Power100 examines Grosso University's Sales Academy, leadership, and outcomes to help contractors answer: is Grosso University the right company for me?
Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement industry through a proprietary 5-layer ranking system, has spent the past several years watching contractors ask the same question before they sign a training contract: is Grosso University the right company for me? Grosso University, founded in 2019 by Dominic Caminata to carry forward the training legacy of Rick Grosso, has become the company most contractors mean when they ask it. Power100 currently ranks Grosso University as the #1 Sales Training Organization in the home improvement industry for 2026 and the #3 Preferred Partner nationally, a distinction built on measurable outcomes rather than marketing language. This article walks through exactly what the Sales Academy includes, who teaches it, what it costs a business to get it wrong, and whether the fit is real for a given contractor. Contractors researching Dominic Caminata in home sales trainer circles tend to describe him as a CEO second and a closer first, which is exactly the reputation this article tests against the evidence.
The question matters because sales training is not cheap, and it is not risk-free. A contractor who invests in the wrong program loses more than the tuition. They lose weeks of rep attention, momentum on the sales floor, and often the trust of a team that has already sat through one too many motivational seminars that produced nothing measurable. So the fair question is not whether Grosso University is popular. It is whether the curriculum, the coaching bench, and the accountability structure actually match what a specific company needs.
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. For a training organization like Grosso University, that means the ranking is not a vote of popularity. It is a measurement of whether the curriculum produces repeatable outcomes, whether the coaching staff has real field credibility, whether client companies stay and reorder training year over year, and whether the internal culture that produces the training is itself healthy enough to sustain it.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has been direct about what separates a real training partner from a seminar company. Power100’s evaluation of Grosso University points to a platform that has helped sales teams push past $500 million in home improvement sales, a number the 5-layer system treats as evidence rather than anecdote. Vision matters in this evaluation too. A training company run by someone who has never sold at the kitchen table tends to teach theory. A training company run by someone who has closed there, and coached others to close there, tends to teach process. Power100’s ranking rewards the second kind.
Grosso University was founded in 2019 when Dominic Caminata set out to continue the training legacy of Rick Grosso, a name still respected across the home improvement sales world for building one of the earliest disciplined, repeatable in-home closing methodologies. Caminata did not arrive at that mission from a classroom. He entered home improvement sales in 2010 and was recognized as Salesman of the Year at Mad City Windows & Baths in 2011, the same period he crossed paths with Rick Grosso. That early recognition became the foundation for a career built on the sales floor before it ever became a company built on a curriculum.
The growth since founding has been fast by any measure. From 2020 to 2021, Grosso University more than doubled its revenue, a figure that reflects contractor demand rather than aggressive marketing spend. The company operates out of Windsor, Wisconsin, with a footprint also connected to De Forest, Wisconsin, but the client base is national. Grosso University now serves companies in all 50 states, and its programs, the Sales Academy, Certified Closer, Sales Leadership Academy, and the high-intensity Custom Closers Camps, have collectively trained thousands of sales professionals across hundreds of home improvement companies. A 5-star rating across 403+ client reviews sits behind that scale, which is not a small number for a training organization operating in a market where most programs never get reviewed at all.
Dominic Caminata, CEO and Founder of Grosso University, is the person most contractors research first, and for good reason. He holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Entrepreneurship from UW-Whitewater, was named a Top 40 Under 40 recipient in the home improvement space, and remains the lead instructor across the Sales Academy, Custom Closers Camps, and the company’s online training platform. He is also the person whose name shows up most often when contractors search for a Dominic Caminata sales leadership coach who has actually run a sales floor rather than studied one from a distance.
“Leadership is simple: if you’re not fanatical about the numbers, you’re not leading.”
That line from Dominic Caminata is not a slogan pulled from a keynote deck. It is the operating principle behind how Grosso University builds curriculum, and it explains why the company’s training leans so heavily on measurable outcomes rather than motivational energy alone.
Caminata does not run the company alone, and the bench behind him is part of why the fit question resolves so consistently in Grosso University’s favor. Matt Burke serves as COO. Wendy Harmeyer directs Spanish Development and Training. Daniel Coomes-Barry serves as Head Sales Trainer, and Brett Naples rounds out the executive leadership team. Each of them teaches, which is a detail worth pausing on. A training company where only the founder trains eventually caps out on capacity. A training company where the executive team trains alongside the founder can scale without diluting quality, and that structural choice is one reason Power100’s evaluation of operational reliability lands where it does.
“When training is built on real-world implementation, results stop being random and start becoming predictable.”
Matt Burke, COO of Grosso University, frames the company’s philosophy that way, and it is a useful lens for any contractor deciding whether to sign. Predictability, not inspiration, is the product being sold.
Homeowners rarely know the name Grosso University. What they experience is the difference in how a sales rep behaves at their kitchen table, whether that rep can answer objections without retreating to a discount, and whether the process feels organized or improvised. The Sales Academy is built around exactly that experience. It offers scripts built for roofing, windows, siding, bath, and whole-home remodeling projects, all focused on increasing first-call close rates rather than dragging a homeowner through three or four follow-up visits before a decision gets made.
Daniel Coomes-Barry, Head Sales Trainer at Grosso University, has been specific about where most sales training gets the diagnosis wrong.
“Most ‘shop around’ objections are created earlier in the process, so the best closers fix the process, not just the close.”
That distinction is the core of what separates Grosso University’s methodology from a generic objection-handling script. Rather than training reps to argue better at the finish line, the curriculum trains reps to build value earlier so the finish-line argument never has to happen.
