From Stuck to Sold: The $18M Turnaround Story Every Business Owner Should Hear
Next Level Pros
Chris Lee
4.7 • 165 Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode of Next Level Pros, hosts dive into an eye-opening conversation with Elaine and Todd, co-founders of Mainstream Electric, Heating, Cooling & Plumbing. After spending over 15 years stuck at $3 million in annual revenue, they made a powerful decision—to get out of their own way.
By confronting ego, redefining success, and seeking mentorship through Nexstar Network, Elaine and Todd transformed both their mindset and their company. The result? A thriving $20 million business that attracted private equity buyers—and a journey that redefined what “winning” truly means.
This is a story of humility, discipline, and the courage to evolve.
🔑 Key Takeaways
The Ceiling Is Internal: Why your business only grows as much as your mindset allows.
Revenue Feeds Ego—Profit Builds Freedom: How they shifted from chasing sales to building wealth.
The Power of Mentorship: How Nexstar Network and a trusted community sparked real growth.
Scaling Through Humility: Why letting go of control was the best business decision they ever made.
The Private Equity Exit: What it really takes to prepare, sell, and stay true to your values.
💡 Episode Highlights
[00:00] – Hitting the wall: $3M for 15 years and the realization that something had to change.
[04:00] – Killing the ego: redefining leadership and embracing coaching.
[08:00] – Lessons from failure: expanding too fast and learning to stay focused.
[12:00] – Building systems that serve both people and profit.
[18:00] – Joining Nexstar Network and discovering the power of shared experience.
[22:00] – Preparing for the private equity sale and what the process really looks like.
[28:00] – Life after the exit: freedom, impact, and Elaine’s next chapter.
💬 Memorable Quotes
“The business only grows as fast as the owner does.”
“Revenue is for ego. Profit is for sanity.”
“Ego is the silent killer of growth.”
“We stopped chasing more trucks and started building a better company.”
📘 Mentioned in This Episode
Nexstar Network – Contractor success and leadership community
Elaine’s Book: Made in Vietnam – A powerful memoir on identity, forgiveness, and resilience
Lessons in leadership, mindset, and sustainable growth for service-based companies
🎧 Listen If You’re
A business owner stuck at a plateau and ready for a breakthrough.
A contractor or service professional looking to scale profitably, not painfully.
A leader who wants to trade ego for excellence and growth for freedom.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You ever look at your business and think, hey, we're doing fine. But deep down, you know something's off. |
| 0:05.0 | That was Elaine and Todd. 15 years in business, solid margins, good reputation, and completely stuck. |
| 0:12.1 | They hit a ceiling most owners will never break through. Then they got real about one thing. |
| 0:16.8 | The business only grows as fast as the owner does. They stopped chasing vanity metrics like revenue and started chasing value. |
| 0:24.6 | Instead of bragging about trucks on the road, they focused on profit per truck. |
| 0:28.6 | They stopped pretending that busy meant successful. |
| 0:31.6 | They joined a network that forced them to level up and scaled from $3 million to almost $20 million a year with margins most companies would kill for. |
| 0:41.2 | In this episode, we're going to break down exactly how they killed the ego, |
| 0:44.6 | focus on the right metrics, and built a business private equity couldn't ignore. |
| 0:48.7 | If you're tired of playing small, this is your wake-up call that you've been meeting because the mindset shift they made might be the |
| 0:54.6 | one you've been able. So you guys owned an HVAC electrical plumbing company for 21 years. And based on |
| 1:07.3 | kind of some of our discussions, 15 of those years were good, but they were just kind of stagnant growth. |
| 1:14.4 | And that took place until what year? |
| 1:16.5 | I think that was 2017. |
| 1:19.9 | So you guys were just in the electrical space doing about $3 million a year? |
| 1:24.3 | Actually, it must have been 2015 because we spent 15 years. |
| 1:26.9 | So it's 2015 and then we got into |
| 1:29.2 | HVA. We added HVAC. Got it. So you're up until 2015, 3 million, you're running good margins, |
| 1:37.2 | 15, 20 percent, and now good good things. And then something happened. What changed? |
| 1:44.6 | They're like, hey, I'm sick of it, ready to make some moves. |
| 1:48.2 | Like where do you see the big changes that took place? |
| 1:52.2 | I would say every year we'd get to the end of the year and assess, you know, how'd we do? |
... |
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