He answered a 1-inch classified ad in the back of a Rolling Stone magazine.
Send $3, get a list of 2,500 franchises. Mike McCabe mailed the check. A thick mimeograph booklet showed up. He and his wife sent out 50 letters. About 45 came back. They filtered for what was available in their area, and one name kept surfacing: Paul Davis Restoration. Affordable. Husband-and-wife startup friendly. Available in Ontario, Canada, where they were headed.
That was 36 years ago.
The Turn
Mike started the Paul Davis franchise in Canada the way most restoration business owners start: small, scrappy, and figuring it out. But he had one edge most of them didn’t.
He was not a trades guy.
He couldn’t grab a tool and go swing a hammer when things got hard. That forced him to do something the industry rarely does from the beginning: build the business as a business. Repeatable processes. Systems that don’t depend on the owner. Sales as a trained discipline. Marketing as a function, not an afterthought.
Within two years, Mike won Owner of the Year in Canada — for individual sales management — receiving the award from Mr. Davis himself in Jacksonville, Florida, in front of 600 people.
He walked back to his table and told his wife:
“Just so you know, I will never win this again. Because if I do, I am a terrible manager and leader. I’m going to make sure our team starts winning these awards.”
That moment is the thesis. Everything since has been an expression of it.
What Followed
Mike’s office became the #1 Paul Davis office in Canada for roughly 12 consecutive years. Five different project managers from his team regularly ranked in the Paul Davis national top 10 across all of North America. He wasn’t chasing trophies — he was building people who won them, and watching the revenue follow.
After 20 years running the business, Mike sold it — to his own management team. His General Manager, Senior Project Manager, and Business Development Rep went in together and bought him out. At the time, it was the largest Paul Davis franchise transaction in North America. The business is still running today.
He tried retirement at 48. Played golf during the week with 70-year-olds because everyone his age was still working. Got tired of it fast.
The System Gets Bigger
A year after the sale, the Paul Davis franchisor called. There was a troubled location. Could Mike spend a week diagnosing it?
He said yes. One location became six — Vancouver, Halifax, and four more across Canada. That engagement led to a brand-new role: National Operations Manager for Paul Davis Canada, covering 60+ locations from Vancouver Island to Newfoundland.
What made him effective wasn’t just knowing the business. It’s that he’d been a franchisee. The network received him instead of resenting him. And traveling from location to location, he got to catalog something invaluable: the best practices that separated thriving operators from struggling ones — and the worst practices he watched repeat, over and over, across dozens of companies.
After five years in that role, the U.S. parent acquired the Canadian master franchisor. Mike worked for the combined entity for another two years, then was packaged out.
Former colleagues started calling for help. That organically became his consulting practice.
The Last 10 Years
Today, Mike estimates he has worked directly with 150+ restoration companies across Canada and the United States — independent operators, franchise groups, corporate offices, and everything in between. He also works with clients outside restoration: a florist, a masonry company, a printing firm. The framework transfers.
In 2023, Mike joined Floodlight Consulting Group as Fractional Operations Manager — bringing his diagnostic methodology inside a firm built for exactly this kind of embedded, high-stakes operational work.
His signature deliverable is the Profit Detective Report (PDR) — a forensic examination of where a business’s money is actually going versus where the owner thinks it’s going. The gap between those two numbers is almost always where the real work is.
Why He Still Does It
Mike McCabe doesn’t have to work. He has a clean exit behind him, a career’s worth of proof, and enough pattern recognition to retire comfortably on the speaking circuit.
He doesn’t because the problem still bothers him.
“People are suffering. It’s lonely at the top. A lot of people get into this business thinking they can do it better — but if they don’t understand it, it can be really traumatic.”
The thing he’s proudest of right now isn’t an award or a transaction. It’s clients who renew into year two and year three. Being sticky with the people he serves. Losing sleep over a business that isn’t his.
He has six kids, one grandson, a certified ski instructor’s card, and a lake nearby. He’s still working.
Work With Mike
Mike takes on a limited number of consulting engagements each year. He speaks at industry events. He works directly inside businesses — not drive-by consulting, embedded.
The first conversation is always free.
📞 519-404-5326 ✉️ mike.m@floodlightgrp.com 📅 calendly.com/profitdetective