How to Scale Beyond Yourself and Build a Real Company

Summary

Podcast Summary: "How to Scale Beyond Yourself and Build a Real Company"

Owned and Operated – A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Hosts: John Wilson & Jack Carr
Date: November 13, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on a key inflection point for home service business owners: how to scale beyond merely being an owner-operator into leading a “real company.” John Wilson and Jack Carr explore what it means to transition out of the business's day-to-day technical and operational grind, how to build a true leadership structure, and the nuances of hiring, delegation, and growth at critical company sizes. The conversation is candid, actionable, and peppered with personal anecdotes from both hosts as they recount their own learning curves.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Owner-to-Operator: Hitting Your Bottleneck

• Identifying the Bottleneck
  • Owners start by filling every role themselves but hit a limit (“bottleneck”) when managing too many direct reports or roles becomes unsustainable (04:54).
    • “You’re at a bottleneck when you hit max number of direct reports and maybe that’s like 10.” – John (05:04)
  • Common trigger point: 3 technicians plus one office staff, when the owner can’t be both in-truck and handling admin.

2. The Progression from Tech to Manager to Owner

• Typical Pathways
  • Many new owners graduate from being a star technician to entrepreneur. This requires mindset shift—ownership is “trickier” than being a tech. (03:03)
  • “There’s more to overcome… My goal was to have the business be saleable… I always wanted to never be useful to the business.” – John, on building transferable value (03:26)

3. Delegation and Leadership Structures

• First Major Offload: Service Manager

  • Introducing a layer between owner and frontline staff is critical: typically hiring or promoting a service manager or similar.
  • “At that swap point is the first step where you have to put a layer in between you and the frontline.” – Jack (07:22)

• Promoting vs. Hiring Leaders

  • Promoting internally can make sense if a leadership development program exists, but realistically with small teams, external hires are often more effective, especially in the early stages (16:28–18:47).

4. What Makes a Good Manager? Technical Talent vs. Coaching & Sales

• Evolution of Qualities Prioritized

  • John: initially over-valued technical expertise, later realized coaching/sales mindset is typically more important for scalable growth. Balance is best, but someone in the company must still provide deep technical knowledge (10:24–13:11).
  • “The most ideal candidate is someone that has the technical capability as well as the coaching and sales mindset.” – John (15:34)
  • If a service manager lacks technical depth, supplement with a “field super”—a senior tech who provides that support (11:41).

• Memorable Nuanced Take

  • “If you have a technical expert filling a service manager seat... and he couldn’t give a [damn] about sales at all. Your business is not going to grow.” – John (14:30)

5. Delegation Challenges: When and What to Delegate

• Difficult Areas to Let Go

  • Jack regrets not delegating marketing and recruiting sooner—both roles sapped his time and stunted growth (26:00).
  • “Recruiting should have been done at 3 million... to make sure... we have backups.” – Jack (27:10)
  • Trusting in marketing efforts enough to hire more techs, and not letting “worrying” cap the business.

• Timing of Key Hires

  • Marketing Director wasn’t added until ~$13M in revenue, but both agree support in marketing is valuable sooner than most realize (28:40).

6. Accountability as Layers Are Added

• Implementing Accountability Frameworks

  • Use of EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) and structured meetings/L10s to drive and measure accountability (19:54–20:39).
  • “Holding leaders accountable is way more nuanced than techs… With a tech… it's black and white…With leaders, it’s more complicated.” – John (21:25)

• Assessing Leadership Performance

  • Sometimes, even when things look healthy (e.g., high growth but high turnover), deeper problems exist. Owners must ask: does it “feel hard”? Are issues persistent around a manager? (24:19)
  • “It actually is pretty much always the manager… there’s always reasons… but at the end of the day, the leaders of our team... are here to drive the business forward for all stakeholders.” – John (24:01)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Self-Sufficiency and Transferability

  • “I always wanted to never be useful to the business, because if the business was going to be sellable, I had to be useless…”
    – John (03:26)

• On the Role of Coaching

  • “Are you a coach? Will you naturally just help people? Can you explain concepts simply without sounding demeaning?”
    – John (08:43)

• About Promotion Vs. External Hires

  • “Early on, you’re scrambling to get a tech in the door…there’s no promotion opportunities when you have three technicians.”
    – Jack (16:40)

