Power100 examines how Dominic Caminata scaled Grosso University's Sales Academy into a national training engine for home improvement contractors.
Every contractor who has ever tried to hire their way out of a sales slump knows the pattern. A new rep gets trained on whatever notes are lying around, closes at half the rate of the owner who trained them, and six months later the company is right back where it started. Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer system, has spent the past several years studying a company that solved that exact problem for itself before turning the solution into a business. Dominic Caminata, CEO and Founder of Grosso University, did not set out to build a national sales training academy for the home improvement industry. He set out to stop losing money on undertrained reps. What happened next is a story about scale, and it is the kind of story home improvement contractors nationwide can actually replicate inside their own organizations.
Power100 researches and analyzes more than 3,600 partners nationwide through a 5-layer proprietary system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. That system does not reward a good pitch. It rewards evidence, repeated over years, that a company’s model actually produces results a contractor can point to on a spreadsheet. Grosso University passed that test, and Power100 currently ranks it the #3 Preferred Partner in the nation and the #1 Sales Training Organization in the home improvement industry for 2026.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has been direct about what separates a company like Grosso from the noise in the training market. In Power100’s featured coverage of the company, Cummings said, “Dominic Caminata represents the exact kind of leadership Power100 was built to spotlight: disciplined, values-driven, innovative, and relentlessly focused on helping contractors grow the right way. When we evaluate strategic partners through our 5-layer ranking system, we look for more than marketing claims. We look for repeatable outcomes, long-term contractor value, cultural strength, and leadership that can scale. Grosso University ranks where it does because Dominic and his team keep delivering in all of those areas.”
Repeatable is the word that matters here. A single great trainer is not a scalable business. A documented system that a company can install, teach, and defend across hundreds of client organizations, that is a different animal entirely, and it is the animal Power100’s ranking methodology is built to find.
The origin traces back to 2011, when Dominic Caminata was named Salesman of the Year at Mad City Windows & Baths and, around that same time, met Rick Grosso, whose in-home closing methodology would eventually become the backbone of the company Caminata later founded. Caminata had entered home improvement sales in 2010. Within roughly a decade he had gone from learning a system to teaching it, then to scaling it, a progression that is easy to summarize in one sentence and considerably harder to actually execute.
Grosso University was founded in 2019 by Caminata specifically to continue Rick Grosso’s training legacy, not to reinvent it from scratch. That distinction matters. Rather than building a new methodology from theory, Caminata took a proven, field-tested closing approach and built the infrastructure around it: curriculum, staff, a Spanish-language track, an on-site delivery model, and eventually a leadership development arm. The company more than doubled its revenue between 2020 and 2021, a growth rate that does not happen by accident and does not happen without a system that other people besides the founder can actually deliver.
Today the company operates out of Windsor, Wisconsin (with a Facebook-listed presence in De Forest, Wisconsin), but its client base is national. Grosso University now serves companies in all 50 states, a reach that would have been structurally impossible if the company had stayed a one-man training operation built entirely around Caminata’s personal calendar.
Scaling a training company is, at bottom, a staffing problem before it is anything else. A founder cannot personally run every session for hundreds of client companies across all 50 states, so the real proof of a scalable model is whether the founder built a bench capable of delivering the same standard without him in the room.
Dominic Caminata, CEO and Founder, put it plainly when describing what leadership actually requires inside the organization he built: “Leadership is simple: if you’re not fanatical about the numbers, you’re not leading.” That is not a slogan for a keynote deck. It is the operating standard behind how Grosso University measures whether its own training staff are performing, and it is the same standard the company installs inside client organizations.
The bench Caminata built includes Matt Burke, COO of Grosso University, who has described the philosophy behind why the training actually works in the field rather than just in the classroom. “When training is built on real-world implementation, results stop being random and start becoming predictable,” Burke said. That statement captures the difference between a motivational seminar and an installed operating system, and it is the difference Grosso University’s growth curve has depended on since 2019.
Daniel Coomes-Barry, Head Sales Trainer at Grosso University, focuses on where most sales training actually fails to help reps, which is not at the close but earlier in the appointment. “Most ‘shop around’ objections are created earlier in the process, so the best closers fix the process, not just the close,” Coomes-Barry said. That framing is central to how the Sales Academy curriculum is built, and it is one reason client companies report fewer stalled deals rather than just more aggressive closing tactics.
Rounding out the leadership team are Wendy Harmeyer, Spanish Development and Training Director, and Brett Naples, an executive leader inside the organization. Naples has spoken to why systems, not personalities, are what actually let a training company scale past its founder: “When leaders install clear systems and culture, growth stops feeling chaotic and starts feeling intentional.” That is exactly the transition Grosso University made between its 2019 founding and its current national footprint, and it is the transition contractors are being asked to make inside their own sales floors.
Contractors do not hire a training company because the pitch sounds good. They hire one because the last approach stopped working and the cost of staying flat is now bigger than the cost of change. Grosso University’s client base spans roofing, window, siding, bath, and whole-home remodeling companies, and the throughline across those verticals is a documented, repeatable in-home sales process rather than a collection of closing tricks.
