Stop stressing out about your contracting business and take back control. The Contractor Fight is bringing respect and dignity back to the trades one contractor at a time. Discover how to market, sell, and consistently produce your projects at a profit with industry expert and powerful motivator Tom Reber.
Stop stealing from your family.
Earn what you're worth.
Build a business that serves you.
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Why The Best Salespeople Disqualify More Than They Sell
The best salespeople don’t try to close everyone.
They identify the wrong prospects early so they can spend their time on the right ones.
In this episode, Tom explains why chasing every lead isn’t commitment, hustle or good salesmanship. It’s a qualification problem.
Wrong budget. Wrong timeline. Multiple decision-makers who aren’t involved. Homeowners collecting estimates with no intention of buying.
No closing technique can fix a bad fit.
When you push every lead toward a meeting and proposal, you waste hours on opportunities that were dead from the beginning. That wasted effort eventually damages your confidence, creates desperation and pressures you to offer discounts you never needed to give.
The solution is to command the gate.
Ask the real questions before you get in the truck and require every lead to earn the meeting.
In this episode:
• Why great salespeople disqualify more prospects
• How chasing every lead damages your confidence and pricing
• Why closing techniques can’t overcome a bad fit
• How five bad leads per month can waste more than 90 hours a year
• The purpose of the Shin-Fu prequalification process
• How to uncover the prospect’s true motive
• Why vague answers are valuable information
• How to discuss money before scheduling the appointment
• Why every decision-maker needs to be identified
• What Command the Gate is designed to protect
Your challenge:
Before scheduling meetings with your next 10 leads, dig into three things on the phone:
• Their motive
• Their budget
• Every person involved in the decision
If their answers are vague, evasive or reveal that the project isn’t a fit, believe the information.
Disqualifying a prospect isn’t losing a sale. It’s protecting the time you need for the sales you can actually win.
Find the biggest leak in your sales process with the free Sales Leak Scorecard:
Your prospects don’t need another contractor pretending to care about their dog, boat or favorite football team.
They need to trust that you can solve their problem.
In this episode, Tom challenges one of the oldest beliefs in sales: people buy from people they like.
Likability matters, but it doesn’t close the job by itself. Contractors lose sales every day after having friendly conversations with homeowners who genuinely liked them.
The missing ingredient is competence.
Manufactured small talk can actually work against you. It wastes time, signals that you’re running a sales technique and delays the conversation the homeowner actually wants to have.
Instead of trying to become their buddy, take command of the meeting. Explain the process, ask better questions, understand what they want and show them exactly how you’ll deliver it.
Competence is the rapport.
In this episode:
• Why being liked isn’t enough to close the job
• The difference between being friendly and manufacturing rapport
• How forced small talk can damage trust
• What homeowners are really thinking while you talk about their boat
• Why your sales process should begin before you arrive
• How explaining the meeting builds immediate credibility
• Why diagnosing the problem positions you as the expert
• The two things that actually build trust during the meeting
• Tom’s three-meeting challenge for eliminating fake rapport
How I Stopped Working 80-Hour Weeks and Made MORE Money
Episode 1151
Thursday, September 3, 2026 • Duration 35:11
Have you built a business worth having: https://bit.ly/BuildABusinessWorthHaving_itf1
Most contractors believe the only way to build a successful business is to work 80 hours a week and sacrifice everything at home.
Roberto Diaz thought the exact same thing. He was working non-stop, hiding empty bank accounts from his family, and putting thousands of dollars on credit cards just to survive.
Then he hit a breaking point: "Strong Home, Strong Business."
In this episode of Into The Fight, Tim and Derek sit down with general contractor Roberto Diaz (owner of Building by Giving in Denver, CO) to talk about how he stopped overworking, started tracking his numbers with job costing, and built a business that lets him be home by 5 PM with his wife and kids.
They break down:
• Why overworking and sacrificing family time won't save your contracting business
• How to transition from doing everything yourself to implementing real business systems
• The exact breaking point that forces contractors to stop hiding from their numbers
• Why tracking job costing reveals the painful truth about your margins
• How to build standards around subs, culture, and hospitality in construction
• The power of reaching out to realtors, designers, and local partners to stay busy
• Why asking hard questions and practicing active listening saves marriages and businesses
Chapters
00:00 Welcome to Into The Fight: Roberto Diaz
00:58 Donating 3% to 5% of Every Project
03:36 The Breaking Point: Strong Home, Strong Business
04:55 Empty Bank Accounts & Taking the Risk
How Contractors Leak $183,000 in Profit Every Year
Episode 1150
Monday, August 31, 2026 • Duration 15:30
How Contractors Leak $183,000 in Profit Every Year
Most contractors think they need more leads.
They don’t.
They need to stop wasting the opportunities already coming into the business.
