The UpFlip Podcast

Dominic Rubino knows a painful truth about the trades: being great at your job has almost nothing to do with whether your business makes money. Growing up in an immigrant family of welders and framers, he watched talented contractors grind for years just to barely break even.
After nearly going bankrupt running his own house-painting business, Dominic realized he needed to stop acting like a tradesman and start acting like a CEO. He mastered the systems of business, eventually building and exiting a massive $120 million mail-order pharmacy empire. Today, Dominic is a high-level business coach dedicated to helping blue-collar entrepreneurs fix their pricing, build systems, and finally get paid what they’re worth.
If you are exhausted, underpriced, and tired of working 70-hour weeks just to survive, this episode gives you the exact blueprint to step out of the daily grind and into the owner's chair.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
You Are Not Your Customer: Why pricing jobs based on what you can afford is keeping your business broke, and how to confidently sell to high-ticket clients.
The 30% Close Rate Rule: Why you should actively try to lose 7 out of 10 bids, and how closing every estimate means you are severely underpricing your work.
The 40% Profit Target: Dominic breaks down the exact math of a healthy service business and why you must aim for 40% to 50% gross profit margins on every single job.
Calendar Selling: How to create genuine urgency and close deals faster by selling forward and backward through the customer's calendar.
The E-Myth Shift: The critical mindset shift from being a "flooring guy who runs a business" to a "business person who happens to do flooring."
Tags: Business consulting,Service & Consulting, Business scaling, Home Services, Business Growth

Resources:
If you’ve been putting off starting a business… good. Because before you jump into an idea that worked for someone else, you should figure out what kind of business actually fits you. That’s why we created the best Assessment there is. It’s a free tool that asks about your skills, experience, budget, goals, location, and preferences — then matches you with business ideas that make the most sense for YOU. The results are scary accurate. Click the link in the show notes to see your best-fit business ideas in seconds — for free.
UpFlip Assessment Tool: https://accelerator.upflip.com/assessment
Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify
Connect with Dominic Rubino: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicrubino/

Jen McKee knew something in 2021 that the rest of the trades industry didn't: local businesses can absolutely dominate on TikTok. When a local plumbing company agreed to test her strategy, they didn't just get views—they generated massive inbound leads, scored thousands of five-star reviews, and became an industry icon without spending a single dollar on ads.
As the founder of Key Heart Marketing, Jen specializes in turning plumbers, HVAC techs, and roofers into local social media stars. In this episode of the UpFlip Podcast, she sits down with Ryan Atkinson to debunk the myth that you need to be a professional video editor or a dancing teenager to win on social media.
If you're a local business owner putting off content creation because of imposter syndrome or a lack of time, Jen provides the ultimate, stress-free playbook to turn your smartphone into a massive revenue driver.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Document, Don't Create: Why the highest-converting content doesn't require scripts or fancy edits—just an authentic selfie video explaining a problem at your daily job site.

The 3 S's Framework: Jen's exact formula for balancing your content: Show Up (50% personal and relatable), Stand Out (30% thought leadership), and Scale (20% selling your services).

The Video SEO Hack: How Google is actively indexing TikTok and Instagram videos for local search, and the exact keywords you must put in your bio and captions to rank in your specific city.

The 4 C's of Consistency: The simple monthly planning strategy (Consistency, Calendar, Content, Commitment) that prevents burnout and allows you to run a full content calendar on just a few hours a week.

Tags: Digital marketing, Service & Consulting, Home Services, Entrepreneurship
Tired of guessing what business you should start? UpFlip’s Assessment can help — and it’s free. Answer a few simple questions about your skills, budget, experience, and what you enjoy doing, then get matched with business ideas that actually fit you best.  Click on the link to get started now: 👉 ⁠https://www.upflip.com/accelerator 
Resources:
Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify 

Connect with Jen McKee: https://www.instagram.com/keehartmarketing/

Brian Samson knows a harsh truth about the current American economy: if you run a service business right now, the math is brutal. Labor is incredibly expensive, turnover is high, and finding reliable operators can feel like a full-time job.
But Brian has a cheat code. After years of running talent acquisition for hyper-growth, VC-funded tech startups in Silicon Valley, Brian took his high-level recruiting playbook and applied it to a local locksmith and cleaning company in Hawaii. The result? He completely revolutionized his hiring process by tapping into the nearshore talent pool in Latin America. Today, Brian runs Plug Tech—a nearshore staffing agency pushing $8M in ARR—and he is pulling back the curtain on how small business owners can leverage global talent to generate massive ROI.
If you are struggling to scale because you are drowning in admin work, scheduling, or operations, this episode will completely rewrite how you think about building your team.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The VA vs. EA Paradigm Shift: Why you should stop hiring Virtual Assistants to do simple "tasks" and start hiring nearshore Executive Assistants who anticipate problems and drive strategy.