• On Accountability

  • “[With leaders] there’s always more going on...If it feels hard, probably [means] the wrong person…”
    – John (24:47)

• On Scaling Priorities

  • “Leads and sales, like that’s all that this really is…without either of those the business fully stops.”
    – John (29:54)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment Summary | |:-------------:|:------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:09 | Introduction of today’s main theme: going from owner to operator, “scaling beyond yourself”| | 04:54 | Identifying bottlenecks: direct reports as a growth ceiling | | 07:22 | The moment to offload operator duties via first major hire (service manager) | | 08:09 | Qualities that made early service hires work (coaching vs. technical) | | 10:24 | Technical expertise vs. coaching mindset debate | | 14:30 | Dangers of having only technical expertise in management roles | | 16:28 | Promoting from within vs. hiring externally – when each approach works | | 19:54 | Implementing accountability frameworks as leadership layers multiply (EOS examples) | | 21:25 | Nuanced differences between managing techs and managing managers | | 26:00 | Jack’s regrets: not delegating marketing/recruiting sooner | | 28:40 | Hiring a marketing director (timing vs. revenue size) | | 29:54 | Scaling priorities: sales and recruitment as keys |

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Scaling is about consciously building layers: The transition from owner-operator demands recognizing your own limits, delegating key functions, and developing a true leadership team.
• You need BOTH technical and sales/coach mindsets in your org chart: But these don’t have to exist in the same person or position if that unicorn isn’t available.
• Accountability becomes more nuanced as you grow: Implement structured systems early, but be prepared to “tune the knobs” as teams and leaders require more sophisticated management.
• Delegate earlier than feels comfortable: Especially in marketing and recruiting, the seemingly “overhead” hires soon pay for themselves by freeing leadership to focus on growth.

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Final Thoughts

With candid stories and practical frameworks, John and Jack give home service business owners a real-world roadmap for scaling beyond being indispensable to their own company. Their nuanced discussions and willingness to admit mistakes make this essential listening for any owner eyeing their next phase of growth.

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For more actionable content, visit Owned and Operated.

Transcript

[A]

Today we're doing a little bit of a topic on from owner to operator. A big part of that is delegation.

[B]

Yeah, super interesting.

[A]

What we really started emphasizing was like, are you a coach?

[B]

Do you feel that finding that coach is even more important than the technical and revenue generation side?

[A]

Like you would want someone that understands how to drive numbers, understands how to create coaching plans because that's ultimately what's going to grow the business. The most ideal candidate, if you can find them, is someone that has the technical capability as well as the coaching and sales mindset.

[B]

It takes a long time to find the right group. It takes a long time to train the group. Straight from somebody going through it right now. Guys.

[A]

Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host John Wilson. I'm here with my co host Jack Carr. Welcome back to the show.

[B]

Welcome back. I'm back on Owned and Operated. I'm pumped, I'm excited. It's been a day.

[A]

You're like a, you're like a guest now. You're like so infrequent. You're just.

[B]

Honestly, someone or. No, it was. I asked, I asked Grok to again, I know this is off topic, but real fast. I asked Rock to roast Owned and Operated and it said the co host Jack and I was like, yes, I'm still a co host, unknown and operator.

[A]

Let's go.

[B]

Let's go. Has a laugh like a broken blender.

[A]

That's not bad. That's not bad.

[B]

The last time, super self conscious about my laugh on the show.

[A]

Yeah, we had Brandon roasted me once with Chat gbt and it was, I'm gonna, I'm gonna mess this up. But it was something like John Wilson, comma nepo, baby, like bought his family's company or something like that and then spent the next decade reminding you of it. It was like, it was, it was pretty brutal. Yeah, it was good though. It was good. He like printed it and hung it on my wall.

[B]

That's funny. Yeah. So now I'm super self conscious of my laugh. Thank you, Chat GPT. Love you. Or Grok specifically. Not chatgpt.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But what, what is the topic today, John?

