#209 How to Scale Your Home Service Business from $3M to $100M | Leadership & Growth Strategies

Summary

Episode Summary: Scaling Your Home Service Business from $3M to $100M

Podcast: Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Hosts: John Wilson & Jack Carr
Episode: #209
Title: How to Scale Your Home Service Business from $3M to $100M | Leadership & Growth Strategies
Release Date: June 12, 2025

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Introduction: Ambitious Growth Goals

In this episode, hosts John Wilson and Jack Carr delve into the intricate strategies required to scale a home service business from $3 million to a staggering $100 million. They explore the evolving dynamics of leadership, team management, and operational efficiency essential for such exponential growth.

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The Evolution of Team Composition

As businesses expand, the composition of leadership teams undergoes significant transformations. John emphasizes the inevitability of changing team structures to accommodate growth.

John Wilson [00:00]: "The people that are on your bus now are probably not the people that are on your bus when you're much larger."

Jack adds that personal mental capacity can limit growth unless continuously developed.

Jack Carr [00:08]: "Us as individuals are capped by a mental horsepower that we innately have or we, at some point give up trying to increase."

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Leveraging the Power of Podcasting

One of the pivotal strategies John and Jack highlight is the use of their podcast as a tool for business acceleration. Hosting industry experts and conducting site visits have allowed them to gain invaluable insights and foster connections that would otherwise be inaccessible.

John Wilson [00:17]: "One of the biggest wins that we've had for our core business is having a podcast... that has helped accelerate Brandon, myself, and all of our leaders."

The podcast's expansion to include acquisition-focused episodes has garnered positive feedback, indicating a strong audience interest in growth strategies.

John Wilson [01:04]: "People are loving it... people are really vibing on the acquisition talk."

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Strategic Hiring and Leadership Development

A significant portion of the conversation centers around hiring the right individuals and developing leadership from within. John shares his experience of bringing Brandon on board as an Operations Manager, whose exceptional background and capabilities have been instrumental in their growth.

John Wilson [19:03]: "Brandon's story is incredible... he launched a landscaping company at 16... sold it to a competitor four times his size."

Jack underscores the importance of hiring young leaders who possess the "mental horsepower" to grow alongside the company.

Jack Carr [22:34]: "We're looking for somebody before they have that first job... someone who has the horsepower to learn and to grow."

The hosts discuss the challenges of training and retaining these leaders, emphasizing the need for structured leadership programs.

John Wilson [25:03]: "We now have a functioning leadership program for both current and future leaders... we've drawn two leaders out of that program already."

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Overcoming Operational Challenges

Transitioning from a hands-on management style to a more strategic leadership approach presents its own set of challenges. John candidly shares his struggles with adapting to a "background position" as the company scales.

John Wilson [08:33]: "We're in dial phase, not lever phase... It's a very, like, background position."

Jack relates by describing similar experiences, highlighting the universal nature of these growing pains among business owners.

Jack Carr [11:45]: "How to facilitate that person to be better?"

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Scaling HVAC Install Operations

A notable segment of the episode focuses on optimizing HVAC installation processes to increase productivity without proportionally increasing headcount. John discusses efforts to reduce installation times and implement cleanup crews to maintain quality.

John Wilson [34:16]: "We're trying to go from one to two... This will be a huge unlock for us."

By streamlining operations, the company aims to handle multiple installations per day, enhancing both revenue and employee earnings.

Jack Carr [34:21]: "They have the same type of job, like service plumbers, service H Vac... how do you scale it depending on which one you're going with."

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Managing Team Growth and Overhead

As the company approaches the $100 million milestone, managing the number of direct reports per manager becomes crucial. John shares insights into maintaining a manageable span of control to ensure operational efficiency and prevent managerial burnout.

John Wilson [39:58]: "Once you start trying to realize what it looks like at scale... it was the managers with 15 direct reports are the businesses that aren't growing."

They discuss the optimal number of direct reports, settling on a range of seven to eight to balance oversight and efficiency.

John Wilson [44:05]: "We're about to try to do eights because that feels good to me... once we cross like nine or ten, then we'll divide again."

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Building a Sustainable Leadership Pipeline

Developing a robust internal leadership pipeline ensures that as the company grows, it continues to have capable leaders who understand the company's culture and operational nuances. John emphasizes the importance of nurturing talent from within through programs like their Emerging Leaders initiative.

John Wilson [49:08]: "We're training like 20 people in the field on that right now... turning them into frontline leaders."

Jack concurs, noting that such initiatives bridge the gap between leadership and frontline operations, fostering a cohesive and motivated workforce.

Jack Carr [49:35]: "It closes the gap specifically for those individuals who makes them very good."

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Conclusion: Laying the Foundation for Massive Growth

John and Jack conclude by reiterating the significance of strategic leadership, operational excellence, and continuous development in scaling a home service business to $100 million and beyond. Their experiences underscore the necessity of adapting leadership structures, optimizing operations, and fostering a strong internal culture to sustain and drive exponential growth.

John Wilson [48:36]: "Setting the foundation for how we're going to funnel leadership... makes the next five years so much easier."

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For more insights and actionable strategies, visit www.ownedandoperated.com.

Transcript

[John]

We're trying to build $100 million business. Like, the people that are on your bus now are probably not the people that are on your bus when you're much larger.

[Jack]

Us as individuals are capped by a mental horsepower that we innately have or we, at some point give up trying to increase.

[John]

One of the biggest wins that we've had for our core business is having a podcast. We are able to connect with almost anybody that we want and do site visits. We can get the smartest people in the industry on this show and, like, ask them almost anything that we want. That has helped accelerate Brandon, myself, and all of our leaders, because we're able to be in the room with people that would normally we would not be in the room with.

