Chad Hopple’s $2M+ Decking Business Growth in 4 Years | F&D Mastery Podcast #24

Chad's high-pressure culinary and restaurant background made him a calmer, more resilient entrepreneur, and the deck business he launched in 2019 took off during COVID's outdoor-living and home-improvement boom.

Holding both Trex Platinum Pro and TimberTech Platinum Pro status (rare to have both) earned him priority on materials during shortages and manufacturer backing that separates him from uninsured 'chuck in a truck' builders who skip permits and code.

About 95% of his work is composite, and he steers customers toward low-maintenance vinyl railing by pointing out how painful it is to stain every baluster every couple of years, while still offering to replace cheaper wood boards down the road.

He uses the CostCertified tool to let customers self-configure decking colors, railings, pergolas and lighting against their own budget, narrowing hundreds of options down to a few before he ever visits in person.

Networking delivers outsized ROI: BNI returned over $100,000 in business, he co-founded a monthly one-per-industry owners' group, and he's a member of Tom Reber's The Contractor Fight, firmly believing every business owner should have coaches.

Hire a marketing company that actually knows the fence-and-deck niche: after three generic agencies delivered poor results and sky-high cost-per-click, he learned that accurate conversion tracking (counting only real 45-to-60-second-plus recorded calls, not raw clicks) is what separates real leads from wasted spend.

Never take your foot off the gas on marketing even in tough times, keep roughly 7-10% of revenue invested in it and judge it by ROI, and stop undercutting prices, because selling projects for what they're worth is the only way to pay yourself and your employees fairly.