Podcast: How Karen Crnkovich Turned a Near-Bankruptcy Into a Kansas City HVAC Success Story
When Karen Crnkovich signed the papers to buy out her ex-husband’s share of DMC Service in March 2015, she started every morning the same way. Drop her daughter at school. Then, on the drive home, play Nappy Roots’ ‘Good Day’ loud enough to believe it. Everybody’s gonna ride today. Nobody’s gonna die today. That was the mantra that got her through the first two years of sole ownership, when vendor credit lines were being extended on prayers and her personal credit cards were covering company bills.
What she was driving toward turned out to be a commercial HVAC and plumbing company in the Kansas City metro that has appeared on four consecutive Ingram’s Top 100 lists and four consecutive Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company lists. In Q1 2026, DMC Service is running 45 to 50 percent ahead of the same period in 2024, which was already their strongest revenue year on record.
On a recent episode of Everyday Excellence, Todd Baldwin sat down with Karen for a wide-ranging conversation that covers the near-catastrophe that almost ended DMC, how she built a culture that became the company’s most durable competitive advantage, and why narrow SEO targeting for commercial B2B turned out to be one of the most effective marketing decisions she ever made.
The Projects That Almost Ended DMC Service
By 2017, DMC Service had found its footing. Karen had made a key hire in 2016: a veteran technician who became her number two, the mechanical brain trust of the company, and a mentor to the technicians in the field. With that support in place, the team started dreaming bigger.
They bid on two large installation projects, the kind of work that could single-handedly increase revenue by 50 percent. Karen figured they would not get both. They got both.
What followed was one of the most instructive lessons of her career: fixers and installers are not the same. ‘Fixers and installers are both cats in the Sahara, but one’s a cheetah and one is like a lion.’ DMC Service’s technicians are fixers. They are precise. They want everything perfect. Installers move at machine pace, trading some perfection for speed. Running her fixers through an installation job was a mismatch that cost 1,600 hours of overrun on the first project. They broke even.
On the second project, a $300,000 job, DMC lost $100,000. The cash crunch that followed pushed vendor payment terms to 90 and 120 days across the board. Karen was on the phone begging suppliers to keep her credit lines open. She was putting DMC bills on personal credit cards and drawing on her own personal line of credit to keep payroll and taxes, the two non-negotiables, covered without exception.
When they finally cleared the backlog and got every vendor back to terms, the relief was physical. ‘When we finally got to terms with everybody, it felt good. And I thought, one, I’ve learned these lessons, I’m never going back. And two, now it’s uphill only.’ That moment came in mid-2019, just before the pandemic hit.
Growing on Referrals Alone: The Pre-Marketing Years
For the first sixteen years of DMC Service’s existence, the company grew almost entirely through word of mouth and relationship-driven business development. No agency. No SEO. No paid ads. Karen came up in an era when the Yellow Pages was the primary advertising medium for a trade business, and the company’s reputation spread the old-fashioned way: handshakes, trusted referrals, and consistent work.
By late 2019, after finally turning the corner on the cash crisis, Karen got serious about marketing. She ran a small RFP process, meeting with three agencies. Two gave her what she describes as sparkly presentations: a lot of glossy promises with nothing specific to her business. The third, Limelight Marketing, did something different. They went to her actual website, ran an analysis, and brought real, specific recommendations to the table.
That level of preparation won the business. Then the pandemic hit. Lockdowns started. Investing in a retainer agreement, even a $5,000-per-month one, felt terrifying after what she had just survived financially. She almost backed out. Then, on one of the many Zoom calls happening in those early pandemic weeks, someone said two words that changed her mind: run to the roar. ‘I sat there and I was like, heck yeah. We’re putting the foot on the gas.’
What Is Working Now: Culture, Focus, and the Marketing Stack That Delivers
When Karen bought out her ex-husband, the first thing she did was slow down. For nine months, from the March closing to the December company Christmas party, she worked on the company’s cultural foundation: mission statement, vision, core values. What DMC Service stood for, how they treated employees, how they handled mistakes, and what kind of company they wanted to be in the Kansas City market.
‘Go slow to go far.’ That same core values framework, eleven years later, is essentially unchanged. Transparency in operations. Care for employees, customers, and community. First-time mistakes acknowledged and forgiven rather than punished. When an error affects a customer, DMC goes back and fixes it at no charge, regardless of the financial hit. ‘It’s on us and we acknowledge it.’
