, yeah.

Tyler Martin: And I think it is hard, for it doesn’t come naturally for a lot of people, but I even now in the blue collar world, it’s like you see it so much and it’s evolved so much and to me what seems like a short amount of time, it’s almost like you’re missing the boat, if you aren’t being visible in some way.

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, most definitely. And like now, your social media channels are like Instagram and Facebook, are being indexed on Google, and so get out there, like there is no better time than now, and if you’re just waiting on yourself, my suggestion is to take a big leap.

Tyler Martin: We are back for another Service Scalers marketing tip. The biggest leak in your business isn’t always bad ads. It’s marketing spend that isn’t tied to the math. Sarah Gerardo explained why so many home service companies hit $5 million or even $10 million in revenue, only to realize they’re not actually making any money.

Tyler Martin: The gap they’re seriously pouring money into ads, tools and websites without knowing which dollars are working. If you don’t connect marketing spend to book jobs, conversion rates and margins, you’re flying blind. That invisible gap can quietly cost you millions in wasted spend and missed revenue.

Tyler Martin: So here’s an action step Before spending another dollar on ads, map your marketing budget against conversions and ticket size, know which campaigns bring real profit and cut the rest. This is brought to you by Service Scalers, helping home service businesses turn marketing into measurable profit.

Tyler Martin: The link is in the show notes and please tell them. Tyler sent you.

Sarah Ghirardo: And if you’re just waiting on yourself, my suggestion is to take a big leap good stuff.

18:31Do the math before marketing, or you’ll spend blind

Tyler Martin: Okay, before I get into, I have some personal stuff I want to learn about you, but before I do that, I’ve got a couple more marketing questions. I want to talk about this remarket table. Is that how you say it, philosophy? It’s remarkable okay, sorry I was close.

Tyler Martin: What does that mean? And I believe it’s around a marketing budget. Could you talk us through that a little bit?

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, so first being more marketable. I always align it back to Seth Godin and the purple cow. Right, he said your brand has to stand out to be remarkable. But the purple cow is no longer a purple cow. It’s like a purple cow with a disco helmet and a Ferrari driving down the road with the original purple cow on the back.

Sarah Ghirardo: It’s totally something different, and so that’s what my branding strategy is. When I teach the trades, it’s like yeah, you can’t just be a Purple Cow, you have to be an outstanding Purple Cow. And so that’s where Remarkable came from. It was the idea of like, well, how do you create just an extraordinary brand with extraordinary people?

Sarah Ghirardo: But the biggest thing that I’ve learned is and especially over the years, because I’ve worked with over 2000 contractors just in general teaching marketing and helping the trades what I’ve learned is there is limited to no math, to advanced math. Right, it just depends on where you’re at, and I believe that the trades are getting better with the math.

Sarah Ghirardo: But you have to do math before marketing, and Marsha Barnes was the one that said that. I think she trademarked it. She’s with Valvometer, she’s brilliant. And the point is is that you can go blindly from zero to 5 million without math. But you, once you hit that 5 million sometimes people are you’re going to be like, whoa, I’m not actually making any money.

Sarah Ghirardo: And then I’m throwing all this money at a website, I’m throwing all this money at ads that I don’t know where it’s going. I’m not keeping track of it. That’s what I’m talking about. Your operations are obviously going to hit your bottom line, but your marketing is going to hit your bottom line with your operations if there isn’t a cohesive build.

Sarah Ghirardo: So I give a template away for free, that is, a budgeting planner or just a place to keep all of your expenses. Start with the math how much does this cost? Let me write this down how much does this cost? What’s money in, money out?

Sarah Ghirardo: And then the other big thing I see is I see a lot of wasted spend in operations. I see a lot of wasted spend in marketing. I see a lot of wasted spend just in general, because again, we’re going blind and the goal is to never be blind in your business.

Sarah Ghirardo: You have to say, okay, well, if I don’t know something, I’m going to go to a small business class.

21:27Where the wasted spend hides: software, Google ads, CSRs

Sarah Ghirardo: Maybe they can help me set up a marketing budget, maybe they can help me set up a P&L. You know we don’t always come in as business leaders knowing what math we should have in all of these reports. What do they mean? And I’m still learning, right, and that’s okay.

Sarah Ghirardo: It’s okay to not know what you don’t know, but if you know that you don’t know something, then it’s your job to take action. Once you hear that you now know is what I say.

