How to Climb to $10M: The Event Strategy That Actually Grows Your Trades Business

Most events in the trades industry are a waste of time. Same carpet. Same wallpaper. Same faces. Same messages—recycled endlessly into a social hour that costs you two days and delivers nothing.

If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. And you don't have to keep settling for it.

In this episode of Catalyst for the Trades, Jennifer Bagley (CEO & Founder, CI Web Group) and Chuck Staszkiewicz (co-founder, The Opus & Golds Group) break down what a truly high-impact event looks like—and why their upcoming Climb to $10M event on May 5-7 is built to be something the trades industry has never seen before.

Why Most Trade Events Fail (And What to Do Instead)

The pattern is predictable: a speaker takes the stage, delivers 10 minutes of genuinely useful content, then spends the next 50 minutes pitching something. You leave with a stack of business cards, a foggy notebook, and zero implemented ideas.

Chuck has attended hundreds of events. His conclusion: "I've got enough friends. I go to events for a reason—strategically, for my business."

The problems he identified are structural:

• Too many attendees. You can't have a real conversation with 500 people in the room.
• Vendor-driven agendas. When sponsors are selling, you're not learning.
• No breakout access. You want 30 minutes with that expert. You never get it.
• No logical flow. Sessions bounce from topic to topic with no connective thread.

The Climb to $10M event is designed to eliminate every one of these problems.

What Makes This Event Different: The Workshop Model

Capped Attendance — 50 to 100 People Maximum

When the event sells out, it's done. No exceptions. The intimate scale isn't a constraint—it's the point. Smaller rooms mean real conversations, not networking theater.

Zero Sales Pitches. Zero Vendors.

Every expert in the room is there to teach, not to sell. No event specials, no package pitches, no vendor tables. Just knowledge.

War Room–Style Breakout Sessions

You get real time, face-to-face access to answer the questions that actually matter to your business.

As Chuck puts it: "Imagine any event you've ever been to where you thought, 'I wish I could have 30 minutes with him.' You're going to get that here."

The Expert Lineup: Every Business Function, Covered

The event is built around a deliberate supply chain of expertise, meaning the knowledge builds on itself rather than bouncing randomly between topics. Here's what's on the agenda:

Marketing & AI — Jennifer Bagley will cover strategies she's never shared at public conferences, specifically because competitors are always in the back of the room taking notes. In her own home, with a private audience, she'll go further than she ever has publicly on AI implementation for home service businesses.

Operations & Growth — Chuck and his team bring hard-won lessons from scaling All Hours Plumbing to $20M and exiting to private equity in 2023.

Financial Strategy — A CFO-level expert helps attendees understand their numbers and expand their financial literacy.

HR, Hiring & People — Chuck's former head of HR, now a fractional HR specialist, covers job descriptions, KPIs, scorecards, and hiring ads that actually attract the right people.

Financing Options — Chris Scoville and his team present a comprehensive look at financing solutions—personal loans, business loans, and client financing options—consolidated in a way most contractors have never seen.

SBA & MCA Loan Expertise — Many trades business owners are trapped in predatory MCA (Merchant Cash Advance) loans. A dedicated loan expert will show attendees how to unwind them.‍

Mindset & Identity — Chuck's belief is clear: "You cannot do big things without being able to make fast decisions under pressure." The VIP day one experience centers entirely on identity shift—moving from technician brain to CEO brain.

The Three-Day Structure

Day 1 (VIP): Identity & Mindset Reset

The day is dedicated to one question: Which version of yourself do you need to become to reach the next level? For many trades business owners stuck in the "technician" role, this shift is the single biggest unlock available to them.

Day 2: The Workshop

Morning breakout sessions at the hotel. Afternoon breakout rooms at Jennifer's home—an even more intimate setting for deep-dive strategy work with experts. Evening activities planned (details kept intentionally under wraps to maximize the impact when you arrive).

Day 3: The Adventure

You can stay behind for additional workshop time, or you join the adventure: a bus ride to a 250-acre ranch for a pig hunt on side-by-sides.

It's not gimmicky. Chuck explains the intentional design: "Feral pigs will charge back at you. How often in your business does something charge back at you and you have to make a split-second decision?"

The mindset exercises tied to the experience are built around exactly that—resilience, fast decision-making, and staying composed when things go sideways (lawsuits, employee walkouts, flooded job sites). The three-hour round trip on the bus also becomes premium strategy time: small groups, no distractions, face-to-face problem solving.

