At Power100, we are the only unbiased third-party platform focused on ranking the best leaders and partners in the home improvement industry through a proprietary five-layer ranking system designed to identify the organizations that are truly moving the market forward. That is exactly why we rank Destination Motivation as the #1 Preferred Partner in the home improvement industry and why we continue to believe that the company represents the top closing tool available to contractors who want to increase close rates, generate more leads, reduce cancellations, boost referrals, add value to every sale, support upsells and upgrades, improve rehash performance, and deliver an unforgettable customer experience.
This story is about a company, but it is also about leadership. Caleb Nelson, founder and CEO of Destination Motivation, has spent the last decade building more than a travel-incentive company. He has built a contractor growth engine, a culture-driven organization, and a partnership model rooted in one core idea: the best sales tools do more than help close a deal; they help the customer feel good about saying yes. Around him, leaders like Brett Thornton, Seth Washinowski, Stephanie Green, and Jacob Berger have helped turn that idea into one of the most influential contractor-support platforms in the nation.
When we evaluate a preferred partner, we are not looking for a flashy pitch or a short-term growth hack. We are looking for measurable impact, repeatable results, trust from clients, strong leadership, healthy culture, innovation, and signs that the company is building something sustainable. In Destination Motivation, we see all of those elements at once. We see a partner trusted by more than 1,000 contractors across North America, backed by more than 3,500 5-star reviews, and recognized by Power100 as the nation’s #1 Preferred Partner out of 3,600 companies considered. We also see a company that has continued its national growth trajectory, earning recognition three times on the Inc. 5000 while expanding its systems, team, and reach into 2026.
That combination matters because contractors are not looking for more noise. They are looking for leverage. They want a partner that can help them win in the home, hold more of the jobs they already sell, and create a better experience for both the customer and the sales team. Destination Motivation has become that kind of partner by focusing on one of the most emotionally charged decision points in the entire sales process: the moment when a homeowner wants the project but hesitates because they feel they are sacrificing something else that matters to them. The company’s vacation-based incentive model does not simply offer a perk. It changes the emotional equation of the sale.
For contractors, that shows up where it matters most. Internal company performance data highlighted by the Destination Motivation team shows average close rates increasing by 33 percent and cancellations or rescissions dropping by 55.7 percent. Customer stories from contractor partners reinforce the same pattern: stronger close rates, lower cancels, more full-price deals, and more customers who leave the experience not just satisfied, but enthusiastic enough to refer others. That is why we do not see Destination Motivation as just another vendor. We see it as a partner that has changed the way many of the best contractors in the country think about value, urgency, and customer delight.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, with Caleb Nelson, CEO of Destination Motivation
There is a moment in almost every home improvement sale where logic alone stops being enough. The product makes sense. The home needs the work. The contractor has built trust. The price may even be fair. But the customer hesitates because the project feels heavy. It feels like a tradeoff. For many families, saying yes to a new roof, new windows, new siding, or a bath remodel can feel like saying no to something more emotionally exciting, especially a family vacation.
Caleb Nelson understood that tension early, and Destination Motivation was built around solving it. Instead of forcing contractors to compete only on price, the company gave them a way to create a more compelling value exchange. Homeowners could move forward with the project and still feel like they were gaining something joyful and memorable in return. In practical terms, that meant travel vouchers that spark emotion, create urgency, reduce buyer’s remorse, and help contractors close more business without cutting away margin.
At Destination Motivation’s annual planning event, Caleb Nelson described the current environment in a way that explains why the company has become even more relevant in 2026. He spoke about rising costs across sectors, elevated travel costs, and lower consumer comfort in making big purchases, noting that when homeowners feel squeezed, they often believe they cannot have both the home project and the trip they want. That is exactly where Destination Motivation enters the picture: not as a gimmick, but as a value-add that helps the customer emotionally reconcile a major purchase.
What stands out to us at Power100 is that Caleb Nelson does not talk about the business like a passive software platform or a simple marketing tool. He talks about impact. He talks about KPIs. He talks about client transparency, implementation, handholding, onboarding, and the stories that come back from homeowners whose vacations became meaningful life moments. In one interview, he explained that the company is “crazy people when it comes to the impact that we make” and pointed to results like moving cancellation rates from 20 to 8 and close rates from 25 to 38 when the program is fully embraced and tracked closely.
