Sunday Jan 26, 2025

4: The Liz Trotter Episode

In this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, host Sid Graef speaks with Liz Trotter, a multi-business entrepreneur and founder of Core Profit Builders. Liz details her evolution from running a dry cleaning business to owning multiple residential and commercial cleaning companies, as well as real estate ventures. She shares why the residential cleaning industry often sets low revenue goals—and how she’s on a mission to change that mindset. Liz explains her framework for prioritizing high-impact tasks, stresses the importance of avoiding overwork, and highlights how reading has driven her business growth. Whether you’re a small cleaning company or a larger service business, Liz’s story reveals how to break limiting beliefs, delegate effectively, and build multiple successful ventures without sacrificing your sanity.

SHOW NOTES

TRANSCRIPT
Sid (Host):
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations Podcast. I’m Sid Graef out here in Montana.

Gabe (Co-Host):
And I’m Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. We are your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders and owners in the industry—folks that have already built seven- and eight-figure home service businesses, and they want to help you succeed. Yep, no fake gurus on this show, just real life owners who have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100 percent experience, 0 percent theory.

We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guests will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the Wild Journey of Entrepreneurship. Let’s dive in.

Sid (Host):
Hello, my friends. Thank you for joining us today on the Huge Transformations Podcast. I’m your host, Sid Graef, and today I’ve got Liz Trotter with us. Liz is in—you're in Olympia, Washington, right?

Liz (Guest):
I am, yes. Hi!

Sid (Host):
What a beautiful area.

Liz (Guest):
Not as much today, but yes—normally, it is gorgeous here.

Sid (Host):
Liz, you own several businesses, one of which is Core Profit Builders, which is a coaching program, right? You help others win in business. What types of businesses do you have, and where did you start in your business journey?

Liz (Guest):
So my very first business was dry cleaning—a dry cleaners. That’s where I learned about the science of cleaning. Then I had residential cleaning, then I had seven residential cleaning businesses, a bit of commercial cleaning, and also some real estate LLCs. Currently, I have some real estate LLCs, one cleaning business, one coaching business, and a small commercial thing.

Sid (Host):
Did you start so many businesses because you get bored quickly?

Liz (Guest):
I’m really good at grabbing onto opportunities when they come my way. (Laughs) Actually, sometimes I’m good at it, sometimes I’m not. I’ll see someone doing something and think, “Ooh, can I do that with you?” That’s how I end up doing stuff.

Sid (Host):
So with all these companies—like five, six, or seven different enterprises—you obviously can’t do them all alone. How do you attract talent to run them?

Liz (Guest):
I have one team that helps run all the companies. The team handles hiring, firing, so I don’t do much in them. Like we’re part-owners in a construction company, and I don’t do anything, zero, except read the P&L. So, yes, it’s mostly overhead people who do the actual work. The only business I really work in is Core Profit Builders.

Sid (Host):
Got it. So what project are you most excited about?

Liz (Guest):
Core Profit Builders is my newest, sort of my retirement gig, to help residential cleaning businesses grow bigger. That industry has been so fractured—people rarely go beyond a million in revenue. I’m out to change that mindset, get folks to aim for bigger targets.

Sid (Host):
Go back in time when you started your residential cleaning business: was it just you?

Liz (Guest):
No, it was me and a partner. Actually, the first cleaning gig was commercial. A friend who worked for the state needed someone last-minute to handle three state buildings. I had no idea what I was doing, but it worked out. Then I realized I don’t love night work, so when customers asked if we cleaned houses, I said, “Sure,” found that was way better working in the daytime.

Sid (Host):
You mention you had a goal of 100 houses. How long did that take?

Liz (Guest):
Maybe three years? Could’ve been more. It was a long time ago, and I was also managing buildings. Eventually, I realized I need more than 100 houses. Then I hit a million in revenue, and that still wasn’t enough. “Small thinking,” I call it now. So I started branching into other areas, partnered with people in other states, etc.

Sid (Host):
And you also read a ton of books. Did that expand your vision in the early days?

Liz (Guest):
Yes, absolutely. My first real business experience was running someone else’s dry cleaning biz. The owners left for six months at a time, leaving me the checkbook. I had zero clue, so I started reading—this was pre-internet. I messed up a lot, but reading and trying was the only path.

Sid (Host):
What were some early formative books?

Liz (Guest):
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill changed my mindset. The E-Myth by Michael Gerber was out there, but it didn’t hit me right away. Another book taught me “If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you got.” That sank in for me.

Sid (Host):
If you could go back and give your younger self advice?

Liz (Guest):
First, don’t work so much. Yes, put in hours at the start, but past 60 hours you get diminishing returns. Second, do the right things, not just urgent things. We chase what feels urgent, but often it’s not the highest-impact move.

Sid (Host):
How do we figure out the right things?

Liz (Guest):
I built a project prioritization tool: rank tasks by impact on revenue, how critical it is to your worst KPI, how quickly you can implement it, and how easy it is to do. Whichever ranks highest is what you should do first. Without a framework, you’ll chase random things like complaining customers, ignoring that you haven’t had a sale in days.

Sid (Host):
You also still read a ton—like 200+ books a year. What’s your business recommendation and a fiction pick?

Liz (Guest):
Business: Drive by Daniel Pink. It teaches you how to motivate people beyond just money. Fiction: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. Totally random, not realistic, but it made me laugh.

Sid (Host):
Liz, thanks for your time. Always good stuff. Really appreciate you sharing.

Liz (Guest):
Thanks for having me, Sid.

Sid (Host):
Hello, my friend, this is Sid. Thank you again so much for taking your time to listen to today’s episode. I hope you got some value from it. And listen—anything that was covered, any of the resources, any of the books, any of the tools, it’s all in the show notes. So it’s easy for you to find and check out.

Also, the mission for The Huge Convention and for this podcast is to help our blue-collar business owners—like you and me—gain financial and time freedom through a better business. We do that in four ways:

  1. Our free weekly newsletter, the Huge Insider—it’s the most valuable newsletter for the home service industry, paid or free, and it’s free.
  2. The Huge Foundations education platform—over 120 hours of industry-specific education. Every month, a topical webinar plus Q&A with seven- and eight-figure business owners. $1 trial for seven days.
  3. The Huge Convention, every August. This year, Nashville, Tennessee, August 20–22, 2025. It’s the largest, top-rated trade show and convention for home service business builders, with the biggest trade show floor, world-class education, and unbeatable networking.
  4. The Huge Mastermind—if you want to put jet fuel on your business and are at over $750K in revenue, building toward $1M, $5M, or $10M in the next five years. It’s a network, mentorship, and mastermind of peers, implementing the Freedom Operating System.

You can find all of it at https://www.thehugeconvention.com. Just scroll down or click on the Freedom Path link. If you enjoyed the show, please take 90 seconds to rate, review, or share it on iTunes—it really helps us reach more people. Thanks again, keep learning, keep growing, keep advancing, and we’ll see you on the next episode.

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