[A]

Yeah, so today, today we're doing a little bit of a topic on from owner to operator. Scaling beyond yourself. I think there's some layers here which are kind of fun. I think that most of it's going to be like, how have you, like you're at a bottleneck as an owner and that's why I think there's layers, like there's. We talk About. We've talked about this topic a lot. But like, hey, you're at this current bottleneck. Like, I'm in a bottleneck right now. And you know, how do you get past it? How do you think about it? Who do you engage?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's what? I think the big question for a lot of people, like, getting out of the first spot is one of the hardest because unless you bought your business, like me, a lot of people, they graduate their business, right? They become a really good service tech and then they move into, hey, I want to be an owner. But ownership, I think that's trickier. Be honest. That's a lot different. It's a lot different.

[A]

I think, I think that's trickier when like you're. Because there's more to overcome. I remember a decade ago, this is back to Chat GPT. So I mean, maybe it's remind me, but I, I remember a decade ago and like I was a plumber from 18 to 24, 25 and I, I stepped into the, like, I bought the business and I did. Yes, Chat GPT is right. And yeah, it's good. Once you hear it, you can't unear it. So I, I bought the business. But I, I remember so distinctly at the time, my goal was to have the business be saleable by the age, by the time I was 30. So I was 25 and I said, okay, in five years, I, I don't know that I want to sell the business. I just want to be able to sell the business so, like, make it valuable. And we did that, which was awesome. And the mindset that I had going into that was I always wanted to never be useful to the business because if the business was going to be sellable, I had to be useless because if, you know, at this, at that size, the owner had to be sort of like irrelevant. So that's the framework I took for like the first five years of my career. And I think it helped quite a bit.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, ironically, I say, I talk about how buying. I bought the business business and that made me outs, you know, not do this. But realistically, I bought so small and then everybody quit.

[A]

So like, yeah, you were a tech.

[B]

You know, I did go tech, but I think like the place to start on this is what is the first step? Like what size? And then do you think. And then I'll go with what size we actually did. Like, what, what size is the first step to offloading a significant portion of your operator duties?

[A]

Are you still running your business on pen and paper or a clunky software. FieldPulse is the top rated field service platform that saves you five to 10 hours a week. It syncs with QuickBooks and it puts scheduling, invoicing, and more all in one place. FieldPulse users grow 78% a year on average. Book your demo today using the link in the Description and get 15% off an annual plan. FieldPulse, a field service management software for those who need more. Yeah, I'll say the first size. I also think like it's number of direct reports almost always. So I think you're at a bottleneck when you hit max number of direct reports and maybe that's like 10. But if you're at 10 direct reports, like you got to figure something out and that it could be 10 direct reports as like a two or three million dollars organization where all the text report to you. Maybe a manager, field super dispatcher, call center. Like that's 10 direct reports. Like you're at a bottleneck. That's too many people and too much brain switching where like later on you could maybe do that. You could do 15, like just plumbers because you're managing the same thing. But if you're brain switching from service to sales, to install, to booking the call, to dispatching properly, like that's a lot. So yeah, I, I think most people that I've talked to over the years, they feel it at like three technicians and one person in the office is when they feel the first big like, okay, I can't be in the truck anymore. Like there's enough going on administratively or like I need to be a service manager that I have to, you know, take a different role.

[B]

That's interesting. Yeah, no, I actually fully agree that, that we did it a step earlier than that. We, I think we had two in one or two and a csr. But that's, that's right around the time because right as you kind of graduate through, I think that the general progression usually becomes or what we see in the acquisition side is it starts with technician to technicians and managing, you know, maybe a tech helper, etc. And then as you get two to three techs, you move into more of a sales role. Like a comfort advisor. Yeah, that's where we differed is like we, we hired a comfort advisor because I at the time didn't understand sales the way I do today. But the point is, is like, yeah, you can do sales and service manager. It's really hard to do sales, service manager and technician. And so like at that swap point Is the first step where you have to put a layer in between you and the front line. I mean, we've talked a bunch about like now going further all the way to like 10 million and 20 million and 40 million where you're at in the changes. But on those, those first hires, like the first service hire, what, what are some of the keys that made it work so well for you early on? Like what?

[A]

Like service manager.

[B]

Yeah. Because right at the time, A, it's a new position, so yeah. B, you probably don't know what it's like managing a manager. And C, there's zero systems in place, there's no SOPs, there's probably no KPIs. You might not even have a good CRM. So like, for, for you personally, how did that work early on in making it function properly?

