Scaling with AI Without Losing the Fundamentals That Actually Grow Your Business

Episode: Catalyst for the Trades | Guest: Cameron Herold, Founder of COO Alliance

Cameron Herold scaled 1-800-GOT-JUNK from 12 locations to 330 and $2 million to $106 million during his tenure as COO. He's since coached the CEO of Sprint, Tommy Mello at A1 Garage Door Service, and hundreds of leadership teams across 29 countries. In this episode of Catalyst for the Trades, he sits down with Jennifer Bagley to talk about what's actually working right now, and what's getting business owners killed even when they think they're doing the right things.

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The Rate of Change Warning Nobody Wants to Hear

Cameron opens with a principle that applies whether you're running 3 trucks or 300:

"If the rate of change outside your business is greater than the rate of change inside your business, you're out of business."

But he immediately flips it. Chasing every new AI tool—what he calls "shiny object syndrome"—is just as dangerous as ignoring the technology. Owners who spend all their time learning and testing AI systems while letting operations, customer experience, and team performance slip will destroy their businesses from a different direction.

The question isn't whether to adopt AI. It's how to balance adoption with the fundamentals that are keeping the lights on today.

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Start Where the Money Is

When Jennifer asks where to begin, Cameron doesn't say "pick a tool." He says: start with revenue.

"There's not a single problem that exists in our company today that writing a check can't solve. So if you have more money coming in the door and more gross margin coming in the door, you can buy your way out of every problem."

That reframes the whole conversation. Instead of asking "what AI tools should I try?", the better question is: which AI applications will directly drive revenue or improve gross margins in the next 90 days? That typically points to sales and lead conversion, automated follow-up and booking, content and marketing at scale, and Google review generation, not back-office automation or advanced analytics. Those come later.

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The New Hiring Minimum

One of the most actionable shifts Cameron has made: every candidate, regardless of role, must open their laptop and demonstrate how they're already using AI.

Not describe it. Not discuss it. Show it.

"I want everybody walking in my door to raise the average of the group. So one by one, I'm going to start moving the organization towards being AI-driven."

He also describes a simple internal habit—a "five-minute book report"—where each team member shares their screen weekly and shows one thing they did with AI that week. A new prompt, an automation, a tool they tested. It creates cultural contagion around adoption without a formal training program or expensive rollout.

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Don't Try to Skip Levels

When he scaled 1-800-GOT-JUNK, Cameron mapped out 82 tasks a new franchisee had to complete before opening their doors. He applies the same logic to AI adoption: a Bronze-Silver-Gold progression that stops owners from building on an unstable foundation.

Bronze — what has to be in place first:

• A fast, crawlable website with current content
• Branded vehicles, professionally presented field techs
• An automated system to request and generate Google reviews
• Marketing fundamentals: answering calls, following up on leads promptly

Silver — once the basics are locked in:

• AI-enabled lead conversion (automated booking, AI texting, voice response)
• Sales and marketing automation
• Leadership development and structured performance management

Gold — for operations that have earned it:

• AI agents for coaching and performance review
• Advanced workflow automation across departments
• AI-integrated finance, budgeting, and dashboards

His point is blunt: "It's almost pointless taking a 20-person company and trying to optimize them for the way that you're doing when they're not even doing the core basics of showing up with a branded vehicle, with a branded shirt, showing up on time, calling the customer 15 minutes before the promise."

Jennifer adds that in her experience, even $20–$50 million companies arrive at the starting line. The framework lets you meet them where they are.

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The One AI Win Nobody Is Capturing

Cameron is emphatic about one foundational application that almost no one has automated yet: Google review generation.

"I bet you everyone listening right now does not have an automated system in place to ask every single customer for a Google review. And that literally just getting more and more Google reviews is going to be like a satellite that you launch that stays in orbit forever."

A client called Redirect Health had zero reviews when they started. With an automated system in place, they climbed to over 4,000, and now dominate their category. Jennifer notes that CI Web Group's AI Local platform goes a step further: it drafts the review for the customer so they click, copy, and post. The friction nearly disappears.

This is something you can put in place this week. And it compounds for years.

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Delegating AI Is Not the Same as Advocating for It

A pattern Cameron sees constantly: owners who aren't technical hand everything off to a manager or vendor and assume the problem is solved. He calls this advocating instead of delegating.