Tyler Martin: When you say you see waste, like in marketing and operations. Anything stand out as what you like. Is it overstaffing? Is it your software tools they don’t use? Or what do you typically see?

Sarah Ghirardo: It’s all of it. The biggest waste to spend is in, obviously, in software. That’s a big waste, right, they’re not using the tools to their capability, but they’re buying more tools and then they have redundant. They have redundant tools and I know that I work with a lot of different agencies and different vendors that are working to reduce the redundancy.

Sarah Ghirardo: The other biggest wasted spend in marketing marketing in general would be in Google ads, I see, because they don’t know what they don’t know, let’s say, don’t have time to manage it, and so that’s really where AI will come in to help leverage that opportunity that’s there to their own CRM and to their own data, to make it more of an efficient and automated process for them.

Sarah Ghirardo: There’s wasted spend in tasks that we are doing, so, even as a marketer, time is money and at one point I could spend 8 hours writing an email. Why, when I would use AI and I could get it done in 3 minutes? What’s the automation and the redundant tasks that are throughout the entire customer journey, throughout our entire operations, that need to be automated and implemented with AI?

Sarah Ghirardo: When I look at CSRs, the wasted spend is in the lack of the conversion, and if they’re converting at a 37% call booking rate, then 80% is the goal, right. 80-20 is what we do in tech. It’s the MVP, minimum viable product. But it also goes with life in general, right, no one wants to do anything at 100%.

Sarah Ghirardo: That doesn’t even make sense. So, like 80%, if I’m 80% there, what’s my average ticket at 80%? Well, if I’m at 37%, what’s the gap between 80 and 37? And what’s that average ticket? And that’s my missed revenue, right? And so it’s like now I’ve got like a bigger issue and when technicians when I look at that kind of wasted spend, I look at drive time, like traffic is traffic in areas, and so, like, how much time are your technicians sitting on the road, maybe doing Snapchat videos while they’re waiting in traffic to get to their destination?

Sarah Ghirardo: How many trucks do you have on the road maybe doing Snapchat videos while they’re waiting in traffic to get to their destination? How many trucks do you have on the road that makes it optimal to where you’re driving to and hitting the right windshield time that it’s not hitting the bottom line?

Sarah Ghirardo: So there is ways to spend everywhere tools supplying, inventory, management. It happens everywhere in business. You just have to think of the opportunities that, okay, like ask the people in those roles. What can I help you with CSRs? Do they need scripts to help them, guide them?

Sarah Ghirardo: Are we going to an AI? You know evolution with CSRs? Absolutely you know. But what will the people do? Because it’s AI plus a human touch. So, yeah, it’s just really sitting down and saying with each department, all right, what’s what’s redundant here?

Sarah Ghirardo: And if you’re the only person say, okay, what can I get off my plate Like this is too much, and we know it’s too much, you can’t operate the business and be in the business and do all the things Like it’s just and be in the business and do all the things like it’s just it’s just not possible and live a healthy life.

Tyler Martin: So a lot of good stuff there. That labor efficiency one is the one that always blows my mind, though, because it’s just obviously labor’s being one of your most expensive costs. How little thought oftentimes is put into whether it be routes or just timing and scheduling that can eat up the bottom line so fast.

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, and dispatching for profits, right, and there’s so much, I mean so much that hits the bottom line and so yeah.

Tyler Martin: Okay, I want to get a little personal.

25:53Single mom, no work-life balance, and leaning on family

Tyler Martin: I want to learn about you a little bit. So you know, my latest research indicates you’re a single mom. I know you travel a lot based on you know, learning about you and watching you and researching you. How do you manage because this is a common thing for business owners, Like how do they manage their work-life balance?

Tyler Martin: They’re working 80 hours a week and they’ve got a family and stuff like that Somehow you’re able to do this traveling and you’ve got a child you’re taking care of. How do you do it?

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, there is no work-life balance. I stopped telling myself that lie a long time ago. But there is a work and a life and I’m fortunate enough to have great parents. I have a, you know, they have a great dad and I have a great mother-in-law, and they are all there.

Sarah Ghirardo: We all leaned in together. Like the divorce happened a long time ago and it was whatever it was. But what we did as and this is the reason why I believe that I married him was because I knew we had a great family dynamic and when times got tough, all I saw was that we leaned in together and that’s kind of how I’ve been living my life is that they’re like you know, I stayed home for a very long time and I had this opportunity to go and no one said, hey, Sarah, don’t do that.