[Jack]

Welcome back. Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I have missed saying that for the last couple weeks, to be honest with you. J Acquisitions, When I say welcome back to Jack Wisitions, it just doesn't have the same feel. I love it.

[John]

It doesn't. But, I mean, people are loving it, dude. People are loving it. We've gotten a lot of great comments. We've gotten a lot of great responses to the newsletter for J Acquisitions, and listens are great. So people are really vibing on the acquisition talk.

[Jack]

Yeah, it's good stuff. And I know I've said it before off, like, the main thing, but, like, Chris is getting super close to his, like, acquisition, like, actually closing on his deal.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack]

And I'm just like, why can't we just release all of them at once? Everyone can hear, like, this super incredible journey, but not what we came here to talk about today.

[John]

Yeah. Well, make sure. Everyone should just make sure they're listening, because we went from two podcasts a week to three, and our Friday episode is jackquisitions, where Jack is talking to acquisition entrepreneurs that are actively buying companies or just bought companies. And it's been a lot of fun. It's been. Yeah.

[Jack]

It's been a good time. It's a fun subject.

[John]

Yeah, no, it is sweet, man. People on my team. I actually got feedback from people on my team, and because this came up the other day, I never expect anyone to actually listen. I had a few people come up and they're like, you know, I really like Jack's Friday session, and I'm like. I'm like, first off, where's my positive praise?

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Secondly, yeah. But, yeah, people on the team thought it was really interesting, so I thought that was cool.

[Jack]

Yeah. Always fun. It's a. It's a fun time. Just answer the phone is one of those phrases that's always easier said than done. I know it was hard for me in my business because the phone phone always rings while you're out in the field trying to get something done or it's 8pm and you're trying to get your kids to bed. Well, I have the solution for you. I'm extremely excited today to announce quick staffers your go to solution for building a high performing, cost effective customer service team. We are placing CSRs who have been pre trained on proven home service SOPs and scripts, the same ones that Wilson and I use in our business. For a limited time, we're offering $500 off your initial placement costs for the first 10 signups. See link in the description below or head over to quickstaffers.com for more information. Sweet, man. We haven't talked in a while. How have you been?

[John]

Good. Good. We're mid May, end of May. What's the date?

[Jack]

Third week of May.

[John]

23Rd. Yeah, 23rd. I'm good. Like, good. Yeah, like Wilson's been kicking. April was really strong, which we were super excited about, like 55% growth and like strong earnings. May is strong. I don't think we'll hit budget last May. I'm curious what, what it's like where you are, but last May, it was like summer weather in May. So our revenue ramped really hard in May. I think we had a 50, 50% month over month growth from April to May last year in 2024. This year I think it's like 20 is what we're looking like maybe like 25. So it's good, but like it's 40 degrees outside right now and it's the end of May. Memorial day is 40. It's been like that all week and we're still selling 50 grand a day of H Vac. But you know, last year we were, it was just, it was already 80 degrees.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

So, yeah, like I'm in a sweater and it's the end of May.

[Jack]

I'm sweating down here, down in Nashville.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

But we did get a little cold spell. We've had two kind of weeks where we got two to three days above 85, which is our threshold kicker where like it really starts ramping. But yeah, this is going to be. There's, there's a chance that this May is better than our best month last year.

[John]

Nice.

[Jack]

So we have ramped really hard. We have scaled really hard. We bought three new vehicles. We hired two new all star technicians. We're ramping plumbing. We Started, you know, getting everything in line. We put on another three headcount for our call center. We. We had a VOCA on our background, so, like, we are capturing every lead possible, every aggregator possible. We're calling out immediately. Like, we have just, like. Yeah, streamlined everything, and we actually get to see it play out, which is the fun part. Like, it. It's actually. I. I'm. I'm at risk of becoming disconnected with our audience here. John, when I say this, I'm actually having some fun.

[John]

Okay.

[Jack]

This is the first time.

[John]

Yeah, you're definitely at risk. You're definitely at risk.

[Jack]

This is the first time in three years where I'm having some fun. It's cool. Like, we're getting to do branding activities, so we're spending a couple hundred bucks to sticker the trucks. We're not doing full wraps, but we're doing some really nice stuff with some stickers, like half wraps or quarter wraps, but really cool graphics. We got some new uniforms. Like, it feels good when you can spend money on new uniforms and not, like, hurt. Yeah, that's a. It's a good day.

[John]

Yeah. That sounds like you guys are winning.

[Jack]

Yeah, we're doing really well. The team is. Is doing amazing. Like, we're at a point where we're thinking about bringing on a second comfort Advisor. Like, it's okay. It's that, like, that's the area of we spent the money to get past 5 million, and now we have the extra that. It's like, hey, do you take it out of the business for yourself, or do you put it back in and grow? And so we were putting it all back in for growth. We're finally getting to do those, like, really small branding activities, like wrap trucks, which is crazy to think about, but everybody always says, you have to wrap your trucks. You have to have stickers on your trucks. We. We got to 5 million without them. Like, not a.

[John]

Like, were they white trucks?

[Jack]

They're just white trucks.

[John]

Oh, my God.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Yeah. That's funny. Yeah.

[Jack]

I mean, I think we had magnets on. On, like, two of them, but the magnets fall off once you go on the freeway.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

So we stopped doing that. But, like, I got some flack for.