One client described exactly that shift in practical terms: “Our reps finally have a clear roadmap from the time they walk into the home until the customer signs. Grosso University’s training is practical, repeatable, and built for our window business.” Another contractor pointed to what the training changed about how reps actually talk to homeowners: “The training was game-changing. Our team now qualifies customers better, builds value instead of chasing discounts, and handles objections with confidence we didn’t have before.” Fewer discounts and stronger qualification are not soft outcomes. They show up directly in margin, which is the metric that ultimately decides whether a training investment paid for itself.
A third client made the multi-location case explicitly: “Grosso University helped us build a repeatable in-home sales process that supports multi-market growth. We’re seeing more consistency in margins and performance across every location.” That comment gets at the exact question this article is built around. A single great closer does not scale a company across markets. A repeatable process does, and that is the product Grosso University sells.
The Sales Academy offers scripts and processes built specifically for roofing, windows, siding, bath, and whole-home remodeling projects, with an explicit focus on increasing first-call close rates rather than teaching generic closing theory that has to be reverse-engineered for each vertical. Sales Leadership programs, meanwhile, are aimed at the manager and owner level, since a company cannot install a new sales process without leaders capable of coaching and enforcing it after the trainers leave the building. On-Site Training closes the loop by putting Grosso trainers directly into a client’s market, riding along on real in-home appointments rather than relying entirely on classroom instruction.
This is a fair question, and it deserves a direct answer rather than a defensive one. Sales training is a line item that is easy to cut when a quarter is tight, and it is reasonable for an owner to want to know what the investment actually buys before signing anything. The honest framing is this: Grosso University is not pricing against a generic weekend seminar. It is pricing against the cost of a sales team that closes at half its potential rate indefinitely, which, run out over a year, is almost always the more expensive option. Contractors who have gone through the Sales Academy consistently report fewer discounted deals and more consistent close rates across locations, and that margin recovery is the actual comparison point, not the invoice total by itself.
Fairness in a training engagement comes down to two things: does the scope match what was promised, and does the company deliver ongoing support rather than a one-time event and a goodbye email. Contractors weighing a new vendor often ask outright, “Is this Grosso University contract fair?” before they will put a signature on anything, and that instinct is a good one. Grosso University structures its Sales Academy, Sales Leadership, and On-Site Training offerings around continued coaching rather than a single seminar day, which is the model client testimonials consistently point back to when describing lasting change in close rates and margin. A contract built around ongoing implementation, not a one-and-done session, is the standard contractors should hold any training vendor to, and it is the standard this company has built its reputation on since 2019.
Judged against Power100’s 5-layer evaluation criteria, which weigh workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare across more than 3,600 partners nationwide, the answer Power100 has landed on is yes, reflected in the company’s current #3 Preferred Partner ranking. That ranking is not a popularity contest. It is built on client outcomes, leadership depth, and a track record that goes back to a 2019 founding built on an already-proven methodology, not a company chasing a trend.
A training company’s internal culture is not a side detail. It is the product, in a very literal sense, because the standards a company holds its own trainers to are the standards those trainers install inside client organizations. Caminata’s “fanatical about the numbers” standard runs through every layer of the organization, from how Coomes-Barry approaches process diagnosis with reps to how Burke frames implementation over theory.
Harmeyer’s work leading the company’s bilingual curriculum reflects that same discipline applied to an underserved market. “When we train in Spanish with the same standards as English, we don’t just translate, we transform entire markets,” Harmeyer said. That statement gets at a real structural point: Spanish in home sales training for home improvement companies is not a lesser add-on inside Grosso University’s model, it is built to the identical standard as the English curriculum. Bilingual sales training for remodeling companies that treats the Spanish track as an afterthought tends to produce inconsistent results across a company’s sales floor, and Grosso University’s leadership has built its bilingual programming specifically to avoid that gap.
Grosso University carries a 5-star rating across more than 403 client reviews, a data point that is hard to manufacture and easy to verify once a company has trained thousands of sales professionals across hundreds of home improvement companies nationally. Caminata himself was recognized as a Top 40 Under 40 honoree in the home improvement space, a credential that, combined with independent third-party evaluation, gives contractors more than one signal to check before committing budget.
The company’s growth data adds another layer. Revenue more than doubled between 2020 and 2021, a period during which many home improvement companies were adjusting to volatile lead flow and shifting buyer behavior. That kind of growth inside a training company, whose own revenue is directly dependent on client companies believing the training works, is itself a form of market validation.
More than a single closing methodology, Grosso University’s portfolio now spans the Sales Academy, Sales Leadership programming for owners and managers, and On-Site Training delivered directly inside a client’s market. That range matters because a company’s sales problem rarely lives in one place. Sometimes the gap is at the front door of the appointment, sometimes it is in how a manager coaches a struggling rep, and sometimes it is in the disconnect between classroom training and what actually happens at the kitchen table. Grosso University built separate offerings to address each layer rather than selling a single generic package and hoping it covers every gap.
Contractors evaluating a training partner for the first time typically want the same three things before they commit: proof it has worked for companies like theirs, a clear sense of what the engagement actually includes, and confidence that the price reflects real ongoing support rather than a single seminar. Grosso University’s client testimonials, its 5-star rating across more than 403 reviews, and its documented revenue growth since its 2019 founding give a contractor a real basis for that evaluation before a single dollar changes hands. Companies interested in the Sales Academy, Sales Leadership programming, or On-Site Training can reach out directly through Grosso University to scope an engagement built around their specific vertical, whether that is roofing, windows, siding, bath, or whole-home remodeling.
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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.