One Ticket, Three Seats

Every ticket admits three people from your company. The logic is simple: when only the owner attends an event, the knowledge sits in one person's head. When the owner brings key leaders, the whole organization moves in the same direction.

Bring your business partner. Bring your operations manager. Bring your spouse. The more people absorbing this material, the faster it gets implemented.

How to Maximize Any Event: Chuck's Pre & Post Framework

Chuck spent one year attending 43 day-long events. That year was his biggest revenue year ever—adding $8 million in sales. Here's the system he developed:

Before the Event: Write down the 10 things that are currently broken or missing in your business. Get specific about who you need to speak to, what gaps you're trying to fill, and what you're looking to solve.

During the Event: Don't try to implement everything. Identify your top one or two highest-leverage takeaways. Use event channels in Slack or text to start looping in your team in real time. If an idea is strong, begin testing it immediately—don't wait until you're home.

After the Event: Review your notes on the way home. Highlight the two to five things you're actually going to act on. Debrief with your team. Assign owners. Set timelines.

Jennifer adds her own framework: HLA—High Leverage Activities. Not everything you learn deserves equal urgency. The HLAs are the things that produce the biggest lift in the shortest time. Those go first.

The Right Sequence Matters More Than You Think

Jennifer shared a story from a recent event in Wisconsin. An attendee raised his hand and said, "If I'd known that content was what would have made me a juggernaut on Google, I'd be so much further ahead."

She pushed back: "Are you really telling me you never heard 'content is king' in 10 years of running a business? No marketing company ever told you? Google never said anything about it?"

His answer, after a pause: "I guess I did hear it."

The truth wasn't that the information wasn't available. The truth was he hadn't taken action on it. There's a difference—and recognizing it changes how you approach every event you attend from now on.

Come ready to empty your glass. The trades industry is moving faster right now than at any point in its history. The next 12 months will bring changes that make the last five look slow. Showing up with a beginner's mindset—genuinely open to being wrong, to challenging assumptions, to hearing something for the 101st time and finally letting it land—is the competitive edge most business owners leave on the table.

The Cross-Industry Advantage

One of the most overlooked growth levers in the trades: learning from businesses outside your industry.

The Climb to $10M event intentionally includes attendees from roofing, landscaping, trucking/fleet, and other trades alongside HVAC, plumbing, and electrical contractors. Why? Because strategies your competitors haven't seen yet almost always come from industries they're not watching.

Chuck's mentor once attended a farmers' association event. His reason: "I want to know everything from other industries so I can revolutionize mine. I want to be first, not last."

Jennifer's marketing approach has been shaped heavily by conferences hosted for real estate, finance, medical, and retail industries—not just trades marketing clubs. The cross-pollination is where the differentiation lives.

Event-Based Marketing: Before, During, and After

Jennifer makes this point every time she speaks at an event, and it belongs in every trades business owner's toolkit: attending an event is also a content and marketing opportunity.

Before: Let your audience know you're investing in education and training. It signals expertise and care. Create anticipation.

During (Tailgate Marketing): Capture content moments with the people around you. Photos, short videos, quotes, conversations. Content with other authority figures builds your own authority.

After: Don't let that content sit on your camera roll. Publish it. And document what you learned, what you prioritized, and what you're going to execute—so you can report results at the next event.

The goal isn't just attending events. It's building a repeatable event-based marketing system that generates leads, content, and brand equity every time you walk into a room.

Who This Event Is For

This event is designed for trades business owners and key leaders who are ready to stop spinning and start scaling. You should attend if:

• You're stuck between $1M and $10M and can't identify the bottleneck
• You're running the business rather than leading it (technician vs. CEO)
• You've been to events that overpromise and underdeliver
• You want real access to experts, not a speaker selling from stage
• You're ready to bring your team and build shared direction

You should skip it if you already know everything. Seriously. If you're going to sit in the back and say "heard it before" every time something comes up, that seat belongs to someone who's ready to use it.

Register for Climb to $10M

Tickets include three attendees per company. Spots are capped and the last event sold out.

Register: https://climbtoriches.ciwebgroup.com/ 

Connect with Chuck: Find him on Facebook (search Chuck Staszkiewicz) and DM him directly about VIP tickets and availability.

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Catalyst for the Trades delivers real strategies from operators who've done it. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app.