[A]

Yeah, we kind of cheated too. So like I was the direct manager and then I bought a business that had managers and we made them the managers now and we merged together. So I think I learned a lot. I think what I thought was going to be a good manager at the time wasn't. So we were really emphasizing like trade knowledge at that point. Like, hey, we really need someone who knows the trade and obviously you do, but you know, the trade is one of many parts of our day to day. Like, yes, what we do is like the actual mechanics of our work is really important, but so is marketing and so is sales and so is training. Later on, what we really started emphasizing was, was like coach. Are you a coach? Will you naturally just help people? Can you explain concepts simply without sounding demeaning? So when we've started to identify that in talent now we start flagging them for our leadership development program. Hey, this person, like people call him for help and so people are comfortable, they, they look up to him or her and then they coach. And it's not like, you know, sort of this diminishing. Oh, you don't know how to do that. It's a very like, yeah, let's like figure this out together so that way you can, you know, continue to grow so that that's what we've seen our best frontline leaders be. But I mean, I didn't know that a decade ago. Yeah.

[B]

Do, do you think though that there is a time and a place where that technical knowledge is actually more important than coach? So as you round out that fourth service technician. Right. Is it, are you looking for, like, for, for to make this applicable for people out there who are rounding this corner? Like, is it better to get somebody in place who's technically apt as well as understands the sales cycle and who can understand the revenue generation portion of a business and then worry about the coach later on? Or do you feel that finding that coach is even more important than the technical and revenue generation side?

[A]

I. I think it's a nuanced question.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I, at different points of my life I would have given different answers. I remember optimizing heavily for non trade so like not experienced and I remember going the opposite and optimizing for like only trade. And that's almost the only thing I cared about. Oh, you've service led a plumbing company before. Like you're perfect. Yeah. I think where I've landed now is like someone in the organization needs to know what the hell you're doing and it, it doesn't need to be you as the owner. It doesn't need to be the service manager, doesn't need to be a super. It just someone has to understand the mechanical of what you're doing and maybe that's like a field super as a tech, maybe that's a frontline leader, maybe that's the install manager. But someone has to be the technical expert. It's just. It doesn't have to be the service manager.

[B]

That's fair. Yeah. My, my only worrying caveat to that is if you are the technical lead you're still going to get the technical phone calls. So it is extremely difficult to be the technical lead while also being the marketing and the QC person and the this person. So it's just an extra hat to put on. Um, and so that's what I've seen.

[A]

People do to be successful is they do field supers. So like their senior tech becomes a field super. Yeah, it's still a working in the field position. And then their service manager or sales manager or whatever is like they're only focused on service sales. Like they're focused on like the measurement of a good service manager is average take 8 and closing rate. Like that's it. It's not how many. It's not. There's no trade specific. Like we did a good job installing that toilet. It's average ticket and conversion rate kind of period. So now callbacks it shows up for install or fulfillment. But that to us that doesn't land inside sales management. So yeah so have either a field super or like the way that we do it is our head of departments like our, our director level team is non trade specific. Like hey this person built a sales team to $300 million of revenue. This person can wrangle 50 installers every day. But like has never touched a tool and, but then the front line is coach plus a little bit more trade specific.

[B]

Do you then. And correct me if I'm wrong, are you saying then that at that point it's better to optimize that service manager role or that role, that first graduation role to be revenue generation KPI specific. Like that's that person's job.

[A]

Yeah. Spectrum of 1 to 10. Like one being like I don't care about performance at all, but I'm the most technical expert thing ever to like, all I care about is sales and I couldn't, I don't know what a furnace is. Like, I think you'd probably want a 6, maybe a 7. Like you'd want someone that understands how to drive numbers, understands how to create coaching plans because that's ultimately what's going to grow the business so that you can, you know, you just don't want to get sued along the way because you did bad work.

[B]

Yeah. Super interesting though. I mean because I think that, that, I don't want to say it ventures off on traditional advice, but I do think that that's an interesting push. Is that you're the focus at the four technician mark and the supervisor mark, is that. Yeah, the technicians are actually generating. And I do, I do agree with you though. Like, I think that that is probably the right call because around that fourth technician mark. Right. You are at, give or take 2 million, maybe a little bit less. 1.5. Like it's a really hard area to gain brand recognition and to grow and to get your technicians to start actually driving revenue in the way they should.