In this episode, Tom breaks down how an $800,000 contractor could be leaking more than $183,000 in gross profit every year without seeing a single expense on the P&L.
The money disappears through four common sales leaks:
• The Gate: Failing to qualify leads before wasting time on an estimate
• The Meeting: Showing up, measuring and quoting without running a proven sales process
• The Money: Discounting because the price conversation gets uncomfortable
• The Follow-Up: Sending a proposal and hoping the customer eventually responds
Using a $12,000 average job, a 30% close rate and a 40% gross profit margin, Tom shows how small improvements could produce:
• 84 hours of owner or estimator time recovered through better qualification
• $52,800 in additional gross profit from improving the close rate by five points
• $20,400 kept by eliminating unnecessary discounts
• Approximately $110,000 in additional gross profit from a structured follow-up process
You don’t need more water poured into a leaking bucket.
Fix the bucket first.
In this episode:
• The five steps of the Shin-Fu qualification process
• Why 80% of the sale happens during the motive conversation
The Going Rate Is Killing Your Business
Episode 1149
Monday, August 24, 2026 • Duration 10:22
Take the Sales Leak Scorecard HereEpisode Description
"What's the going rate for a project like this?" Wrong question. In this episode, Tom breaks down why pricing off the going rate is the fastest way to price yourself into the gutter and what to ask instead. It's not about what everyone else charges. It's about your production rate, your real costs, and your number. If you're still shaving your price to "stay competitive," this one's for you.
What You'll Learn
Why "going rate" pricing means you're averaging other contractors' blind spots into your own bid
The one question to ask instead of "what's the going rate"
The three numbers you need to know cold before you price any job
The blind-spot costs that never show up in a "going rate" conversation
Why revenue hides stupidity — and how a broken pricing model gets worse the more you scale it
Episode Breakdown
Open — The question that started this episode, and why it's the wrong one to ask
The Going Rate Problem — Why market-average pricing means pricing off other people's guesswork
The Better Question — Production rate vs. going rate, and why one is math and the other is a rumor
The Cost of Guessing — How "going rate" pricing quietly scales a broken business
How to Build Your Number — The three things to track: actual time, real costs, target margin
The Blind Spots — Access issues, waste, permits, travel — the stuff the going rate never accounts for
The Standard — What strong contractors do differently
The Fight This Week — Pull your last five jobs and build your real number
Key Quote
"The going rate is the kiss of death for a contractor. It keeps you tied to the average. And average is not where you want to live."
This Week's Fight
Pull your last five jobs like the one you're about to bid. Look at actual hours, actual costs, actual outcome. Build your production rate... not the going rate.
Links & Resources
Why a 10% Discount is Negotiating Against Yourself
Episode 1148
Monday, August 17, 2026 • Duration 06:45
Get Your Sales Leak Score: https://thecontractorfight.com/leak
You just found out that "small" discount is costing you way more than 10%. In this episode, Tom breaks down the actual math behind discounting a job, and why giving away 10% off your price can wipe out 20% (or more) of your profit. If you've ever caved on price because a customer pushed back, this one's for you.
What you'll learn:
Why your costs don't move when your price does
The real math behind a "harmless" 10% discount
How much additional work you have to sell just to break even on a discount
Why the math gets uglier the thinner your margins already are
The difference between a strategic discount and a fear-based one
Timestamps
00:00 – The problem: contractors negotiating against themselves the moment a customer pushes back
00:40 – The example: a $10K job at 50% gross margin
01:00 – What actually happens when you cave and knock off 10%
01:40 – Your costs don't drop just because your price did
02:00 – The real hit: a 10% price discount = a 20% gross profit hit
02:20 – Mid-show break: the Sales Leak Scorecard — find out where your sales process is actually breaking down
03:20 – Back to the numbers: what it costs to earn that profit back
03:40 – How much additional revenue you have to go sell just to replace what you gave away
04:20 – The math gets worse at lower margins (30% example)
05:20 – When discounting is okay — legit strategic reasons vs. reacting out of fear
06:00 – The close: know your numbers, hold your price, protect your profit
Get Your Sales Leak Score: https://thecontractorfight.com/leak
Profit Is What Gives You Options (Revenue Is Just Noise)
Episode 1147
Monday, August 10, 2026 • Duration 13:28
Book a call with the team: https://thecontractorfight.com/battleground
Grab Tom's book FREE: https://thecontractorfight.com/book/
Your business is making more money than ever, but you still hate the damn thing. You’ve got the trucks, the branded wraps, the team, and a schedule that's packed tight. From the outside, it looks like you’re flying high. But you can’t take a single day off without something going sideways. You’re answering every question, putting out every fire, and your margins have anorexia. That business wasn't supposed to be a high-paying prison...it was supposed to give you freedom.