Sarah Ghirardo: They just said go, and so the support from my family has really been the driver of being able to get out there and scale myself and teach the trades and and you know, can I say it’s always been easy. It hasn’t. Are there lots of bumps in the road?

Sarah Ghirardo: Absolutely. Do I miss my kids? Yes, but they know why I’m doing this. They know that I’m doing this for them and not as a guilt trip for them. It is really to to build generational wealth and to teach. You know single moms that, yeah, life is hard and sometimes I carry my kids with me and sometimes I, you know, I just have to figure it out, and I think that that was the biggest thing for me as a single mom is believing in myself, being courageous enough to take a step towards something that I didn’t even know existed, and just keep failing forward while I’m doing it.

Tyler Martin: I love your transparency. I, like you, know it’s always easy when you get questions like that to paint this picture like everything’s perfect and the reality is life isn’t right. I mean that’s cool. Hey, I want to talk about on this personal section a little bit.

Tyler Martin: More is so.

28:22Boys clubs, being called bossy, and lifting women up

Tyler Martin: You know, this industry obviously is male dominated and you making having your niche in this world as a female how have you balanced that, like, how have you managed so you’re being treated respectfully, you’re, you’re fitting into the industry and you become such a, you become a powerful voice as well as a pioneer for other women, which is huge.

Tyler Martin: So what do you think you’ve done to be able to be successful in doing that?

Sarah Ghirardo: I think that first I have relationships with all people in the trades right, I know the balance. And at first, you know, I was a huge proponent of women in the trades. I’m like, let’s go, let’s get out there, let’s, but it’s about people and it’s about being able to teach people how, how to, because all people really want is to be heard, be known, be seen Right.

Sarah Ghirardo: And so that was my philosophy. It was like, well, how can I bring you out, how can I do this scrappy, how can I hit the ground running? And it doesn’t matter who you are. And I started with women in the trades as much as I could, because I knew that they had a voice and they could share just this incredible like intellectual, like operations of running a business.

Sarah Ghirardo: And I, what I was seeing out there was just women that were so passionate, but they didn’t have a place to stand and I was like, okay, well, let’s just make up one. And so I did that as much as I could and I went to as many conferences and I helped as many people just bring them out to speak.

Sarah Ghirardo: And you know, as I love saying, people love to say that I’m a pioneer, but really all I did was just help people help themselves. Right, I believed in them, and sometimes that’s all you have to do is just believe in people, and I probably believed in them the most because I felt so broken from my divorce that I needed something to believe in, and so I gave back everything that I could and turn my pain into purpose for others.

Sarah Ghirardo: And, yeah, so that’s why I started with my journey with women, because I just wanted them to shine as bright as they were.

Tyler Martin: Have you ever felt like you’ve had to work harder as a female in terms of being accepted into the industry and, if so, how have you kind of overcome that?

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, there are definitely the boys clubs and I’m not going to lie Like they, they exist. It feels like you have to work harder. It feels like sometimes you have to be louder. It feels like sometimes the way that I could come across would be labeled as aggressive or bossy and I’ve been, you know labeled.

Sarah Ghirardo: But it also feels like I’ve had so much collaboration with men and that have helped me grow in this industry, in the tech industry, in some of my biggest mentors, some of my biggest fans, are pushing me every year, every day, to grow and I can sit in the the well, that made me feel like garbage kind of conversation, because it has happened, or I can say cool, maybe we could have a conversation about how this would better fit.

Sarah Ghirardo: You know my, the language that I like to speak, the way that I like to communicate, and maybe I’m not communicating the appropriate way and in terms of the tone that you would like to hear, but I am wanting to get my point across, so let’s have a different conversation, right, and so, like I’ve learned to shift my conversation, shift the way I communicate and really understand, with the intent of listening versus reacting, and these are all things I had to learn because I did, you know.

Sarah Ghirardo: But it has been a journey of learning, to be honest, and I have thoroughly enjoyed learning because it’s made me a better person to really understand people. So I can’t give enough thanks to the men in the industry and the men in tech that have helped me lead the way and have said hey, sarah, run, and they have allowed me to fail forward and they have shown me the way and I just I can’t thank them enough.

Tyler Martin: So one thing I I really appreciated I interviewed Rachel Evans she goes by miss mini splits and it was a little bit different than men. And I’m speaking for myself, particularly a lot of times when we have a career, it’s like that’s our identity, that’s who we are.