[John]

This on Twitter couple weeks ago. I was like, hey, I. I don't think you need to do brand until, like, 6, 7 million. And people were like, well, you need to wrap your trucks. And. And, like, that was one of the responses. I'm like, I. I guess I don't know that you do. Like, we didn't Wrap our trucks. Like, wrap, wrap. Like we had our names decaled on it, but we didn't wrap our trucks until probably 5 or 6 million either.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah. So that, that was the conversation is like, hey, do we just sticker with one big sticker on the side and call it a day for 100 bucks a truck or do we like go up to the $400 a truck range, put the sticker, put it on the back, put some like cool swishy swishes on the side to make it look somewhat artistic. And we have enough in the bank to come back from winter because we didn't lose any of Q1. We were up 40% all of Q1, which allowed us to go into Q2 when we started actually making money to say, hey, we can actually spend some now. So it's been, I mean, like really implementing what we talk about on the show has finally paid off to a point where it feels good. That's all. Not to rub it into anybody, but.

[John]

No, I mean, I think that's great. We had a similar experience. Right now we're in this like, Jesse on my team said it best and I think he took it from somebody else too. So I'm not even sure who to give this credit to, but it's definitely not me. But we're in dial phase, not lever phase.

[Jack]

That's me.

[John]

Which is kind of interesting.

[Jack]

Jack, positions.

[John]

Was that you?

[Jack]

That was me, dude.

[John]

Okay, I get to give you credit. But like I, I saw from Jesse, Jesse talked about it on LinkedIn and I was like, that's a great quote.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Oh my God, that's funny.

[Jack]

That was my.

[John]

I'm quoting you, Jack.

[Jack]

That was. I know. That's the full circle. I didn't think this day would come. John, this is it.

[John]

We're here. But. But yeah, we're in this dials, not levers phase where like each team is pretty self sufficient. It's. Honestly, it's kind of an odd place for me to be and I'm having to like, you know, this is my, you know, I'm going to describe my career journey really quick. But the team is big now. And I remember talking to somebody maybe a couple of years ago and they said like, hey, between 160 and 200 people. It gets kind of weird because every single job, like anything that could happen inside a company, someone has that job now. So like me getting the mail, like that's someone's job. Me depositing checks, that someone's job, Me looking at numbers and making sure people are performing is someone's job now. And, like, including our remote, like, over offshore team, we're in the 170 to 180 range now of, like, total headcount. We have 152 in Ohio and then another 20 something remote. So, yeah, it's been kind of interesting because we're. We're starting to, like, the changes that are being made are the things that I'm not super great at doing. I have to get good at doing it. But my whole career so far has been these levers. Like, oh, I'm going to go do an acquisition. I'm going to go grab, you know, jump into this new market. We're going to go launch this new department. So, like, big moves. And now what we're doing is we're like, each team is dials. So our plumbing team is about to add a second service manager. So that's. That's different. Like, it's a step change, but it's not the same as launching plumbing. So we're just, like, getting a little bit better. And our H Vac is dividing into a couple teams, too. So we're adding new managers into each of these teams. So plumbing's getting a new service manager. Plumbing's also getting a new install manager. Because the teams have grown so much, we have to divide them now. H Vac is splitting off. We're bringing out a new H Vac sales manager, and we have another leadership position opening up, too. And it's all these, like, incremental changes and I'm having to get used to. It's a very, like, background position. I think just for the moment, I have to sit on my hands a lot because the, the company is just, like, progressing towards the next step. And, like, if I go and do a big thing right now, I'm going to actually end up damaging the momentum that we have. So if I went and did an acquisition right now, like, every day we get 1% better right now, which is amazing. And that compounds so fast and. And I'm, like, afraid of damaging that.

[Jack]

Yeah, that makes total sense.

[John]

So it's kind of an interesting spot.

[Jack]

Yeah, I mean, you. I think we. You feel it throughout the journey. Right? Just not to that extent, but you do feel pieces of it. I posted on Twitter the other day, and Stephanie Biles actually wrote a great thing in response. But the idea that right as you start your business, you're in the field and then you move to, like, the manager role where you're no longer in the field, and then you move to a Part where you're not even doing management anymore. Now you're doing background like HR and you're managing your managers and then you go to another level and then another level and it's, it's always a weird progression trying to find your role as an owner during those step changes.

[John]

100%.

[Jack]

So.

[John]

Yeah, and. Well, and the, the spot that I'm in now that I'm, I'm good with because we've gotten here gradually, I'm just having to like, it's a lot of sitting on my hands. And Andrew Wilkinson describes this as like operator energy. We're like, oh, I have this energy that I want to go like do something with because like we're, we're operators and I can't really go do something with it without like causing damage. But we're in the stage right now where our senior leaders are truly developing and building excellence inside each of their teams. And, and we're not quite at the stage where we're building out executives, but we're also not far off. A lot of our senior leaders are developing themselves and obviously we're providing a ton of resources and support and coaching, but they're becoming our platform leaders.

[Jack]

So I know we've kind of touched on this in the past, but I think it's an incredibly important thing to touch on. And I know it's a question that we get in the workshop and I get regularly. I have two people in my inbox right now from our workshops that are coming to Nashville to see our setup, but also want just to talk about it. And you, you kind of touched on it. Here is hiring your first like P and L leader. Right? We hired ours extremely early. Like I, I couldn't afford it. We took the risk. I took the hit personally to hire Tommy. If you're listening, man, you're the all, you're a rock star. I know Brandon is yours, but like your first right hand man who ends up growing with the company is on the bus in the right direction. Like what does that first hire look like? I think, and not for you because I think you had a kind of a unique situation but for other operators that you've seen.

