David Potts

Owner
USA Insulation of Toledo, Kalamazoo, & SE Michigan
Toledo, Ohio
Projected 2023 Revenue: $12.1 million

On supporting women in the trades: Historically, insulation and most of the building trades have been male-dominated fields. We can teach the trade to anyone with good customer service skills and who doesn’t mind occasional hard work, but we found that women are some of the best employees we have because their attention to detail is phenomenal and their customer service is phenomenal.

We’ve hired a lot of female employees and many of them have worked their way up to the management level. Carrie Griggs started working for me as an installer and she advanced her way through the ranks of my organization. She wanted more, so we teamed up to pave the way for her to open her own location.

Best business innovation: My accountant created the M&M game to teach our employees about cash flow. We use M&Ms to demonstrate our weekly, monthly, or annual income. Then, we take away M&Ms to show all of the expenses we have going out and how that affects our cash flow. We also show how mistakes take away from profit.

It’s a simple way to teach our employees about managing the business’s money and their own finances. Our collections on jobs have increased, our mistakes have been down, and our callbacks have declined.

Tech recommendation: AirTable

Unveiling the Forty Under 40 Class of 2023