In this video, Tom Reber breaks down why top-line revenue is a bullshit metric, why scaling a broken business just helps you lose money faster, and how to stop being the ultimate bottleneck in your own company.
You’ll learn:
• Why revenue is loud, but profit is what gives you options
• Why growth doesn't fix a weak business...it just exposes it
• Why you are the biggest bottleneck holding your team back
• The 5-part order: Strong You, Strong Home, Strong Business
• What a real Business Operating System (Fight OS) actually looks like
• How to rate your business from 1 to 10 across the 6 key operational pillars
Revenue matters, but if your business owns your ass and runs entirely on your personal energy, you don't own a business...you own a personality cult with trucks and logos. It’s time to stop scaling a turd and start building a business worth having.
Chapters
0:00 - The High-Paying Prison
1:40 - Revenue Isn't The Goal
3:04 - Growth Doesn't Fix A Weak Business
4:26 - You Are Your Biggest Problem
Is Your Business Worth Having?
Episode 1146
Monday, August 3, 2026 • Duration 08:36
Check out The Fight: www.thecontractorfight.com
Is Your Contracting Business Actually Worth Having?
Most contractors are chasing more revenue, more trucks, more employees, and more jobs.
Wrong scoreboard.
You can build a $3M company and still be broke, stressed, overweight, disconnected from your family, and chained to the business you created.
In this video, Tom Reber breaks down the real test:
Is your business actually worth having?
A business worth having should:
Make real profit
Give you more choices
Function without you being the hero
Make your life better—not consume it
Revenue matters. Growth matters. But if the business owns your ass, you’re not winning.
Strong You. Strong Home. Strong Business.
The first fight is always with yourself.
Chapters
0:00 Is Your Business Worth Having?
0:29 When “Successful” Contractors Are Miserable
1:16 Bigger Doesn’t Fix Broken
2:27 Test #1: Does It Make Real Money?
3:41 Test #2: Does It Give You Choices?
4:39 Test #3: Can It Run Without You?
5:35 The Biggest Test: Who Are You Becoming?
6:20 Strong You. Strong Home. Strong Business.
6:36 Ask Better Questions About Your Business
3 Things That Make Customers Accept Premium Pricing
Episode 1145
Monday, July 27, 2026 • Duration 16:48
Business training for Contractors: https://thecontractorfight.com/battleground
Contractors hear it every day: “Your price is too high.” But most of the time, price isn’t actually the problem. The problem is that you haven’t given the customer enough evidence to believe you’re worth more.
In this episode of Contractor Fight TV, Tom breaks down the 3 things that justify a higher price without defending it, apologizing for it, or trashing the cheaper contractor.
You’ll learn how to use:
• Communication to build trust before the sale
• Content to establish authority before you ever meet
• Customer experience to prove you’re worth the premium
You don’t get to SAY you’re worth more. You have to prove it. And if you’re constantly hearing that your prices are too high, it might be time to stop blaming cheap customers and start looking at the experience your company is creating.
CHAPTERS
00:00 — “Your Price Is Too High”
00:23 — Stop Defending Your Price
01:04 — What “Justifying Your Price” Actually Means
01:29 — #1: Your Communication Justifies Your Price
02:24 — Your Website Is Part of the Sale
03:02 — Bad Follow-Up Kills Trust
04:18 — Confidence vs. Arrogance
04:43 — Speed Is King
05:32 — Price Isn’t the Only Thing Customers Care About
06:12 — #2: Your Content Justifies Your Price
06:30 — Become the Best Educator in Your Market
07:19 — Stop Making Excuses and Create Content
08:17 — “It Takes What It Takes”
Family Business Going Wrong? Here's What You're Missing
Episode 1144
Thursday, July 23, 2026 • Duration 27:22
Sales training for Contractors: https://thecontractorfight.com/command Grab Tom's book FREE: https://thecontractorfight.com/book/
Running a business with your spouse, kids, parents, or other family members can be incredible.It can also get messy fast.When nobody knows exactly what they're responsible for, business problems become family problems. Roles overlap. People start micromanaging each other. Work follows you home. And suddenly you're talking about customers and employees while lying in bed at night.
In this episode, Tim and Derek get into what they've learned from building businesses with family—and the mistakes they wish they'd avoided.They break down why clear roles matter, how to keep business out of your personal life, why every family member needs ownership and autonomy, and how a shared vision can get everyone rowing in the same direction.
Chapters
00:00 The Reality of Family Businesses
00:34 Why We Started Our Own Businesses
03:29 What Employees Don't See About Ownership
05:24 The Hidden Cost of Running a Business
07:35 What Your Employees Actually Need
09:32 Why Business Owners Need an Outlet
10:44 How Family Gets Pulled Into the Business
11:40 Family and Business Relationships Are Different
12:02 The Biggest Family Business Mistake
12:23 Define Everyone's Role
13:52 Communication Changes Everything
15:28 Keep the Business Out of the Bedroom
16:33 You Need a Life Outside the Business
17:59 Respect Each Other's Time
18:44 Get Clear on Responsibilities
18:50 Build a Shared Family Business Vision
Your challenge:
For your next three sales meetings, eliminate the manufactured small talk.