[John]

I don't know that our situation was that unique. I mean, I think that, I mean maybe the thing that was unique was like we found the right person and he has stuck and that's my partner, Brandon. Whereas like, I think a lot of people, what, what's the, the something effect where like you grow to the stage.

[Jack]

Phrase where yeah, they, they get promoted to A point where you're.

[John]

Yeah, yeah. Peter Principal. Yeah, yeah. So, like, Peter Principle is very real and we've had to experience it a lot as the team has grown. Like, the people that are on your bus now are probably not the people that are on your bus when you're much larger, especially when you're in the, like, sub 10 range. That entire leadership team will change over maybe.

[Jack]

Right. Yours didn't specifically. Brandon. I'm sorry, I'm.

[John]

Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, specifically. Well, so we have. We have two leaders that have really gone for the ride, and one is Brandon and one is Ally. And Ali's our director I've heard about a few times. Fulfillment. Yeah. Yeah. She's awesome. She's been here for five years and she's like, she's the one of the best of us. And. But that is like, even having two that have gone over the $15 million hump is so uncommon.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Because, like, the bottleneck always is the leaders. Like, it's the leader, like me, you the owner, but it's also the leaders, like, who are the people, like, really driving. And I'm sure I've shared this with you on or off camera, but one of the biggest changes that's happening in my life over the past six, seven months is our leaders have gone from solving these, like, very surface level problems, like out tier one problems. So, like tier three, four problems. Like, they're driving, like, real P L changes. They're driving real business moving decisions.

[Jack]

Like.

[John]

Like service managers didn't start.

[Jack]

Yeah, right. Like, they. They were starting fixing tech issues. Like, the technician went out to a job. It was bad.

[John]

Right.

[Jack]

There's issues there. Or like, hey, we're missing calls. These are all tier one issues of how do we keep the business running from day to day. And then now they're at a spot where they're going through the same things we talked about.

[John]

Yeah, they're like, they're strategic.

[Jack]

What kind of strategic leadership position roles do we need to do for training and motivation and culture and hires and things like that? And so that. I think that's a big question that I keep coming back to is how did you. I mean, yes, it's a personality thing. Yes, it's a horsepower thing. They have to have the horsepower to get there and make those changes internally to them. I mean, maybe you got lucky in finding Brandon. Maybe it was, you know, just, hey, this is a good person. They understood the vision and that's why they're still here, which I think is probably part of it. But what, what, what choices did you make working with Brandon? Yeah, to train, help get him training and help get him to a point. And maybe the answer is none. Like, maybe Brandon is the all Star. But. But my, my curiosity is like, how do you facilitate that person to be. To be better?

[John]

Yeah, I would actually be really curious to hear what his perspective is on this too.

[Jack]

Yeah, we should talk to him.

[John]

Yeah, I think that'd be kind of interesting. But when we brought Brandon on. So I brought Brandon on originally as our ops manager back in late 2019, and the business was about $3 million. And what I was looking for at the time is we had just joined certain path and I needed someone that had implemented a business in a box type system. So, like very operational, very heads down. At the. At that time, I did not feel confident in my own operational chops. I even thought that I was like, bad at it. I've since learned that I'm not. I was just being lazy, I think. But I was looking for someone that like, really could like dive deep into that, which. That is not as much my strength. But so what. What I was looking for was, hey, who's implemented a franchise before, who has led a team before, who's been in blue collar before?

[Jack]

And.

[John]

And that was Brandon. So. And Brandon's story is incredible. Like, I think that obviously I'm a lot more outspoken to the industry than he is, but his story is incredible. Like, he launched a landscape. He's our second episode on this podcast if somebody wants to listen to it. But he launched a landscaping company at 16, ran it full time while in high school. Like great grades the whole time. He joined college, still ran that landscaping business while in college. He sold that business to a competitor that was four times his size. And he took over as operations manager of the competitor while still going to school full time. Like, he's a beast.

[Jack]

That's wild. Yeah.

[John]

When we hired him to run our three something million dollar company, he was 23 years old, like, and he came in as our ops leader and he killed it, obviously. Like there was a learning curve and we could talk about what that looked like. But he was, yeah, he was young. Like he's not even 30 now. And just a great part of the team. Just a great part of the team. But that's what I was looking for was like this very like, how do we implement change and how do we get ourselves into a business in the box type of model? Which certain path was that for us?

[Jack]

You know what I find to be a. And this is Kind of off topic. A weird secret sauce that I can't crack, but I know there's something to it is like, there is this because my. My ops manager, we brought him in the same reason. I was looking for somebody who had ops experience in H Vac. This person had ran, you know, service department for plumbing. Large. Large plumbing. Like the $100 million plumbing. $100 million companies with the large plumbing division moved into ops Manager ran a $7 million ops net Nextar ops program, left there for personal reasons, and then perfect timing. So all the same stuff, but, like, there's this weird secret sauce for these extremely successful people. And I think you fit in that category. I fit in that category. Brandon fits in that category. Tommy fits in that category. A lot of people that. Christian Ruff. The executive.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

Like ex military placement. Yeah.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

It's like. It's these young leaders who get put into situations when they're like, 22, 23, 24 years old, and they have to manage large teams of elderly gentlemen.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

It's. You know, so when you get put in a situation where you're 24, you have to manage a business or a P and L and there's someone above you that inevitably says, boy, I've been doing this longer than you've been alive. And you're like, yeah, but you're still not running the business, so there's something there.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

But the point being.

[John]

I think so. I mean, I. I think you learned humility.

[Jack]

Like, point being is like.

