Nick Ridgway didn't start out in franchising like a lot of franchise executives do. He started in the trades as an apprentice carpenter, then moved into home service management at TruGreen and Scotts Miracle-Gro. About 10 years ago he got into franchising almost by accident, in a franchise support role at PIRTEK, where the owner's instruction was literally, "I just need you to get them to like us."
That instruction turned into years of building PIRTEK's franchise development process and then leading franchise development at Matco Tools. Across those two systems, Nick helped award more than 400 franchise locations. Now he gets to do something most development leaders never do, which is build a franchise from scratch at Service Experts, a brand that ran corporate-owned for more than 30 years before it started franchising in 2025.
Franchising runs on relationships
I asked Nick why he thinks franchising runs on relationships more than process. His answer was that franchise owners are entrepreneurs, and a lot of them are dreamers. They saved up money, built skills over a career, and now they are investing in a brand to own their local market. That makes it an emotional decision, and trust has to be established before anything moves forward.
It reminded me of what my previous guest Joel Worthington told me about Mr. Electric. When Joel arrived, the model wasn't broken. The brand had a trust problem between corporate and its franchisees, and the top shop did something like $3 million a year. Joel told me they changed almost nothing about the model. It was all leadership and relationships, and now the largest shop does $30 million plus a year.
Nick agreed, and added that you have to work on that every day.
What emerging brands get wrong
Nick says an emerging brand has to be ultra selective with its first 10, 15 or 20 franchisees. They become your legacy owners, and they have to live with things not being fully baked yet. Some days won't go well, and some plans will change. A lot of brands award a franchise and assume the owner will figure it out, but people come to franchising because they want support and a model.
His view is that if you're not creating problems, you're probably not growing either. At Service Experts, the franchise support team has grown from one person to two, and they are adding a third. Nick looks for people with the right experience, a customer-facing skill set, and the resilience to keep working while processes are still being built.
The same thinking applies to franchise candidates. Dinners and meet-the-team days matter, and his team tracks every touchpoint. Were they on time? Did they have the camera on? Did they ask good questions? Candidates need urgency and resilience to build a new brand in their market.
"Just get them to like us"
When Nick joined PIRTEK, the brand had just been bought back by the founding family, and there had been a lot of change in processes and structure. Change creates distrust, and when franchisees don't understand where things are going, they assume the worst.
Nick's leadership at PIRTEK was instrumental in providing his team with the foundation for success, culminating in a record-breaking year in 2023 for franchise awards, a testament to our sales team's hard work. His strategic foresight and unwavering support were key to our unprecedented achievements in sales and development.
So Nick's team went out and delivered. They rode with technicians, worked alongside owners and visited customers, so every visit left the owner with something that helped them land a customer or a job. The biggest lesson he took from it was the impact of little to no communication on a small business owner.
Small business ownership is a tightrope
One person Nick worked with compared small business ownership to walking a tightrope. Owners who keep looking forward make decisions without fear. The ones who keep looking down at their financials start to wobble, because as a new business the numbers always look like cash burning, and they make decisions that go against the system.
Nick told me about one owner who was ahead of plan but kept panicking. He had never paid a bill late in his life. Nick had to help him reset expectations, because a new business has to prioritize employees and the business before the owner. His advice is to keep personal finances and business finances in parallel, not together.
That's why he asks candidates to work out their break-even points during the sales process and build pro formas during onboarding. If the goals are aligned, both sides know when relief should come. Without that, it's just a surprise. I've found the same thing in my own work, where focus is the most valuable skill an owner can have.
When marketing is called an expense
Owners who come from operations often push back on outbound sales. Nick says they don't come from that background, they can't take the rejection, and in many cases someone tried it before with the wrong person. So he proves the concept first, with the right person, the right activity and a compensation plan, until the owner hears the phone ringing.
Then he said a line I loved: "If they tell me it's an expense, that tells me what level we're at." Sales and marketing should be an investment with a return in calls, customers and jobs.
Nick also thinks Google reviews are still strong but getting watered down, and that a paid ad now sits far down the page. AI tools like ChatGPT pull organic content, not paid ads, so building a real footprint online matters more every year.
I shared how my friend Tim Brown of Hook Agency started Owl Roofing about a year ago. As far as I know, they did around $5 million cash collected in the first 9 to 10 months, and it comes down to the breadth of their marketing.
The three things every home service business must do
Nick breaks a home service business into three things you have to be good at. First, you have to be a best-in-class marketing agency. Second, you have to sell the call, which means taking the word no. Third, you have to deliver the work. Service Experts has more than 100,000 five-star reviews and can deliver service all day, so he sees franchise owners struggle most with marketing and sales.
His advice to owners is simple: if it's not your strength, don't lie to yourself. Employ for your weakness and play to your strength. That's also why Service Experts only takes owner-operators. The owner they just awarded has his family out hanging door hangers.
I hear the same thing from clients who tell me they can't get their guys to take videos. If the goal requires it, someone has to do it. A woman who once worked for Nick used to say marketing is brainwashing, because you repeat the same message until people remember you when they need you.
One franchise agreement for everyone
At PIRTEK, different owners had different deals, and that created a lot of the leadership and cultural problems Nick had to fight. His boss at the time drew a line in the sand: everybody gets the same agreement and the same treatment. Nick brought that rule to Service Experts, and they walked away from a few deals this year rather than change it.
Nick is a true leader and someone to look up to.
His reasoning is that every exception becomes a chink in the armor. You can't manage or police all the different rules, and everyone wonders what you gave the other owner. He will adjust the operations manual and help with weaknesses, but anything he gives one owner, he gives to everyone.
Nick believes the franchise agreement should be signed, put in a drawer and never returned to. If an owner starts quoting the agreement, it's the first sign that trust is breaking down. I think almost every problem in business comes down to expectation and communication, and Nick's fix is the same: sit down, preferably in person, and find a path forward.
Ranked No. 117 in year one
At Service Experts, the franchisor only earns a royalty, so its success depends entirely on franchisee success. Nick says the goal is to become the largest HVAC and plumbing company in the United States under one unified brand, through both corporate locations and franchising.
On the day we recorded, Service Experts was ranked No. 117 on the Franchise Times Top 400. Nick's challenge was to name another brand in the top 120 after 12 months of franchising.
You can follow Nick on LinkedIn, Ridgway with no e.
His closing lesson is the one I'm keeping: listen, acknowledge, then follow up and follow through. That's how you build trust, and that's also why we built NaiL to answer and follow up on every lead.