Alongside culture, Karen made a strategic decision about scope that has defined DMC’s growth: stay in the lane they are best at. Commercial service only. No residential. Repair, maintain, replace. ‘Fixers only.’ After the installation project losses, she drew the boundary permanently and started hiring only to reinforce it. That clarity is what she credits for the company’s sustained recognition: ‘Being the fastest is not the goal. It’s being the most trusted.’
On the marketing side, the Limelight partnership has been running for six years. SEO and paid digital are the primary channels for new customer acquisition beyond referrals. Karen has learned one rule about paid advertising that cuts through most of the noise she gets from other agencies: narrow search terms win in commercial B2B. ‘I get emails multiple times a day from marketing companies saying we’re missing out on HVAC in Kansas City. Yeah, because I’m not bidding on HVAC in Kansas City.’ Her customers are facility managers and building owners, not homeowners. The search terms that convert are specific to that buyer.
Going into 2026, Karen has a team of 22 people she describes, for the first time in her career, as all A players. A strong COO. A thriving HVAC tenant improvement division that is nearly standalone. A plumbing division building toward the same capability. And a proactive game plan for the FIFA World Cup, which Kansas City is hosting, including preventive maintenance outreach, early plumbing jet scheduling, and a zone-based dispatch strategy in case traffic makes cross-city response times unpredictable.
The Lessons That Traveled: On Marketing, Focus, and Banking
Karen’s run-to-the-roar moment during COVID applies as directly to marketing decisions as it did to writing that first retainer check. The businesses that pulled back on digital investment during uncertain periods in 2020 fell behind. The ones that leaned in built compounding SEO foundations that kept paying forward. ‘The more narrow our search terms are, the more successful we’ll be.’ For any commercial or industrial service business thinking that digital marketing is only for B2C, DMC Service is the proof of concept that it works when the targeting is right.
The second lesson is about what not to do. Karen sat through two agency presentations that were all surface and no substance before finding Limelight. She eventually heard from one agency that her website was ‘missing out on HVAC in Kansas City.’ It was a signal they did not understand her business at all. The agencies that win in trades are the ones that come prepared, with an actual analysis, actual recommendations, and an actual plan for what the business needs, not a template pitch rebranded with the client’s logo.
At Everyday Media Group, Todd Baldwin and the team work with commercial and home service businesses to build the kind of organic SEO and content strategy that is specific to the buyer, not the broadest possible keyword. The commercial B2B space requires a different lens than residential, and the results reflect that difference.
The third lesson is one Karen gives to every entrepreneur she advises: build a real relationship with your banker before you need one. During the cash crisis years, she emailed her bankers every single month with a transparent update, the good and the bad. Because of those relationships, none of her bankers called their loans. They held on with her. ‘Because I had great relationships with my bankers, they all hung in there with me. They championed with me and they celebrated with me when we turned a corner.’ She still emails them quarterly today.
Key Takeaways
- “Fixers and installers are both cats in the Sahara, but one’s a cheetah and one is like a lion.” Knowing your category of work is not just an operational preference. It is a survival decision. The businesses that scale sustainably are the ones that define exactly what they are best at and refuse to drift from it, even when a large project makes it tempting to say yes.
- “Run to the roar.” Leaning into investment during uncertain times is counterintuitive and uncomfortable. It is also frequently the right call. Karen’s decision to commit to marketing during the COVID lockdown, when pulling back would have felt rational, is a direct line to four years of accelerating recognition and a Q1 2026 that is 45 to 50 percent ahead of the prior record year.
- “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” (John Quincy Adams) Karen’s chosen quote is the through line of her entire story: from buying a struggling company on a personal note, to surviving a $100,000 loss, to building a team of 22 A players. The compounding effect of simply not stopping is the strategy.
About Karen Crnkovich
Karen Crnkovich is the owner of DMC Service, a commercial HVAC and plumbing company serving the Kansas City metro on both sides of the state line. She has been the primary owner for 16 of the company’s 22 years, having bought out her co-founder in 2015. DMC Service has appeared on Ingram’s Top 100 list and the Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company list for four consecutive years from 2022 through 2025. Karen connects on LinkedIn; mention the podcast in your message request and she welcomes the conversation.
Learn more about DMC Service at dmcserviceinc.com.
Is Your Digital Marketing Built for the Right Buyer?
Commercial and industrial service businesses often assume SEO and paid digital work only for residential contractors. Karen Crnkovich’s story at DMC Service shows what happens when the targeting is specific enough to reach the actual buyer. Everyday Media Group works with commercial and home service businesses to build digital marketing programs that are built around how real customers search, not the broadest possible keyword. If you want a team that shows up prepared, schedule a conversation with Todd Baldwin today.
