Kevin Robert (PowerHouse Pro)

Kevin Robert is the founder of PowerHouse Pro, a technology platform that gives contractors the targeted marketing data and outreach tools they need to generate more leads and close more deals.

Raised in Hemet, California, Robert grew up two hours east of Los Angeles, in a 90,000-person city where life was rarely glamorous.  

“Life in Hemet was rough, but nothing terrible really happens because people know not to go to certain places, especially at night,” Robert contextualizes.

After high school, Robert dabbled in college before realizing that his energies would be best utilized outside of the classroom.

“I did a few semesters of college, but I couldn’t continue. I had a hard time sitting still and focusing,” he says, so right away Robert transitioned into working for his father’s construction company.

“I was a general laborer who was digging ditches all day in the sun.”

Things at his father’s business remained consistent for a few years, until Robert and his dad ran into irreconcilable differences, resulting in Robert leaving his father’s business to work at a solar company.

At the time, Robert’s new employer was one of the top solar companies in America, with over 250 people alone working in their call center.

One might assume the call center was filled with dusty cubicles and overpriced vending machines, but Robert instead says that the solar company was more playful than stifling.

“It was real Wolf of Wall Street-type of vibes in there,” Robert says with a laugh.

“There was loud music, a bunch of balloons floating around with $100 bills, and if you set a certain amount of appointments, you got to pop one of the balloons.”

Within just a few weeks, Robert had netted enough solar appointments with homeowners to earn himself the title of the company’s top performer, and soon he became a manager.

Robert seemingly had forged a sustainable career path, but tragedy later struck when a family member passed away in his arms, resulting in Robert losing sight of what was in front of him.

“I went into a big depression,” Robert mentions.

“I had a lot of anxiety. At one point I was almost 300 pounds, and then I basically became homeless for a year.”

Robert’s reality had become so dark that he lost his cars, then his apartment, and finally his family elected to distance themselves from him.

By the time Robert had surfaced from the abyss he was trapped him, his life looked a lot different, and just like when he left college, he needed to rebuild his name, and his future outlook.

Still armed with the same sales skills that allowed him to elevate in the solar industry, Robert first began generating revenue by repainting house numbers on the curbs just outside of people’s homes.

Using that money, Robert was able to eventually buy a car to sleep in, and then later drive to an interview he had for outside sales with a home improvement company by the name of Pacific Homeworks in San Diego.

Thanks to his sales skills, Robert got the job, and for the next few years he improved his circumstances, and his bank account, until financially and emotionally he felt confident enough to go start his own contracting company, PowerHouse Construction.

Today the company specializes in windows and interior remodels like kitchens and bathrooms, but what makes them stand out amongst their competition is their tireless devotion to delivering exceptional customer service to homeowners.

Robert says that to do this he once surveyed homeowners in San Diego to learn what they did not like about contractors, and when the data came back, he learned that local residents were tired of expectations not being met, both in terms of punctuality from sales reps, and during the jobs themselves.

Consequently, Robert structured his business so that PowerHouse Construction would become the antithesis of what San Diego homeowners despised.

“We set ourselves up to do the exact opposite of what people hated,” Robert says.

This included giving homeowners precise times (instead of three-hour timeframes) for when sales reps would arrive at their home, and having the same subcontractors complete the work from start to finish.

“If we set an appointment for 10 A.M., we show up at 9:55 A.M.,” Robert emphasizes.

“And the same guys who are doing the work at the beginning of the job will do the work all the way through. We won’t demo your kitchen and then leave for a few days, and then come back with new people. We just follow the job all the way through until it’s completed.”

The template, although simple, has benefitted PowerHouse Construction tremendously.

“That strategy is really what separates us when it comes to earning business in this industry,” notes Robert, who then doubles down on just how essential punctuality is in the home improvement sector, particularly during initial consultations.

“If we were to show up late, then the homeowner is rightfully angry, but if we show up on time, then all the stuff that we are going to tell them at the kitchen table has already been proven, simply because we showed up when we said we would.”  

For many in Robert’s position, bouncing back from the depths of despair would have offered a sufficient amount of satisfaction, but Robert’s comeback now has him thinking even bigger.

In fact, in the last year, he and his team unveiled the aforementioned PowerHouse Pro, a powerful technology that helps contractors across the country optimize their lead generation process, and in turn make more money.

Robert says he expanded his ambitions into the technology sphere because he has a deep appreciation for the role technology has played in his business, but he also understands just how many underwhelming technology and marketing companies currently exist, and he wants to offer a service that contractors can derive tangible value from. 

“There are a lot of marketing and lead generation companies out there. We always wasted money going with them and not getting results, and so I wanted to bring something to the market that actually helped contractors,” Robert explains, adding that PowerHouse Pro is user-friendly and intuitive enough so that even contractors who aren’t well-versed in technology can seamlessly navigate the platform.

“A lot of contractors don’t know how to integrate everything, and so PowerHouse Pro makes it really easy to have all that stuff in one place. It’s super user-friendly and our app allows them to do marketing and lead gen in-house.”

With over 500 contractors across the country currently using PowerHouse Pro, Robert and his team have already helped configure profitable systems for clients who otherwise may never have expanded into the automation aspect of their businesses. 

“We get a lot of positive feedback from contractors who say that PowerHouse Pro does the types of things that they have been wanting to do for years, but until now they haven’t had the time or resources to build out something like this for their business,” Robert says.

Another key element to PowerHouse Pro is the app’s ability to send direct mail to homeowners around a contractor’s current job sites.

For example, if a contractor is installing windows in a certain neighborhood, PowerHouse Pro can then create and deliver effective advertisements to nearby neighbors who may also be interested in purchasing new windows.

“Direct mail is a basic service that anyone can do, but a lot of contractors don’t do it because they don’t want to go get postcards printed, come up with an offer, and find someone to distribute the postcards,” Robert says.

“But if contractors can just jump on our platform and get that taken care of with a few clicks, then we have found a solution to a problem that will lead to them generating much more revenue.”

Moving forward, PowerHouse Pro is continuing to adapt to the ever-changing industry that is construction.

By next year, Robert is planning on outfitting PowerHouse Pro users with a CRM that can replace whichever CRM they’re currently using.

He has already hired two full-time developers to expedite the arrival of the CRM, and his goal with this is to offer contractors another service on the platform that can keep them from having to go elsewhere for technology they could otherwise access on PowerHouse Pro.

Says Robert:

“By the time PowerHouse Pro is fully complete, we are going to be able to replace all of the different apps that contractors are currently using, to the point that the platform will be everything that they need in one place.” QS

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