Explain your process within the first 60 seconds. Get directly into what the homeowner wants, why it matters and what has changed since the qualification call.
You don’t need to be liked.
You need to be trusted.
Find out where your sales process is leaking with the free Sales Leak Scorecard:
Stop guessing. Find the leak. Fix the leak. Command your sales.
07:27 Deciding to Be a Present Father
12:33 Facing the Truth with Job Costing
15:15 Working with Family and Uncomfortable Conversations
18:34 Scaling with a Subcontractor Model & High Standards
26:28 Becoming a Better Husband & Communicator
32:45 The Question Every Contractor Needs to Ask
Running a contracting business should never force you to sacrifice your home life.
When you implement job costing and track your actual numbers, you build a company that runs smoothly. That clarity gives you the freedom to be fully present as a husband and father.
Tom Reber is the founder of The Contractor Fight. He is the host of Contractor Fight TV, an entrepreneur, a speaker, a podcaster, and a former HGTV host.
For over 20 years, Tom has helped hundreds of thousands of contractors build businesses worth having.
He does this by helping them become the kind of people capable of building them.
On this channel you will find straight-talk training for your business.
We cover sales, pricing, profit, leadership, and mindset.
Our goal is to build a Strong You, a Strong Home, and a Strong Business.
The first fight is always with yourself.
Join The Fight. 👊
• The seven-part structure of a strong sales meeting
• How discounting comes directly off your bottom line
• The five-touch follow-up sequence every contractor should use
• Why profit is the scoreboard
• How to find the biggest leak in your sales process
Find your biggest sales leak with the free Sales Leak Scorecard:
Tom Reber is the founder of The Contractor Fight, host of Contractor Fight TV, entrepreneur, speaker, podcaster, and former HGTV host. For over 20 years, Tom has helped hundreds of thousands of contractors build businesses worth having by becoming the kind of people capable of building them.
On this channel you'll find straight-talk training on sales, pricing, profit, leadership, marketing, mindset, and what it really takes to build a Strong You, Strong Home, and Strong Business.
The first fight is always with yourself. Join The Fight. 👊
7:27 The Five-Year Gut Check
7:42 Start Fixing the Next Thing
8:05 Build a Business Worth Having
Tom Reber is the founder of The Contractor Fight, host of Contractor Fight TV, entrepreneur, speaker, podcaster, and former HGTV host.
For over 20 years, Tom has helped hundreds of thousands of contractors build businesses worth having by becoming the kind of people capable of building them.
On this channel you'll find straight-talk training on sales, pricing, profit, leadership, marketing, mindset, and what it really takes to build a Strong You, Strong Home, and Strong Business.
The first fight is always with yourself.
Join The Fight. 👊
08:39 — What Contractors Should Create Content About
09:38 — #3: The Customer Experience Justifies Your Price
10:22 — Your Team Is Part of the Experience
11:18 — Make Your Company Easy to Work With
11:34 — How Pre-Planning Builds Trust
12:39 — Stop Leaving Customers Loose Ends
13:14 — Warranty Problems Are Opportunities
13:45 — Trust Is What Makes the Higher Price Make Sense
14:25 — “People Are Just Cheap” Is an Excuse
14:54 — The Real Reason You’re Getting Price Pushback
15:30 — Why Tom Gets So Fired Up About This
16:08 — Take the Next Step Ready to build a stronger, more profitable contracting business?
👉 https://thecontractorfight.com/battleground
19:40 Look in the Mirror First
20:01 Treat Family Members With Respect
21:16 Stop Assuming You Have All the Answers
23:12 Let Other People Solve the Problem
24:54 The Simple Advice for Family Businesses
Working with family doesn't have to destroy your relationships.Get clear about who's responsible for what. Give people ownership. Communicate like professionals. Build a shared vision. And create boundaries so the business doesn't consume the family you built it for in the first place.Subscribe to The Contractor Fight for straight-talk conversations about sales, leadership, profit, people, and building a contracting business worth owning.
Tom Reber is the founder of The Contractor Fight, host of Contractor Fight TV, entrepreneur, speaker, podcaster, and former HGTV host. For over 20 years, Tom has helped hundreds of thousands of contractors build businesses worth having by becoming the kind of people capable of building them. On this channel you'll find straight-talk training on sales, pricing, profit, leadership, marketing, mindset, and what it really takes to build a Strong You, Strong Home, and Strong Business. The first fight is always with yourself. Join The Fight. 👊