[John]

Yeah, you have to start really quickly.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

I was running. Yeah. You know, large maintenance programs at free delay at 24, with guys who were doing it longer than I've been alive, and they made sure to let me know that. But there's a. I think what happens is early on in that journey, like, there is a monkey on your back. Like, you have to do good, and you have to show.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

People, you know, what you're talking about. To earn respect of the individuals who are working for you.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

And so, like, that. That process of doing that, I think, drives this. This weird growth in a young man or woman.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack]

To. To become a strong leader. Interesting. I just like one of these, like, tiny pinpoints that I see, and I keep trying to look for that and find somebody who has that experience, because they tend to just do really well, from what I've. What I've seen.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah. We've. We've had a few hires, and I won't name them, but we've had a few hires that have had similar experience. We're in their early 20s. Like they went and did something that was interesting and they have always tended to outperform.

[Jack]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't know what it is. I just think that that as like a key metric in like finding someone good if you're looking for some talented individuals. My. What I'm trying to figure out is how to find that person before they have that first job. Because if you can implement a 23 year old who's going to be a rock star, they're generally high achievers. You have to. Yeah, but like how do you find that person before they get their first role?

[John]

See, I don't, I don't think so because what. And this is. I'm going to show my age as I answer this.

[Jack]

I looked in the mirror this morning. I had gray hairs in my beard.

[John]

Yeah. But early career, early career professionals I find very challenging to work with on average because they haven't yet done it, but they believe that they have done it. And that makes it hard. That makes it hard to like communicate and coach and mentor and build when. And like my brother's like this, I love him dearly. But like early stage professional and he still believes he's right about everything because he hasn't been wrong enough and told that in order to understand that, hey, we're all just learning and that's okay. And yeah. So I feel like you, they need that first experience, like Brandon needed that experience of running that landscaping company in order to learn enough to know what he's good at and what he's bad at. So that, that way he can just be really strong at what he's good at.

[Jack]

That makes sense. And then how, how much do you attribute like his growth personally to stay on? Because this is a big, big topic for me. Right. I want my person to stay with me and grow with the company until we are huge. What kind of. And I don't want him to hit that, that horsepower cap. Right. So what kind of trainings were you. Are, were you having him or was he soliciting you to do? Yeah, to make him a better leader and to make sure that he can go the distance.

[John]

Yeah, we've gotten a lot better at this over time. We now have like a functioning leadership program for both current and future leaders. So like, I know that that's a, like, that was hard earned. We've been working on that for a really long time. So now for our current leaders and potential leaders coming up and like their techs or people in administrative that want to figure out how to become a super or a manager one day. We have programs to facilitate that, which is cool. But for him, a lot of it was like, yeah, early on, we obviously did not have that. So it was a lot of, like, one on one. It was a lot of self development. We did facilitate, like, peer groups. We helped. Honestly, this like, one of the biggest wins, and I know that you're experiencing it too. One of the biggest wins that we've had for our core business is having a podcast. We are able to connect with almost anybody that we want and do site visits. We can get the smartest people in the industry on this show and, like, ask them almost anything that we want. And we're able to punch really far above our weight as far as, like, industry influence. So that has helped accelerate Brandon, myself, and all of our leaders because we're able to be in the room with people that would normally we would not be in the room with. Like, we had a site visit two weeks ago from someone who's now a good friend of ours, and he runs a $200 million plumbing H vac company. And like, he came and site visited us and spent a day and a half and he got a lot from us because he was trying to understand remote staffing. And we got a lot from him because we're trying to figure out how to scale our service teams, which he's already done. This then, like, that is a huge development for. For Brandon, for myself, for our other leaders. So the peer groups, the. I'm not trying to, like, talk our own sauce here, but, like, that really was a very big part of it was how do we get our team into the room with other people doing this? How do we facilitate site visits like our. It's May. And almost every exec, almost every senior leader in our business has done two or three site visits so far this year.

[Jack]

Interesting.

[John]

Like other companies, we've sent people to Vegas, we've sent people to Texas, we've sent people to Salt Lake, Chicago, Virginia. Like, we're sending them all over the place to continue to draw inspiration from people that are farther ahead than us. So site visits have been huge for us. Connecting with other people in the industry has been huge for us. We did join, like a COO alliance type thing for him. That was really good. Um, and I think our. I think that my continued push and my. Like, this is what I think I bring to the. To the partnership. Brandon brings a lot, and I think I bring like one or two things, but, like, I continue to push and be ever curious, and that gives him something to chase.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Because he has to continue developing in order to keep up.

[Jack]

I think you also brought. Right. A really strong EOS background, which is important. I don't know if he came with the EOS background as well.

[John]

We. We launched that together back in 2021.

[Jack]

Okay. Yeah. Because that's an interesting one that, you know, I think about a lot is really driving leadership through EOS and actively taking a participant role in setting that up, which we're. We're not very far away from having, like, a real program. But I really do like that that's a good idea. I should. I should get him to. To run a few of those. He'd like it because he's, you know.

[John]

H vac site visits are incredible. So I. I think something else that we. That we. We're just starting to notice now because the team is getting to be so good. But, like, Brandon, I would say I'm. I think he agrees, too. I'll. I'll check in with him. But, like, he's probably the best. Like, we're always.

[Jack]

We're.

[John]

We're always improving. Right. Like, our first core values betterment. Like, we are here to improve and win.

[Jack]

We stole that from me.