"The owner needs to know what exists, but not necessarily how to do it... They need to know that they have to bring people into the organization who actually have these skills, and then they have to know how to interview them and hire them and onboard them."

The tools don't replace leadership. They amplify it—in both directions. Well-led teams with AI become dramatically more productive. Poorly led teams with AI introduce chaos faster. This is why Cameron keeps returning to the fundamentals of hiring, onboarding, one-on-one coaching, and performance management. These aren't soft skills. They're the infrastructure that determines whether AI investments pay off.

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The Sequence Problem: AI on Broken Foundations

Jennifer raises something she's watching play out across the industry right now: companies investing in AI tools on top of broken foundations.

Buying an AI conversion tool for a website with no traffic. Running paid ads to a site with outdated content. Implementing voice AI when the phones aren't answered consistently to begin with.

"98% of this entire industry is either in no website or they're in a WordPress website with 1,500 lines of code that [Google] can't even find the content on the site."

Cameron connects it to a pattern he saw at 1-800-GOT-JUNK: franchisees who kept asking for the next marketing tactic while ignoring the ones they'd already been given. He told them directly: "I'm not giving you tactic 4 until you're doing the first 3 on every single job."

AI amplifies what's working. It doesn't fix what's broken underneath.

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Your Quotes Are Being Fact-Checked in Real Time

One of the most pressing and under-discussed threats in the episode: consumers are now using AI to second-guess field estimates.

A tech drops off a quote for a system replacement. The homeowner takes that number, puts it into ChatGPT, and asks if they're being overcharged. Because AI models have been trained on manufacturer retail pricing—not on labor, complexity, ductwork, and the actual components of a real installation—the consumer often gets a misleading answer and calls a cheaper solo operator.

Jennifer's solution: train your techs to use AI with the customer. When the technician helps the homeowner prompt AI with full context, such as equipment specs, line sets, airflow, long-term maintenance, the AI actually helps upsell additional services. Maintenance agreements, connected thermostats, air purification. It flips from threat to sales tool.

This costs nothing to implement. It requires one training conversation with your field team.

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Get Out of Your Industry's Echo Chamber

Cameron's consistent advice to every entrepreneur: join at least two mastermind groups—one inside your industry and one completely outside it.

Industry-only peer groups calcify thinking. Everyone's solving the same problems with the same playbook and wondering why they're stuck.

"You can take an idea from a multi-chain dental office and an idea from a car dealer and an idea from a digital marketing agency. And now those three ideas have a little idea baby. And that's exactly what I need for my HVAC company."

Jennifer echoes this: the marketing standards in real estate, medical, and tech would make most trades contractors shudder. The exposure gap is enormous, and entirely closeable. Get your COO into a cross-industry group. Send your marketing person to events outside the trades. Build a team that's pulling ideas from everywhere.

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People Are Still the Problem and That's the Point

A moment of levity: Cameron recalls coaching the CEO of Sprint, who asked mid-session, "When are people not going to be the problem anymore?" Cameron's answer: "Dude, you're the 82nd largest company in the United States. They're always the problem."

As AI reshapes job roles, the most important thing a leader can do is address what Cameron calls Maslow's second layer—safety and security—with a clear and honest promise to their team:

"They're safe as long as they are always trying to get better with AI. They're safe as long as they live core values. They're safe as long as they get along with everybody. But they're not safe if they don't deliver results."

That's not a threat. It's a meritocracy. In a period of genuine disruption, clarity about what earns security is an act of respect.

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The Closing Framework

Jennifer ends with the principle she comes back to with every client:

"Without clarity, you cannot focus. Without focus, you cannot execute. If you do not execute, you will not win."

Cameron adds the last piece: delegate everything outside your zone of genius, and invest in coaching your people to do the same. Curiosity opens the door. Time management and priorities are what walk you through it.

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Resources from This Episode

• Cameron Herold: cameronherold.com 
• Ask Cameron AI: askcameron.ai — A free AI avatar trained on all of Cameron's books, videos, and podcasts
• COO Alliance: cooalliance.com/ — A global mastermind for second-in-command leaders at companies doing $2M–$200M
• ‍Invest in Your Leaders: investinyourleaders.com — Online training covering the 12 core leadership skills every people manager needs

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