Tyler Martin: And what I loved about her angle and I think it’s a little bit of a female trait too is she’s like man. I come to work, I build my company, but it’s not what I’m all about. I have other interests. My job isn’t me Like, my company isn’t just what I do, like it and I just.

Tyler Martin: It just really resonated with me because a lot of times, particularly with men, I think we it is like that’s us, like our, our business is us, like you take that from us and you might be taking our soul. And I just thought it was interesting the way she presented that.

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, and I think as you grow a bit more into self-awareness, you’re like, hey, I have to have some kind of separation because otherwise I’m drowning, right. And? And sometimes men don’t admit that and and women are like, oh my God, I’m drowning and like it.

Sarah Ghirardo: You can see like our reactions happen, and then we’ll shut down, like everyone will have a different reaction to it, something like that. But I think what she was on point with is there is a life and then there is a life. There is a work life and then there is a life, and you got to have both.

Tyler Martin: So Okay, I know we’re coming up to the top of the hour. We got a little bit of a late start, so I want to be respectful of time. I’ve got two things. I want to end with One. I just want your thoughts in terms of AI.

Tyler Martin: We’re at the forefront of AI. Where do you see that kind of going, and is there anything that right now trades?

Sarah Ghirardo: people should be using in terms of software, just being aware of, yeah, ai and automation. The way I like to think about it, it’s, finally, the ability to track the truth of our effort, right, like that’s what AI and automation is, and when I think about that, it’s making us efficient in our processes.

Sarah Ghirardo: An easy AI tool for you to use is Opus Clips for videos, and so you could just record a podcast like this, take it into Opus Clips and it’ll chop it up. Video is where it’s at. So that’s one easy tip. Also, learn Chat.

Sarah Ghirardo: Learn chat GBT or Gemini or both, but just pick one, start dumping your, your brain thoughts into it and see what you get right, like, put it on your phone, have a conversation with it, because you know search is conversational. So that’s what I would say.

Tyler Martin: That’s good stuff. Okay, in terms of just wrapping up a couple last things here, if someone’s out there listening and they want to connect with you, where’s the best spot that they should do that?

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, they can connect with me at my work email, which is sgerardo, at servicetitancom. They can connect with me at the Trademark Podcast. They can follow me on Instagram under Sarah Gerardo, or Facebook. I’m everywhere, so.

Tyler Martin: Sarah, gerardo, or Facebook. I’m everywhere so, and I’ll put all those links also in the show notes. And then, last thing, any upcoming events or projects coming up that people might want to be aware of.

Sarah Ghirardo: Yeah, most definitely so. We have Pantheon coming up in September, super excited about that. I have another marketing for the Trade Summit Toolbox Live Edition coming in December where we come together and learn about marketing in the trades, not just only about the software but about how the trades are changing in their marketplace.

Tyler Martin: Yeah, Pantheon is pretty exciting. It’s on my radar. I’m still kind of on the fence in terms of I want to help.

Sarah Ghirardo: Just do it.

Tyler Martin: I know it looks so cool. I look at all the classes and they all look so good. Okay, okay, you got my. You’re pushing me Well, hey, thanks so much for your time. I super appreciate it and can’t thank you enough for being on the show today.

Sarah Ghirardo: Thank you so much for having me. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Tyler Martin: You too. What I like about what Sarah shared is that she brings things back to the basics. Growth in the trades isn’t just about ads or a good truck wrap. It’s about telling your story, building trust in your community and putting yourself out there in a way that makes people want to work with you.

Tyler Martin: From my side as a CFO, I see how this shows up in the numbers. Companies that take brand and visibility seriously usually close more jobs, keep better people and create stronger profits. It’s not just marketing, it’s long-term business strategy. If you’re running a home service business in that $2 to $10 million range and trying to figure out how to move to the next level, I’d be happy to talk about it with you.

Tyler Martin: You can book an intro meeting with me at cfomadeeasycom. Once again, that’s cfomadeeasycom. No pressure, just an intro meeting. Thanks.

Related Episodes

• The Name, the Wrap, the Win – Dan Antonelli
• Why Bland Brands Pay More For Leads – Dan Antonelli
• The Hidden Revenue in Your Pipeline You’re Not Capturing – Ryan Fenn
• Marketing Mistakes Costing Trades Businesses Thousands – Adam Rich

Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: profitandgrit.com or Book a free intro call.