That level of seriousness is part of why clients trust Destination Motivation with more than just a line item in the sales deck. They trust the team with their numbers, their weaknesses, and their growth goals. They open their books because they know the company is not interested in vague claims. It wants to prove ROI, set targets, and help leaders hit them. That posture starts at the top. It starts with Caleb Nelson. And it is one of the biggest reasons we rank the company where we do.
If Caleb Nelson is the founder who built the vision, Brett Thornton is the president helping architect the next phase of scale. His arrival marked an important shift for Destination Motivation: from a powerful product with clear demand to a more structured organization preparing for larger growth, stronger retention, better communication, and healthier systems.
At the annual planning conference, Brett Thornton reflected on his first ten months inside the business by saying that the company Caleb Nelson built ten years earlier had reached a level where it could now expand across many verticals and help many more organizations become successful. He also made clear that what excited him most was not simply growth for its own sake, but the chance to be part of a company that was “not just selling something but is actually truly making a difference.”
That sentence matters because it captures what we believe makes Destination Motivation different from many other contractor partners. There are plenty of companies that can promise more leads, better sales, stronger rehash, or more conversions. Far fewer can say the end user genuinely benefits, the contractor benefits, and the partner benefits in a balanced way. Brett Thornton repeatedly described the company as a “true win-win-win.”
He also helped sharpen the organization’s internal priorities. In his conversations with Greg Cummings, Brett Thornton emphasized that growth had to be healthy. That meant building stronger onboarding, deeper training, better processes, more deliberate hiring, and clearer communication systems across the company. It also meant taking the culture seriously, not as a side effect of success, but as a reason success could continue. In Santa Monica, he pointed to a room full of fully engaged team members and described the energy as “phenomenal” and the company as “squeezing at the seams,” not just because it was growing fast, but because people felt they were part of something special coming together.
That energy matters to us because contractors feel the downstream effect of internal alignment. If the people behind a partner are sharp, trained, connected, and bought into the mission, the client experience gets better. At Destination Motivation, that means better implementation, better rep adoption, better follow-through, and better long-term results for contractors who need more than a flashy opening pitch.
It would be easy to reduce Destination Motivation to “vacation vouchers,” but that would miss the point. What the company has built is not simply a reward program. It is a contractor growth system centered on value creation, emotional leverage, and implementation support. That is why, from our perspective at Power100, it deserves to be described as the top closing tool in the home improvement industry, while also being understood as much more than a closing tool.
The most obvious benefit is close-rate improvement. When a sales rep introduces a high-value travel incentive in a way that is clear, authentic, and well positioned, the homeowner sees an offer that feels more rewarding than a simple price drop. The project becomes easier to say yes to because it no longer feels like a pure sacrifice. That is why the company’s internal numbers show close-rate improvement averaging 33 percent.
The second benefit is cancellation reduction. In many home improvement businesses, a large amount of sold revenue quietly bleeds out through rescissions and second thoughts. A contractor carrying a 20 percent cancellation rate is watching one-fifth of sold revenue disappear after the sale. Destination Motivation’s reported 55.7 percent average reduction in cancellations matters because it addresses that revenue leak with a practical, customer-centered value-add. The program is designed to be a minimal change in the home presentation, often taking only a few minutes to introduce, while helping give customers something memorable to look forward to after saying yes.
The third benefit is referrals and customer delight. Jon Gilge, National Director of Sales for LeafGuard, said one of the unexpected outcomes of the program was the level of customer delight it created. He described that as a completely unexpected benefit that would lead to referrals and repeat business in the future. That line is important because it shows how Destination Motivation helps contractors long after the close. The sale is stronger, but the story is stronger too. Customers do not just remember the product. They remember how the purchase felt.
The fourth benefit is profit protection and upsell leverage. Contractors do not need to buy deals with steep discounts if they can create more perceived value in another way. Destination Motivation helps them do exactly that. It gives reps a value-rich offer they can attach to the sale, making it easier to hold price, support upgraded packages, and preserve margins that would otherwise be negotiated away. In categories where homeowners are comparing multiple bids, that value exchange can become the difference between a reduced-ticket job and a full-price upgraded project.