Latin America vs. Asia: The cultural and operational differences between offshoring to places like the Philippines (process-driven) versus nearshoring to LatAm (spontaneous and creative problem-solvers).

The Price-to-Value Arbitrage: Why paying a top-tier nearshore employee $1,500/month or an AI engineer is actually a massive bargain that can generate seven figures of value for your company.

The $100 Interview Test: Brian’s foolproof, paid-test framework to filter out bad hires, test real-world skills, and guarantee you're bringing on an "A-Player."

Tags: Hiring, Entrepreneurship, Business scaling, Service & Consulting
Resources:
Grow your business today: https://links.upflip.com/the-business-startup-and-growth-blueprint-podcast
Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify
Connect with Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briansamson

Amber Farrell grew up watching her father dig ditches as a master plumber for 40 years. That upbringing gave her a genuine respect for blue-collar entrepreneurs—and a deep frustration watching them get sold expensive, unmeasurable marketing campaigns they didn't actually need.
After selling her first digital marketing agency, Amber launched Far Beyond Marketing to empower trade and home service business owners to cut the fluff and take control of their own growth. In this episode, Amber sits down with Ryan Atkinson to break down exactly where small businesses should spend their first marketing dollars (and what they should stop paying for immediately).
From mastering the "30 coffees in 30 days" networking method to leveraging AI agents to run your search engine optimization 24/7, this episode is a masterclass in building a high-converting, local marketing engine from scratch.
🎙️ What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The "30 Coffees" Networking Strategy: How to land your first 10 clients without spending a single dollar on advertising by leveraging your personal network.

StoryBranding Your Business: Why clarity beats cleverness, and how to use AI (like Claude) to write the perfect elevator pitch and optimize your website for immediate conversions.

Mastering Local SEO: The biggest mistake new trade businesses make online, and the exact steps to ensure your company ranks in the top five of local search results.

Building AI Agents: How Amber uses AI to monitor SEO around the clock, generate social media content, and replace expensive traditional agency roles.

The Retargeting Hack: Why running broad ads as a beginner is a mistake, and how to use pixel retargeting to dramatically increase the quality of your leads.

Tags: Digital marketing, Tech Ventures, Home Services, Service & Consulting, AI, Entrepreneurship, SEO
Resources
Grow your business today: https://links.upflip.com/the-business-startup-and-growth-blueprint-podcast 
Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify
Connect with Amber : https://www.instagram.com/farbeyondmarketing/

Kara Ward found herself in a nightmare scenario on April 1st, 2020: her husband unexpectedly lost his job, they had zero severance, and a staggering $60,000 in medical debt hung over their heads. Desperate to pay the mortgage, Kara dragged an old dresser into her garage, painted it with leftover wall paint, and posted a photo on Facebook. That single post sparked a life-changing side hustle.
Fast forward to today, Kara’s brand, Lemons to Lemonade Home, generates $250,000 a year between her furniture sales and her massively successful YouTube channel. Not only did she pay off all her debt, but she achieved complete financial freedom—all while working from her garage and homeschooling her kids.
In this episode, Kara sits down with Ryan Atkinson to explain exactly how anyone can replicate her business growth with just $50, an orbital sander, and an eye for hidden potential.
🎙️ What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
The $5 China Hutch Hack: Kara reveals her ultimate furniture flipping secret for buying unwanted China hutches at estate sales for $5, splitting the top and bottom, and selling the separate pieces for over $2,500.

Sourcing Inventory for Free: Where to look for the best free or cheap furniture—and the specific items (like coffee tables and bed frames) you should always avoid.

Painting for Profit: Why you should ditch bold colors and stick to the "Pottery Barn aesthetic" (blacks, whites, and tans) to guarantee a quick, high-ticket sale.

Monetizing the Journey on Social Media: How Kara caught the attention of Dave Ramsey's team and used her debt-payoff story to grow a YouTube channel to 150,000 subscribers, monetizing in just five months.

Tags: Furniture Flipping, Retail Goods, Side hustle, Entrepreneurship, Business growth, Social Media
Resources:
Grow your business today: https://links.upflip.com/the-business-startup-and-growth-blueprint-podcast 
Follow Our Second Channel Here: https://next.upflip.com/spotify
Connect with Kara Ward: https://www.instagram.com/lemons_to_lemonade_home_tx/