Episode 348 – Dan Bonar – Win Business Through Relationships and Trust

“We are the immovable number two. And it’s okay being the immovable number two.”

In this episode, Tim sits down with Dan Bonar (Vice President of Residential Sales, ICC Chimney) to unpack how a privately owned chimney company turned restraint into its sharpest competitive edge. Dan spent the last six years steering through a pandemic boom, a workforce that doubled, and tariffs that erased two weeks of work overnight.

In this episode, Tim and Dan cover:

– How to build value in a commoditized space—and why ICC specifically chooses to limit the opportunities they pursue in the market.

– The “boss versus leader” image Dan keeps in his head, and how he kept a frustrated team from walking out when every tariff solution got scrapped a day later.

– Twenty-plus years of distributor relationships built entirely on handshakes—zero written contracts, anywhere in North America.

Don’t miss Dan’s masterclass on the value wedge and the discipline of staying the “immovable number two”—a clear-eyed argument that constraints don’t starve a business, they focus it, and that chasing every opportunity is how good companies die of indigestion.

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Links from this episode:

Marketing Warfare: https://a.co/d/07Z9jdqN

Fire Time Podcast Q&A Episode: http://itsfiretime.com/ask

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