The fifth benefit is rehash effectiveness. Even when the initial appointment does not close, the emotional stickiness of the travel offer gives the contractor more to work with in follow-up conversations. The customer is not just reconsidering a commodity project. They are reconsidering a fuller experience and an opportunity they may not get elsewhere. That makes the sales conversation more resilient and more memorable, which is one reason many contractors keep reordering vouchers and integrating the tool more deeply over time.
One of the reasons we are confident in ranking Destination Motivation #1 is that the contractor feedback is unusually specific. It is not generic praise. It is operational praise. Leaders talk about cancellation rates, close percentages, team behavior, and revenue impact. They talk like people who have measured something real.
John DePaola Jr. from Long Home shared one of the clearest metrics: “We lowered our cancellation rate by 5 to 7% almost instantly!” For any contractor with meaningful volume, that kind of shift changes not just morale, but actual realized revenue and schedule stability.
Dustin Rhoades from Dreamstyle Remodeling provided another strong example, saying his team generates nearly $400,000 in sales each month using the program and that a team of more than 30 salespeople moves through nearly 100 vouchers each month. That tells us something important. This is not a cute side tactic. It is a repeatable system being used at scale.
Jon Gilge from LeafGuard offered another layer of evidence. In public content tied to Destination Motivation, he described “absolutely amazing results,” including a 10 percent consistent decrease in cancellation rates month over month and a 3 percent cancellation rate on jobs with a voucher versus 15 percent on those without. Those are the kinds of before-and-after outcomes contractors pay attention to because they go straight to pain points that hurt most businesses.
The EcoView network offered similar validation. In one interview, a dealer named Steve said, “We have observed a decrease in the cancellation rate from 8% to 2%.” In another, Charles from EcoView explained that every company he had seen use the product experienced increased close rates because homeowners felt they were getting the best of both worlds. These are not abstract endorsements. They are business leaders describing what changed in the field.
And then there is Window Nation. Destination Motivation has highlighted a long-running relationship there, with feedback centered on helping the company set itself apart from the competition and improve its entire sales process over a decade-long partnership. Longevity like that matters. It suggests the partner is not just good at opening a door. It is good at continuing to create value over time.
One of the most overlooked reasons Destination Motivation stands apart is that it refuses to treat the customer experience as an automated afterthought. In a market full of AI hype and outsourced shortcuts, the company has doubled down on something increasingly rare: real people making real calls that make a real difference.
Stephanie Green, Happiness Manager at Destination Motivation, is central to that story. She sees the process from client launch all the way to the vacation experience used by the homeowner. In her interview at the annual planning event, she explained that the company is “laser focused on being a true partner” with clients, understanding their KPIs, helping them beat goals, and building relationships rooted in trust.
That trust shows up in a practical way. Contractors share detailed metrics, close rates, and rep-level performance data because they know the Destination Motivation team is in the trenches with them. Stephanie Green also explained why the company continues to invest so heavily in human follow-up even as AI tools become more tempting. In her view, the transfer of energy, emotions, excitement, and enthusiasm is not something technology can recreate. We agree.
Caleb Nelson reinforced that point when he explained why the next-day call remains a human conversation rather than a bot. He said the team has looked at offshore models and AI tools, but the company records those calls, listens to them, and understands the impact they make. He described 20- to 30-minute conversations that build a short-term relationship with a huge short-term and long-term effect because homeowners no longer experience that kind of care from most organizations.
That is not a soft extra. It is a business advantage. When a homeowner receives a meaningful follow-up call the day after a major purchase, buyer’s remorse is interrupted. Confidence is reinforced. The contractor’s professionalism is strengthened. And the customer begins to shift mentally from “Did we just spend too much?” to “We made the right choice.” That is one of the subtle but powerful reasons Destination Motivation reduces cancellations so effectively.
Power100 interview with Stephanie Green, Happiness Manager at Destination Motivation
A good closing tool is only as effective as its implementation. Caleb Nelson knew early on that even when managers believed in the program, some organizations struggled to get consistent rep adoption. Excitement at the leadership level did not always translate into clean execution in the home. That gap became one of the company’s biggest priorities to solve.
