You Don’t Need to 10x—You Need to Grow the Right 20%
Most service businesses grow themselves into a corner. The board’s full. The team’s moving. Revenue looks strong.
But margin hasn’t moved—and the founder’s still on call every weekend.
We’ve seen this across plumbing, HVAC, restoration, pest control, janitorial, and specialty trades. The logos change, but the pattern doesn’t.
The best operators don’t scale everything. They scale the 20% of work that is simple, profitable, and repeatable—and cut the rest.
That’s how you build enterprise value. Everything else is noise.
Fire 20% of Your Revenue
Some of the work you’re protecting is what’s holding you back. It fills the schedule but drags profit, burns crews, and creates operational friction.
It's harder to staff, harder to systemize, and harder to hand off.
And when you want to sell? Buyers discount complexity. Or they walk.
Run a Revenue Quality Audit:
Gross margin by service line
Revenue per tech hour
Crew type required
Time on site vs. billed revenue
Payment terms / AR aging
Rework or callback rate
Example: One restoration operator we worked with cut $900K of low-margin jobs and replaced it with $600K in recurring, high-margin commercial work. Fewer trucks. Higher EBITDA. Less chaos.
Field Profitability > P&L Margins
Most founders manage off monthly financials. But real profitability is determined by the schedule, not the spreadsheet.
If you’re not tracking job-level margin weekly, you’re flying blind. That’s where the real erosion happens—drive time, crew mismatch, long jobs, poor quoting.
Track Field-Level Profitability Weekly:
Revenue per truck per day
Gross margin per crew
Planned vs. actual job time
Return visits or warranty work
Route density or service area sprawl
Manage from the field up—not the office down. That’s how operators build real leverage.
Systemize First. Then Scale.
Good growth is boring. It’s one high-margin service, systemized to the point of predictability, then scaled with discipline.
Too many founders expand before they stabilize. They chase new service lines before mastering their core.
Systemization Checklist:
3-step sales process for your top service
Documented field SOPs
Weekly job-level margin tracking
Staffing model aligned to job mix
Lead flow mapped to crew capacity
When buyers underwrite your business, they care about repeatability. Not how big it could get—but how well it runs without you.
Final Thought
You don’t need to triple revenue.
You need to eliminate noise and scale the part of the business that drives margin, reduces dependency, and creates transferable value.
We’ve helped operators walk away from millions in revenue—and walk into a business that runs smoother, throws off more cash, and sells for more.
That’s what real growth looks like.
Considering a Sale—Now or Years From Now?
The best outcomes start years before a transaction. That’s when the real value is built.
We work with operators looking to scale intelligently, reduce dependency, and create buyer-ready businesses—long before there’s a process.
If you’re thinking 1–3 years ahead, we should talk.