[John]

And. Yeah. It's good like it is. It's good like, it's. It's who we are at our core. And. But he really has stepped into his element, and I've seen it personally, like, his leadership style, his ability to drive change, his ability to coach and mentor his team. And I think, like, that's only happened in, like, the last six months, seven months at the level that he's currently at, which is, like, a totally, like, excellent level, which I'm super excited about. And that's only happened because the team that directs to him has gotten better themselves. So. Because he has a team of great leaders who are also developing in tandem just as fast as he is, but they're developing in their own discipline and learning more and getting better at their own role. He's able to now get better at his. Because I think two years ago, he and I were both just absolutely drowning, and it was because our leadership team at the time was very weak.

[Jack]

Yeah. I mean, that makes sense, right? You can only lead to the horse. I keep using the word horsepower, but I really like that because I do think that us as individuals are capped by a mental horsepower that we innately have or we at some point give up trying to increase.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

And I think that finding individuals that may. I mean, we hear it all the time that that may not be from the industry, but they have the horsepower to learn and to grow and to be part of the industry and they generally do so really fast.

[John]

Our last three senior leaders have been out of industry hires.

[Jack]

Exactly.

[John]

And we're cooking. FieldPulse is the all in one field management solution for growing home service companies. FieldPulse is designed to simplify your day to day operations by combining everything you need into one platform. It also includes integrations to help you save time like QuickBooks, desktop and online. It has a bunch of advanced tools and features like a CRM, estimates and invoicing, good, better best options, maintenance plans, a robust price book and scheduling dispatching. FieldPulse will transform the way that you manage your field teams altogether. It will save you time and find revenue that you didn't even know existed. Whether you're a small company that's looking to grow or a larger company Looking to optimize, FieldPulse has the tools that you need to do it. And don't just take our word for it. FieldPulse has earned over 580 glowing reviews with an average rating of 4.8 stars. That's Field EU LSE. Head to their website to learn more. Fieldpulse.com I think as we, as we all continue to grow, we get better and better. And I think I've gotten better at distributing resources to make sure that our leaders are not overwhelmed. Like we did not used to care about number of direct reports for our leaders because it's like we have to save overhead.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

But now I do care a lot about number of direct reports because if you have eight and you're a senior leader, like that's a lot. That's a lot of stuff. If I'm also expecting you to engage meaningfully in strategic decisions. Like if I want you to think about how do we make our sales process better or how do we improve our like time to delivery and fulfillment or how do we gain access to a new market in marketing. Like if I want to do anything remotely strategic, I have to care about the number of direct reports.

[Jack]

Yeah, no, that completely makes sense. Right. It's the same thing as we generalist to specialist to experts. Like that's the specialist to expert portion. Right. Speaking of of those two things, if anybody can connect us with. Do you remember that company I told you about? Woodland? No, Woodson up in Virginia or West Virginia? That does. I think it's Virginia. They are an H Vac company and they Have a really unique model for how they do fulfillment of H vac equipment installation and how they run all their guys in Mavericks for installing. And then they back they have another team that runs around in box trucks and delivers so that their installers a. They're running around in cheap trucks with everything they need. Right. They still do pack and pick but like they're able to just pull the equipment to the edge then put the new equipment in. That's all they have to do and then they're on to their next job. So they can do two to three installs a day. Could you imagine having a team that could do three installs a day?

[John]

Well, so yeah, my friend that was just out here a couple weeks ago, their teams are doing three a day.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

And I'm like what are you talking about?

[Jack]

That's.

[John]

And it's, it's really similar. It was. And we're actually about to do this. So we're. So our team is like actively starting to roll at least two a day out. But the idea is if you're flat rate, you can like if they make 800 bucks, if the crew makes 800 bucks for the first system, then the second system they would make 800 plus 250. So if they do two that day, like that crew just did two grand. Like they just made two grand. So the company that was out here a couple weeks ago, $200 million, they're doing three a day. So their crews are taking home $3,000 a day.

[Jack]

Yeah. Like talk about a huge win for an installer. That's huge.

[John]

It's a huge win. And the way they're strategically doing it is there's definitely a drop off system going on. And it is very like we're gonna slam this system in. And there's actually a cleanup crew that comes the next day called qa. It's like quality assurance and they come in and like tighten up the job. So they're going to top off refrigerant. They're going to make sure the thermostat works. They're going to like show the homeowner how to do this and this. So it's. So it's a pretty hands on. Pretty hands on.

[Jack]

Interesting.

[John]

The larger the companies we go to, they have like, like I'll go to 100 million dollar companies and they only have like 12 crews.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

It's just that those crews are doubling our output. So you know, we just got up to eight crews and now we're really working on. Okay, how do we, how do we Maximize this investment on these eight crews. Instead of just like piling on more crews, can we pile out more installs?

[Jack]

Because if you have like a cleanup crew or a drop off crew and you have technically like three to four people, like one of the hardest things on a packaging. You guys don't have many package units, but we got a ton of them. Yeah, like they're heavy. They're big and heavy.

[John]

Yes.

[Jack]

So like if you have four guys to man, manhandle that in like that, like it's quick. You. We can lift it out, put it in, no problem. And they're there for just like 30 minutes. Like that would, that would take two guys. Probably double to triple that time. Probably triple, yeah. Just because it just takes so much more work getting it from A to B where the install location is. So I mean that we're chasing this now.

[John]

I'll let you know how it goes. We're trying to go from one to two. We actually just brought on a new leader for H Vac install and we've gotten our time to install down a ton. So we're finishing full systems at like 2 o' clock, which is great. It used to be like 6 or 7. So they would work late because we had bad material ordering or bad staging or know, bad whatever. So we've, we've gotten a lot tighter at that, which is awesome. So we are just now trying to figure out, okay, how do we go from one to two systems?

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

And that is going to be a huge unlock for us. And we really want to like, we want to stay at eight crews because I feel like that's a, that's a good number for us. And that could be $20 million if we're able to run, you know, if we're able to run two installs a.

