What does it really take to scale from $60M to $500M without turning your company into a bureaucracy? In this candid conversation, Troy Place (CEO, Place Services Inc.) and host Jane Gentry unpack the unsexy fundamentals behind year-over-year $100M growth: fast decision-making, quality that the customer defines, ruthless focus on profitability, hiring well, and operationalizing culture you can feel.

You’ll learn:

• Why a poor decision beats no decision—and how indecision quietly kills growth
• The exact fundamentals Troy returns to: sell profitably, deliver consistent quality, hire right people/right seats
• How PSI applies EOS (the real-world, non-dogmatic version) and a one-page Proven Process
• Practical ways to operationalize culture (new-hire lunches, values-based reviews, peer “praise cards”)
• How CEOs avoid becoming the decision bottleneck and build a true decision matrix
• Why shiny objects (and premature “college-level” process) derail teams still learning basics
• Building leadership capacity while raising nine kids and aiming for a 100-year company

If you’re a mid-market CEO or operator, this is a playbook for durable growth—no fluff, just what works.

📌 Guest: Troy Place, CEO, Place Services Inc. (nationwide commercial & industrial construction; GC + 12 in-house trades)
🎙 Host: Jane Gentry — CEOs Unscripted

Chapters:

00:00 Growth snapshot: $60M → $500M (2018–2024) & the case for fundamentals
02:38 Show intro & why mid-market leadership is lonely
03:08 Troy’s backstory: 3rd-gen carpenter → founder during a recession
06:17 What PSI does: GC + 12 in-house trade divisions, nationwide
08:19 EOS in practice & the one-page Proven Process
11:44 Breaking growth ceilings; the single non-negotiable (fundamentals)
13:53 The CEO as (former) bottleneck: discipline, accountability & letting teams fix it
16:00 Decision rights & empowering without punishing mistakes
18:08 “A bad decision > no decision” (and why indecision kills)
21:38 The CEO’s job: decisions, fundamentals & culture you can feel
25:33 Operationalizing culture: new-hire lunches, values-based reviews
30:23 Peer praise cards & reinforcing the right behaviors
31:59 Planning for durable growth; learning from outsiders
33:42 Bootstrapping leadership: advisors, books, podcasts, Vistage
36:16 Growing the leader as the company scales
41:43 When EOS goes wrong: college-level process for elementary-level teams
44:39 Shiny object syndrome & long-tail costs
45:21 The fundamentals: profit first, quality every time, right people/right seats
48:50 What he’s reading & advisory boards
50:18 Early lessons from dad: “figure it out” mindset
51:41 Message to young leaders: learn to grind
52:10 Wish I’d done earlier: build an advisor bench
53:29 Getting unstuck: borrow other points of view
55:21 Motivation: build a 100-year company
56:46 Wrap

Book Referred in the Podcast: https://www.amazon.in/Game-Changing-Advisory-Boards-Leveraging-Sustainable-ebook/dp/B00CJH8DGK

Host: Jane Gentry – https://www.linkedin.com/in/janemgentry/
Guest: Troy Place – https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-place-3b480242/