Operator-led · Systems-driven · Results that scale
For founder-led companies — often across multiple operating entities — that have outgrown manual back-office work. Operations and AI strategy, diagnostic-first, every recommendation underwritten with a quantified payback.
Built by an operator who installed this playbook into 4,000+ field service contractors. Carolinas + Southeast. HVAC, plumbing, electrical, restoration, commercial cleaning.
Most $5–50M field service operators have leads, trucks, and tenure. What they don't have is the operating system that turns lead volume into booked revenue — without the owner in every conversation.
Inbound comes in faster than the team can answer. Missed calls are missed jobs — and the lead calls your competitor at 9:01.
Half the team is on it. The other half lives in their truck and their head. The data you report on isn't the data the work runs on.
Lead-to-appointment, close rate on open quotes, technician utilization — measured loosely, if at all. So is the coaching that fixes them.
By the time you see the gap, the month is gone. The fix requires a weekly cadence, not a monthly dashboard.
None of this is a software problem. It is a system problem. A system your team can run without a consultant in the room.
We don't sell tools. We install the system around the tools you already have — ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber, HubSpot — and add the AI layer that closes the loop.
AI-driven intake on every call, web form, and missed call. Instant text-back. Same-hour follow-up. The lead that called your competitor at 9pm calls you back at 9:01.
CRM cleaned up. Dispatch integrated. Lead-to-booked-job conversion measured weekly. Every job has a source, a rep, and a number.
Weekly KPI review. Board-ready monthly report. Quarterly deep dive. The accountability layer most field-service businesses are missing.
Defined scope. Defined deliverables. Defined accountability. Pick the entry point that fits where you are.
The operating diligence your QoE doesn't cover. Answers the question the spreadsheet can't: is the revenue real, and will it hold without the founder?
The system, not a slide deck. Configured CRM, trained team, scripts, automated follow-up, weekly KPI dashboard, and a cadence the owner can run when we leave.
VP-of-Revenue-equivalent in the seat, on retainer. Weekly operating cadence, monthly board-ready report, on-call advisory, quarterly deep dive.
Most "AI transformation" engagements skip straight to the tool. We don't. The cost of the wrong pilot isn't the software bill — it's the calendar quarter you lose proving it didn't work.
Trace how leads, calls, jobs, and dollars actually move through the business — and where they stop being automatic.
Configure the CRM. Write the scripts. Automate the follow-up. Stand up the dashboard. Train the team — twice.
Weekly KPI cadence with the team. Live call review. Adjust in real time. The system has to survive contact with the truck.
Final performance report. 30-60-90 roadmap. Operations playbook. Recorded walkthrough. Then we leave the team running it.
These aren't values on a website. They're the filter every engagement runs through.
Not a consultant who has read about it. The 4,000-contractor channel at Sunlight is the same system, applied to a different vertical.
Every recommendation has a configuration, a script, a dashboard, and an owner. If it can't be operated weekly, it doesn't ship.
Headline KPI selected at Day 14. Baseline measured before anything changes. Before/after on every metric at engagement close.
CSK Growth Partners is led by Chris Kastler. Before founding the firm, Chris spent eight years at Sunlight Financial — a PE-backed solar fintech that processed $12B+ in funded loan volume — building and leading the SMB channel that integrated Sunlight's point-of-sale financing platform into 4,000+ independent field service contractors.
As Managing Director, he scaled channel credit approval volume from $24M to $1.2B annually: recruiting and onboarding contractor partners, training their sales teams to use financing as a closing tool, and building the underwriting and capital infrastructure that made the platform reliable at the kitchen table — cycle time cut from two weeks to same-day. He took the business through its 2021 IPO and was later promoted to lead a 40+ person joint operations organization.
Earlier roles at Bank of America (VP, institutional banking) and Capital One (FP&A) built the financial rigor PE sponsors expect. Inside engagements, Chris works with the 100-Day Playbook, MEDDPICC, and the Pyramid Principle — named frameworks, used on purpose.
Outside the work, Chris is a commercial real estate investor and a mentor at RevTech Labs. Clemson University, Magna Cum Laude.
Operator-first doesn't mean off-the-cuff. The frameworks below are the ones we run inside engagements — and the ones we expect ownership groups to push back on.
How we onboard new leaders and stand up new functions. The first 100 days set the trajectory of the next 1,000. Sequenced, accountable, board-reportable.
How we qualify pipeline and rebuild your sales motion. Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identified Pain, Champion, Competition.
Answer first, then the support. Every deliverable starts with the recommendation. The 60 pages behind it are for defenders, not deciders.
We'll spend 30 minutes on your problem, not our credentials. If the fit is right, you'll leave with a hypothesis worth testing. If it isn't, you'll leave with an honest answer.