Podcast Summary: Next Level Pros

Episode: The First 5 People Every Trades Business Must Hire

Host: Chris Lee
Date: December 5, 2025

Episode Overview

In this engaging episode of Next Level Pros, Chris Lee dives deep into the fundamental hires every home service and trades business must make to scale beyond the owner’s personal labor. Drawing from years of experience helping hundreds of business owners build scalable teams, Chris outlines a proven, repeatable hiring sequence, explains the math behind timing new hires, and offers practical advice on how to transition from running a job to building an enduring company.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Philosophy of Smart Hiring

• Hire based on math, not exhaustion:
  • Chris emphasizes the common trap business owners fall into: hiring as a reaction to burnout instead of making data-driven decisions.
  • Quote:

    "Most business owners hire because they're tired. Real business owners hire because the math says it's time." – Chris Lee [00:00]

2. The “Impact Audit” Foundation

• Importance of an “impact audit” before hiring:
  • Assess where your time is being drained and strategically offload low-value tasks.
  • Chris references resources (“Impact Audit” and “Impact Quadrant” videos) for listeners looking to do this groundwork.

3. The Five Essential Hires (in Order)

1. Admin or Executive Assistant

• Purpose: Offload all low-value, time-consuming admin tasks (emails, scheduling, billing, paperwork, ordering materials).
• Result: This frees up owner time for higher-value work to drive growth.
• Quote:

  "Their job is very simple. Take every single quadrant one activity, low energy, low value task off your plate." – Chris Lee [00:37]

• Tactical tip: Use your “impact audit” results to clearly write the job description.

2. Salesperson

• Purpose: Fully own generating new revenue, including outreach, follow-up, quoting, and closing.
• Result: Doubles selling capacity and transitions the owner out of direct sales.
• Quote:

  "If you're the only one that's bringing in revenue, you don't own a business, you own a job." – Chris Lee [01:52]

3. Operations/Fulfillment Lead

• Purpose: Ensure services/products are delivered as promised, overseeing crews, logistics, job quality, and customer experience.
• Result: Prevents the owner from being the bottleneck in fulfillment, enabling scalable and consistent results.

4. Marketing Specialist

• Purpose: Execute proven marketing strategies to bring in consistent, qualified leads.
• Insight: Don’t outsource your strategy—own it yourself, and delegate only the implementation.
• Quote:

  "Marketing is the oxygen of your business. It's what feeds sales. But you don't outsource your brain. You only outsource execution." – Chris Lee [02:55]

5. Manager

• Purpose: Drive accountability, uphold standards, manage processes, and lead teams.
• Vision: This is the hire that shifts your organization from a collection of people to a true business.
• Quote:

  "That's the difference between having people and leading an organization." – Chris Lee [03:38]

Smart Hiring: How To Know When You Can Afford It

The Financial Math Behind Every Hire

• Break down your monthly “nut” (fixed costs):

  • Includes rent, software, base salaries, vehicles, insurance, etc. [03:50]

• Calculate your gross margin per job:

  • Chris’s benchmark: 60% gross margin is healthy.
  • Example: If a $1,000 job costs $300 in materials and $100 labor, you net $600, or 60%. [04:06]

• Calculate your break-even point:

  • Divide total fixed (“nut”) costs by gross profit per job to get the number of jobs needed to break even.
  • Everything above this is profit.
  • Example: $6,000 nut divided by $600 gross per job = 10 jobs to break even. [04:53]

• Hiring Test: Can the business support the salary?

  • If profit above break-even covers the new hire’s salary (e.g., $2,000/month admin), the math says proceed.
  • Critical judgment: Does the hire unlock more revenue or efficiency? If so, green light. If not, wait. [05:25]
  • Quote:

    "Will that person either 1 free up your time to produce more or 2 directly increase production or efficiency themselves? If that's a yes, hire them." – Chris Lee [05:38]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On hiring from emotion vs. logic:

  "Most owners hire based strictly on emotion. They say, 'I'm drowning. I just need help.' The problem is when you hire out of a panic, you get relief but not results... Best owners hire from clarity." – Chris Lee [05:55]

• On scaling:

  "When you do this right, your business stops depending on your personal effort and starts running on structure." – Chris Lee [00:21]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 – Chris introduces the hiring philosophy and the importance of the “impact audit”
• 00:37–03:38 – The Five Key Hires, with rationale and role breakdowns
• 03:50–05:55 – The math behind timing your hires, calculating break-even, and running the “can I afford them?” test
• 05:55–end – Advice on hiring from clarity vs. emotion

Takeaways

• Strategic, sequence-based hiring is key to scaling a trades or service business.
• Use an “impact audit” to identify and offload the right tasks.
• Always hire based on clear financial and operational justification—never from burnout or panic.
• Every hire should either free the owner to create more value or boost efficiency directly.

Chris’s actionable framework helps trades business owners repeatedly scale their teams while maintaining standards and profitability—transitioning from self-employment to true business ownership.