[Jack]

Day, which I mean goes along with everything else that you've been doing recently in the sense of. Right. Not increasing headcount but increasing productivity output.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. Yeah, our headcount, it was pretty interesting. Our headcount did not increase at all for basically 12 straight months. It was like 135. 135, 135. It's only in the past 60 days that our headcount has meaningfully increased. And it's all field.

[Jack]

He.

[John]

Like, I think we brought out one or two people administratively, but it's. It's pretty much been like 20 net new heads.

[Jack]

That's huge in the field. You said two months ago or like a month ago that your goal going through this summer Wasn't to do the pendulum of, like, hire a bunch in the summer because you're behind and then five after.

[John]

Or like, you mean administratively?

[Jack]

Yeah, like, that was one of your goals, I think we talked about in February.

[John]

It was one of our goals 100%. Yeah, we, like. We communicated with our team like, we're not hiring anybody administratively. We basically have not. We brought on a few people offshore that have helped support our existing teams. So we brought on some folks in the purchasing team, we brought on some folks in accounting, and we beefed up our install coordination team. But no in office hires. And we should be good. We don't see the need. And we're obviously ramping towards peak season.

[Jack]

That's so exciting. It's just. Yeah, it's just cool because I remember.

[John]

The conversation literally outgrew our overhead. We. We literally did outgrow our overhead. It is wild. Now we are about to, like, as I'm saying that we are about to add new managers in plumbing and H Vac. So that. That is. Those are net new leadership hires. But, you know, like, that's 20 grand a month, basically, or $25,000 a month. So I don't know. It. It's a 10% overhead increase. And we. But it should provide much more than 10% revenue. So. But. So those hires, we did end up moving on. Really the problem there was we didn't have a good model for, hey, Wendy, how many people do you have until you divide the team into. We just didn't really know how to think about that. And then we had two teams that crossed. We had two teams that crossed 10 direct reports each in the field. Plumbing is at 11. We actually have three teams. Plumbing services at 11, plumbing installs at, like, 17, and H vac services at 12. So we're like, all right, this is a lot. You know, these managers are starting to run out of bandwidth. Like, performance is suffering. Like, I think small business John would have just, like, held on. I am now trying to figure out how do I get to four service managers? So I'm not trying to overstretch my current ones. I have to keep building the flywheel of, like, okay, well, once you get to 10 directs on one manager, I'm going to peel off four and make a team of six and four and then build them both up to seven or eight. So that's how we're. That's how we're currently thinking about it.

[Jack]

That's interesting.

[John]

We're about to do that with two teams.

[Jack]

I think that's. That's a, that's a good metric to tell people because I don't know, I'm, I'm small business, John, at the moment where it's just like, ah, you didn't.

[John]

Have to do it. And, and the goal is to save overhead.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Whereas, like, my goal now is how do I get to 100 million, which if, like, we have room in the budget. So let's just like, smooth it out. Like, smooth is fast. Right. So how do we just smooth it out? How do we make sure our managers can go the distance and how do we, like, help train the next. How do we build, like, density inside these leadership positions?

[Jack]

Such a weird. You know, this is, this is such a cool topic. I, I know that I wouldn't have.

[John]

Gotten this two years ago.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, I just, it wouldn't have clicked.

[Jack]

It's, It's a really cool topic though, because I think that nobody gets it early on. Right. Everybody who, unless excluding, like the ETA folks who come from a large business and kind of understand this concept. I mean, 95% of the business owners in the home service spaces, like, they never thought they were going to have to deal with something like this. Like, your dad never had this conversation with anybody at any point in time.

[John]

Well, it was, it was honestly kind of weird because when we, when we realized what was happening, it made, it made total sense. Right? So we're like, okay, our managers, we have two managers that are feeling like very overwhelmed, like frontline leaders. And I'm like, like, why are you guys overwhelmed? Like, like, what's going on? And then I start diving into it and I'm like, oh, they have 11 direct reports. Well, okay, that, I mean, that's, that doesn't, that doesn't sound like crazy. I've heard people with 15 and you know, you sort of go through that mental gyration and then you start digging into it and you're like, okay, the people that have 15 direct reports are the businesses that aren't growing or they're optimizing for EBITDA, or they're optimizing for something differently than what I'm trying to do. We're trying to build $100 million business. That's what we're here to do every day. And if I have a man, like, eventually you have to do it right. That manager can't lead 40 service plumbers. Like, so, like, he just literally can't. And it's sort of like a nonsensical idea. Once you start trying to realize what it looks like at scale, if you continue to go down the path that you're going. So it was kind of funny because there's actually not that many people that I know and I know a lot of people in the industry now. I don't know that many people that have solved this problem. Because this is a $40 million problem.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

This is a problem that you have when you have teams that start to cross 10, 15 each. So there, there wasn't that many people that I could call and ask how many?

[Jack]

Just out of curiosity. I know this is super left field, but how many $50 million plus home service businesses are actually out there? Like you have a better grip on it than I do.

[John]

I really. Yeah. I really don't know. I mean, maybe like a lot of them are PE backed.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

As far as privately held, I know like two. I'm sure there's more, but I know two between 50 and 100.

[Jack]

Yeah. So it's such a, it's such a.

[John]

The other ones are all backed.

[Jack]

Yeah. It's just such an interesting kind of. Yeah, we talked about this when you were hiring your sales manager too. It's like how this is such a small.