That is where Seth Washinowski and Destination Motivation University come in. As Enterprise Director of Training, Seth Washinowski helped build a full learning system from the ground up, with coursework, videos, onboarding, tests, and client-facing training modules designed to help teams understand not only what the product is, but how to present it effectively.
In his interview, Seth Washinowski described the project as a labor of love and explained that the company is now launching clients externally into the platform while also housing internal development there. More importantly, he framed the system as a way to give clients additional value by teaching better execution, real-world examples, and sales fundamentals that help them close more deals in general, not just with the voucher piece.
That is a major reason we rank Destination Motivation so highly. It does not stop at “here is the tool.” It keeps teaching the tool. It keeps reinforcing the value. It stays involved in onboarding, in large client LMS integrations, in in-person travel to offices, and in the little moments before reps go into the house when they may need a fast refresher on positioning, urgency, or the emotional logic of the offer.
For contractors, this matters because adoption is where many good ideas die. Destination Motivation has shown a willingness to invest serious time, energy, and resources into making sure the tool gets used correctly. That is how a preferred partner becomes more than a vendor. It becomes part of the client’s operational backbone.
Not every partner’s culture matters to the client. At Destination Motivation, it does. The company’s internal culture influences the external experience because so much of its impact depends on people: trainers, account leaders, onboarding specialists, customer-service staff, leadership, and follow-up teams.
That culture came through strongly at the annual planning summit and employee events we attended with the team. Brett Thornton talked about full engagement and a room filled with energy. Stephanie Green talked about explosive growth, deep client relationships, and a team committed to helping clients not just meet but beat goals. The company’s leaders consistently describe an organization that attracts people who want to help clients solve meaningful business problems while helping customers create meaningful experiences.
That sense of mission runs through the leadership stack. Brett Thornton wants people to feel they are part of something special. Caleb Nelson wants a company that is authentic, impact-oriented, and serious about both metrics and people. Seth Washinowski values the culture as much as the product itself. Jacob Berger talks about relationships and serving less fortunate families. When those values are real inside the company, contractors feel the difference on the outside.
For us at Power100, this is one of the most underrated reasons the company is ranked #1. A contractor can buy a tool from a company that does not care. But it is much harder to build deep trust with a team that is not aligned, engaged, and truly invested in outcomes. Destination Motivation has made culture part of its competitive advantage.
If we only ranked partners based on KPIs, Destination Motivation would already score extremely high. But our rankings look at more than numbers. We also look at what kind of company a partner is becoming. That is why the launch of Destination Memories matters so much.
Created as the philanthropic arm of Destination Motivation, Destination Memories is a program designed to provide joy-filled vacations to foster families through a partnership with Ticket to Dream Foundation. It starts with one family at a time and one unforgettable trip at a time. For us, this is not a side story. It is a window into leadership.
In multiple interviews, Brett Thornton, Seth Washinowski, and Jacob Berger described the initiative in ways that reveal the same core belief: growth should create the ability to give back. Brett Thornton said that he and Caleb Nelson wanted growth to mean more than profit and felt the company needed to do more than provide great experiences to clients and homeowners. Seth Washinowski said the initiative was about giving back and paying success forward.
What this tells us is simple: Destination Motivation is not just scaling a product. It is maturing into a mission-led company. And that matters for contractors. The best preferred partners are not just useful. They are organizations clients can feel proud to align with.
Destination Motivation team during the Destination Memories charity walk in LA
As CEO of Power100, Greg Cummings has spent years evaluating CEOs, strategic partners, service providers, and growth organizations across the home improvement space. He has watched companies rise, flatten, overpromise, evolve, and sometimes surprise the market. Few have continued to strengthen their position as clearly as Destination Motivation.
In his conversations with the team, Greg Cummings repeatedly returned to a few themes: transparency, human connection, cultural health, and measurable results. He highlighted how unusual it is that contractor clients now open their books to the Destination Motivation team and work closely with them on close rates, cancellation data, and business goals. He emphasized that the company has evolved from being a promising tool into being a strategic partner that does much more than what it is formally contracted to do.