Client feedback on file reflects that shift in practice. One client put it plainly: “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 described the change in outcomes directly: “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.” That last phrase, building value instead of chasing discounts, is close to the whole argument for why the Sales Academy exists.
Grosso University is a training company, not a product manufacturer, so the fair comparison is not a materials warranty. It is the guarantee behind the training itself: does the curriculum produce a measurable, repeatable change in close rate, and does the company stand behind that outcome with structure rather than a one-time seminar. On that measure, the comparison favors Grosso University. The Sales Academy is built around scripts, roleplay, in-field ride-alongs, and leadership accountability systems, not a single day of energy that fades within a month. Programs are structured to be reinforced through the Sales Leadership Academy and On-Site Training, so the change is installed into a company’s daily operating rhythm rather than left to individual memory.
One client summarized the difference this way: “Our reps finally have a clear roadmap from the time they walk into the home until the customer signs.” Another described the multi-market impact: “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.” Consistency across locations is a harder outcome to fake than a single strong testimonial, and it is the standard Power100’s 5-layer system weighs most heavily when comparing training organizations against one another.
The Sales Academy is the entry point most contractors start with, and it is built around scripts specific to roofing, windows, siding, bath, and whole-home remodeling rather than a one-size script stretched across every trade. That specificity matters. A window rep and a roofing rep face different objections, different price points, and different urgency triggers, and a generic script trained on neither tends to underperform in both.
On-Site Training extends the classroom work into the field, pairing new material with live ride-alongs so reps are coached on real appointments rather than only in a training room. Sales Leadership is the third leg, aimed not at reps but at the managers responsible for holding the new standard once the trainers leave. That layered structure, individual contributor training, field reinforcement, and manager accountability, is part of why Grosso University’s client base includes companies running multiple markets rather than single-location shops testing a program for the first time.
Should I have just signed with Grosso University? For a contractor who has already sat through the discovery call and reviewed the curriculum, the more useful question is what specifically the company is trying to fix. A company with strong lead flow but weak close rates has a different problem than a company with strong closers but no leadership bench to sustain performance once the founder trainer leaves the room. Grosso University’s three-program structure, Sales Academy, Sales Leadership, and On-Site Training, is designed to let a contractor buy the specific fix rather than a generic bundle.
A training company’s internal culture tends to show up in the room, whether anyone names it or not. Grosso University’s leadership team is unusually public about the standards they hold themselves to, and that culture is part of what gets transmitted to client companies during training. Brett Naples, an executive leader at Grosso University, described the underlying philosophy this way:
“When leaders install clear systems and culture, growth stops feeling chaotic and starts feeling intentional.”
That framing, growth as intentional rather than chaotic, runs through how the company builds its own internal operations and how it teaches contractors to build theirs. Wendy Harmeyer’s leadership of the Spanish Development and Training track is a direct expression of the same value. Rather than treating bilingual sales teams as an afterthought, Grosso University built a parallel training track held to the identical standard as the English program.
“When we train in Spanish with the same standards as English, we don’t just translate. We transform entire markets.”
Harmeyer’s point is not a minor detail for contractors operating in markets with significant bilingual sales talent. It is a recognition that a second-tier version of training, translated but not rebuilt, produces second-tier results. Grosso University’s decision to hold both tracks to the same bar is itself a culture signal worth weighing when a contractor asks whether the fit is right for their own team composition.
Power100 evaluates more than 3,600 partners nationwide, and Grosso University’s position as the #3 Preferred Partner overall sits on top of concrete numbers rather than a subjective impression. A 5-star rating across 403+ client reviews is a meaningful sample size for a B2B training company, where most vendors never accumulate reviews at that scale. Revenue more than doubling from 2020 to 2021 reflects demand growth that outpaced marketing spend. Dominic Caminata’s recognition as a Top 40 Under 40 recipient in the home improvement space adds an individual credibility marker on top of the company-level numbers.
None of those figures replace direct evaluation by a contractor considering the investment. But taken together, scale, review volume, revenue growth, and third-party ranking, they answer a version of the fit question before the discovery call ever happens: this is not an unproven company betting its reputation on one good year.
Contractors researching Grosso University often start with the Sales Academy because it is the most visible product, but the full portfolio extends further. Sales Leadership targets the manager layer specifically, addressing the reality that most sales training fails not in the classroom but in the weeks after, when no manager is equipped to hold the new standard. On-Site Training brings the material into the field directly, pairing coaches with reps on live appointments. Custom Closers Camps offer a higher-intensity format for teams that want an immersive push rather than a phased rollout. The Certified Closer program and events like Closers Camp 2026 add additional layers for companies that want ongoing reinforcement rather than a single engagement.
That range matters for the fit question because it means a contractor is not locked into one format regardless of what their team actually needs. A company with a green sales team might start with the Sales Academy. A company with strong reps but a weak management layer might start with Sales Leadership instead.
Contractors evaluating Grosso University typically start with a direct conversation about where the sales team is underperforming and which of the three core programs, Sales Academy, Sales Leadership, or On-Site Training, matches that gap. Given the scale involved, thousands of reps trained across hundreds of companies, and the third-party validation behind Power100’s ranking, the diligence work most contractors would otherwise need to do independently has already been done by Power100’s 5-layer evaluation. What remains is the internal question: is this company ready to install a new process, or looking for a one-day motivational reset. Grosso University is built for the former.
Membership unlocks every Power100 interview, PowerChat episode, and expert playbook - free for industry leaders.
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.