[John]

Well, it gets even, it gets even more. It gets even more niche.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

Because it's a 40 million one location problem. Because you only have this problem if you're driving enough revenue in one singular location because it's team dependent. So then it's like, okay, my Rolodex of people that I can call and ask this question is kind of shrinking because how many people do I know that are going to have solved this problem that are doing 40 to 70 million in one location? Because if you're doing like if your main branch is 20 and you have a satellite for 10, you haven't solved this problem. Yeah, like geography made you have two managers, not scale. So yeah, I was able to, I was able to call like four people, Hoffman. And like they all gave me. Right. Yeah, they all gave me roughly the same answer, which is you divide the teams at seven to eight.

[Jack]

Okay, that's good.

[John]

I have a friend who, Yeah, I thought it was interesting. So I have a friend who's got 15 sales plumbers and he just hired his third service manager and then they're going to build a team under him. So they like that seven number. So for us our plan is I, I think we're going to try to do eights because that feels good to me. But like we're going to bring on a new plumbing service manager. We're going to divide it up into 6 and 4 or 6 and 5 or 7 and 4, something like that. And then we're going to grow the second team as rapidly as we can up to seven and then try to stick at that seven to eight. And then once we cross like nine each or 10 each, then we'll divide again into the next service manager.

[Jack]

I think you could do some fun things too from a cultural perspective, right. It becomes a like an internal competitive nature to the business of like this team versus that team.

[John]

Yeah, it should be good. We're going to try to divide it pretty. Pretty equal. There's a lot of people have a lot of thoughts on how to divide it. So this becomes like, okay, hey, if you have two managers and they're both leading plumbing or H Vac or electric or whatever, like the same type of job, like service plumbers, service H Vac, how do you divide them? Do you do it equally or is one like the remediation manager? Because that's, you know, I've talked to people that do both. Do they have the exact same job role or do they have slightly different job roles and why and how do you scale it depending on which one you're going with?

[Jack]

So how do you. It was an interesting batch. Like, it's an interesting move.

[John]

It's an interesting problem. It's an interesting problem.

[Jack]

So you could you geographically like even though you're one location, like, hey, anywhere south of Akron, anywhere north of Akron type of deal, or east or west.

[John]

That's a way to do it. That's what I don't. That's not what we're going to do. But you could do it that way.

[Jack]

Yeah, super fun. I mean, that's a cool problem.

[John]

It was a fun problem to sort of work through. We like where we landed, but it was a fun problem to work through.

[Jack]

Sweet. I love it. This is very helpful to me personally and I hope helpful to other people who are like still trying to make that first ops manager higher because it's huge.

[John]

Well, I think the way you should be thinking about this and not like, oh, how do I. How do like John having to divide his team as we're as 40 is within sight, like 40 is next year for us. So like obviously that's not a relatable problem. What is relatable is where we're drawing our new leaders from is internally. And that is the thing that everyone should be thinking about is once you have your ops manager, what's the next line look like? How am I training my service managers, my install managers to eventually become ops managers. And then one layer deeper, how are we training our leadership oriented field or administrative folks how to become frontline leaders so that they can eventually become ops leaders? And that is the stage that we've just gotten to. But like we could have done it earlier I think, but our next four managers are coming from our emerging leader program. Like we're developing them in house. They already understand the culture, they understand the business, they understand the players. And we're building our own leadership cohort internally. And I think that that is something that everyone should be taking is it's how do we always develop the next line of people that could become the next frontline leader or senior leader?

[Jack]

Yeah, I think though that happens.

[John]

You can do that at any size.

[Jack]

But I think that's a later on issue. Like when what I'm referring to is when people are looking for their first high level manager at 2 million. Right. You're not, you're not.

[John]

I mean that's probably an outside attack.

[Jack]

It's definitely.

[John]

Your service manager could be elevated.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[John]

You know, at that size we will.

[Jack]

So like that's our plan is we are, you know, that 5 million range and we will elevate one of our technicians into service manager here shortly.

[John]

Yeah.

[Jack]

With like one or two more hires, we're there. The ops manager moves out.

[John]

I think like the, the continued leadership development and how you think about throughout of that throughout the whole organization, like that has been our big win because we've, I think we've actually, I know it seems like we've grown fast. I think we've actually kind of like, I think we're not growing as fast as we could, but I think that the things that we're doing now of like setting the foundation for how we're going to funnel leadership like that makes the next five years so much easier. I was going to say we always have. Oh, totally.

[Jack]

So smooth. Because like you said, culture is one of the hardest things to learn. And so yeah, if they've already fit in the culture, they already understand revenue generation models. They already understand how you understand P.

[John]

And L. They understand how to have crucial conversations, they understand how to talk to their team. Like we're training like 20 people in the field on that right now in our emerging leaders program. So it's huge. And we're able to just draw from that, which we've already done. We've drawn two leaders out of that program already and we're about to draw two more in the next couple months to turn them into frontline leaders.

[Jack]

Yeah, I think that also solves like the what you have to do to make that work. It also solves the, the issue of the gap between leadership and Frontline. Right. There's a huge gap of understanding of what leadership actually does. And by opening up that P and L and by showing people what you're doing and having those conversations early on, it, it closes the gap for almost everybody. But as you grow it, it closes the gap specifically for those individuals who makes them very good.

[John]

Fits 100%.

[Jack]

I love it.

[John]

This was a great conversation.

[Jack]

Yeah man, it's good. It's good to be back. I feel good.

[John]

I was, I had a lot of.

[Jack]

Energy coming in today cuz I was excited.

[John]

Good to be back. Cool.

[Jack]

So sweet man.

[John]

Well, well if, if you love what you heard hit like make sure you subscribe and check out owned and operated.com for more.