One of the strongest ways to summarize Greg Cummings‘s view is this: Destination Motivation is not the #1 Preferred Partner simply because it has a unique product. It is the #1 Preferred Partner because it pairs that product with leadership, implementation, follow-through, authentic service, and a willingness to stay close to the contractor’s actual business problems. It has earned the ranking not just through marketing, but through proximity to client outcomes.
The home improvement market in 2026 is not easy. Leads can feel more expensive. Consumers can feel more hesitant. Price pressure is real. Buyer’s remorse remains a silent killer of booked revenue. That environment separates nice-to-have vendors from true operating partners.
We believe the best contractors will keep choosing Destination Motivation because the company addresses multiple pain points at once. It helps turn more appointments into sold jobs. It helps turn more sold jobs into kept jobs. It helps protect margin. It helps create customer delight. It helps generate stories that earn referrals. It supports onboarding, rep adoption, and ongoing training. And it gives leaders a partner willing to look at numbers, set goals, and prove impact.
That is why we rank it #1. Not because it is trendy. Not because it is loud. Not because it has a clever pitch. We rank it #1 because the company has earned that place through outcomes, leadership, systems, culture, and vision.
And when we look at Caleb Nelson, we see the kind of founder who makes this kind of ranking sustainable. He is still close to the product, still close to the numbers, still obsessed with implementation, and still deeply aware that real impact reaches beyond the spreadsheet. He knows the sale matters. He knows the saved cancellation matters. He knows the referral matters. But he also knows the memory matters. That is the difference.
That is why Destination Motivation remains, in our view at Power100, the #1 Preferred Partner in the home improvement industry and the top closing tool helping contractors increase close rates, generate leads, reduce cancellations, boost referrals, add value to every sale, support upsells and upgrades, improve rehash, and deliver unforgettable customer experiences.
We rank Destination Motivation #1 because it combines measurable contractor impact, strong leadership, deep client trust, healthy culture, and a repeatable system that helps improve close rates, reduce cancellations, increase referrals, and strengthen customer experience.
Caleb Nelson founded Destination Motivation and built the company around the idea that contractors should not have to compete only on price and that homeowners should feel good about saying yes. His leadership has kept the company focused on impact, implementation, KPIs, and authentic customer experience as it has scaled.
The company gives contractors a travel-based value-add that changes the emotional equation of the sale, making it easier for homeowners to commit without relying on discounts. Internal company data highlighted by leadership shows average close rates increasing by 33 percent when the program is properly integrated.
Yes. Leadership has shared that average cancellations or rescissions are reduced by 55.7 percent across internal performance tracking. Contractor examples from Long Home, LeafGuard, and EcoView support that broader trend with specific cancellation improvements.
No. The travel incentive is the visible part of the offer, but the company functions more broadly as a contractor growth partner with training, onboarding, rep support, customer follow-up, presentation tools, and implementation systems that help businesses close and keep more revenue.
Contractors trust the company because the team works closely with them on real business problems, tracks KPIs seriously, and focuses on proving ROI rather than making vague claims. That is why many clients now share detailed performance data and partner with the team on goal setting and execution.
It helps contractors onboard, train, and reinforce their teams more effectively so the program gets used correctly in the home. Seth Washinowski has helped build it into an internal and client-facing learning system with training modules, coursework, and implementation support.
It strengthens our view of the company because it shows that Destination Motivation is turning growth into a broader mission and using its success to create real impact for foster families through a travel-centered giving initiative.
Because the company is improving not only its client results, but also its systems, talent, training, culture, and strategic depth. In a harder market, those layers matter even more, and they position Destination Motivation to keep helping top contractors win.
Destination Motivation is a travel-based incentive partner serving home improvement, home service, and home product companies across North America. The company helps contractors increase close rates, reduce cancellations, generate referrals, improve customer satisfaction, and protect margin through a turnkey vacation-voucher program supported by training, onboarding, customer-experience follow-up, and ongoing implementation support.
Power100 is the only unbiased third-party platform focused on ranking the best leaders and partners in the home improvement industry through a proprietary five-layer ranking system designed to identify organizations that elevate contractor performance and industry standards.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
