In 2012, Cory Byron was working weekends. Not because he wanted to, because the business seemed to demand it.
He and his business partner had built Vancity Electric from the ground up, specializing in small electrical jobs in Vancouver. By most measures, things looked fine: seven team members, $700K in annual revenue, a steady stream of work. But the numbers behind the scenes told a different story. Their gross profit margin was sitting at 25%, about half of what it should have been, and the financial results simply didn't reflect the effort Cory and his team were putting in.
He was busy. His team was busy. And yet something wasn't adding up.
When he found himself taking on side jobs on weekends just to keep things moving, he realized the way he was running the business had to change.
Building the Foundation
Cory joined Breakthrough Academy, a business coaching program for contractors and started working with a coach who understood the trades. Together they built the systems and processes Vancity Electric had been missing: clearer financials, tighter operations, and a structured approach to the customer journey from first contact to final invoice.
One of the gaps they identified early was reputation. When Cory started the program, Vancity Electric had no online presence and no reviews, a significant problem in an industry where 91% of homeowners rely on reviews before hiring a contractor. Customers were choosing competitors not because Vancity did inferior work, but because there was no proof of the work they'd done.
The fix wasn't complicated. It was systematic.
With Breakthrough Academy's help, Cory built a complete customer journey with touchpoints at every stage:
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Pre-appointment: Customers receive a notification confirming the upcoming visit
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Post-quote: A reminder goes to the salesperson to follow up and check whether the prospect wants to move forward
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If the deal hasn't closed: A second reminder is triggered a month later to follow up again
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On approval: A welcome email goes out immediately, outlining next steps and handing off to the production team
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Post-job: NiceJob takes over, automatically sending a review request to the client
Every touchpoint was automated. Every opportunity was captured. Nothing fell through the cracks because nothing depended on someone remembering to act.
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Building the Reputation
Once the operational foundation was in place, Cory turned to reputation.
He integrated NiceJob with his CRM and set up a simple automation: whenever Vancity completed a job, NiceJob automatically sent the customer a review request. No manual follow-up. No relying on a technician to remember to ask at the end of a long day. Every completed job became a review opportunity without anyone having to think about it.
The results were immediate. Vancity's review conversion rate increased by 460%.
Cory appreciated that customers could choose where to leave their review, and he used NiceJob's client gifting campaigns to reward loyal customers, without adding anything to his team's workload.
Based on what customers actually wrote in their reviews, Cory noticed a pattern. The comments that came up most consistently weren't about technical expertise or competitive pricing. They were about communication and reliability: showing up on time, keeping customers informed, not going silent between milestones.
In his view, customers crave overcommunication. The things that seem obvious to a contractor, a quick heads-up before arrival, a summary of what was done and why, are the things customers remember and write about. That's where Vancity's reputation was built, one job at a time.
Growing the Business
As Vancity became more service-focused, Cory noticed something unexpected: their average job size started going down. More small jobs meant more happy customers and more reviews, but also lower revenue per job.
The solution was simple. Cory updated his post-job communications to include additional CTAs, asking customers what else Vancity could help them with. Did they need dimmer switches? Better surge protection? A smoke detector upgrade?
Because the communications were already automated through NiceJob, adding these prompts required almost no additional work. The change was smooth, the results were meaningful, and the reviews kept coming.
The reviews started building on each other. More reviews meant higher visibility in local search. Higher visibility meant more new customers. More new customers meant more opportunities to deliver the kind of experience that earned another review.
The Results
Vancity Electric now has over 900 Google reviews and a 4.92 star rating, the most of any electrical company in their area.
But the reviews weren't just a vanity metric. They were proof of a business that had fundamentally changed how it operated.
The results speak for themselves:
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Revenue: Doubled from $700K to $1.4M
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Team: Grew from 7 to 9 people
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Gross profit margin: Doubled from 25% to 50%
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Net profit margin: Now sits between 10-15%
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Google reviews: Over 900
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Star rating: 4.92
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Review conversion rate: Up 460%
And Cory? He golfs once a week during business hours. He walks his kids to school.
In his words, “Breakthrough Academy gave us the foundation. NiceJob helped us build the reputation to match it.”
Ready to build a business like Cory's?
Breakthrough Academy builds the operational systems. NiceJob builds the reputation to match.