[A]

Yeah, we have to drive some revenue. Like we, we have to grow the business. And what I see owners struggle with at that size is they have like technical experts that are great. Like you need technical experts. I'm not saying you don't. I just think like pick which seat that they fill. Because if you have a, if you have a technical expert filling like a service manager seat and he's like over here on the one scale, he couldn't give a about sales at all. Your business is not going to grow. Like just period. Like they have to be geared towards growth of some type.

[B]

Yeah. Because I mean at that point you need. The person who's managing those four technicians needs to start watching. Hey, what are the questions that you're asking? What are your offerings? What your estimates look like? Are you selling these? Where's the training? So I, I actually agree with that because that's the graduation point where you're stopped. You stop showing up and just installing the capacitor and you start actually doing full system valuations and. And working on what that looks like for your specific business. Like, how do we look at the system holistically and grow the company by offering a better offering to the customer. Interesting.

[A]

Now the. The most ideal candidate, if you can find them, is someone that is. Has the technical capability as well as the coaching and sales mindset.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's usually who we place. So. But it takes a lot of work to get there and we also train it. So one of my.

[B]

Nice, John. It's nice when you have like a $40 million company and you can attract that talent. But I mean, like, from a realistic standpoint, I find it very difficult. I mean, I was talking to Dustin Marks the other day on acquisitions and like, I was blown away that he found someone right out of the gate that, you know, he bought the business of a technical expert who was also willing to work on sales techniques. But like, that is such a rarity, I think, in the industry is that people understand both sides of it and want that role.

[A]

Yeah, no, I agree. It's. It's hard. When do you. How do you think about like hiring versus promoting internally?

[B]

Well, if we're still talking about the step one. Are we talking about kind of just in general?

[A]

I think. Yeah, the same thing. The sort of like building leaders and you know, going from owner to operator. I think a big part of that is delegation.

[B]

I mean, zero to four texts in H Vac. Right. Not even across the entire company. But that was last year for us. So it's super fresh in our mind. I'm more focused on some. On training technicians to be technical and do our sales technique versus hiring them through into the next level just because we don't have the capacity. Like that's such. It grows into be such a big business at some point that makes sense later on. But early on you're scrambling to get a tech in the door thinking about like, hey, how do I train them to promote them? Like, there's no promotion opportunities when you have three technicians. Yeah. And the, the most likely, again, this is a huge generality which I'd love to be proven wrong on. When you have three technicians and you're doing $1 million a year in sales, it is really, really hard to get those technicians to be all stars, amazing people. It takes a long time to find the right group. It takes the right long time to train the group to move one of them Into a service I think would take equally as long to get them to stop focusing on hey this is what I need to do and move them into that. That being said, I think that we're at that step rounding five like that's our next item is like leads and service managers. As we hit six technicians we are actively thinking about internal promotion and how to train that and what does that look like. So I think that's a step two game, not a step one. Like we talked about this before, like out of organization is probably the better hire for this role. I could be wrong. I that's my belief.

[A]

I think it depends. I think I like who's on the bench and do you have a program. Like if there's no program to turn people which I know in your case there is not. So this isn't like critique. It's more like if, if it's the, if there's a program to turn people into leaders, then internal makes a ton of sense.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If there's not, then it's definitely more complicated.

[B]

Also like if that's your skill set, is building that program explicit, what is it? Expletive run it. Like if you're a really good trainer and you know how to build SOPs and programs like an all star, do it like that's, that's an, that's a game changer for your business. If you can install that early. Me, I'm an ops guy. Like it's not day to day ops and optimization, HR training, things like that. Definitely not up my, my alley. My, I'm still, still working on my people side of the business.

[A]

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[B]

That's a hard one. That again, I think that's one of those things that is really even. Today is something that's nuanced for us. We've just implemented eos. I think we could have done it sooner like realistically eos, like, how.

[A]

Just how, how recently?

[B]

Like, within the last three months. And it's not even fully us. Like, we don't have a facilitator or anything, but it's, hey, we are going to start doing L10s and we're going to start coming up with rocks and we're going to start doing this. So, like, from an accountability standpoint, I.

[A]

Feel like you're at the right time. Like, you could have done it sooner, but, like, I think anytime you're adding like a process like that, like, there's too soon and there's too late and, you know, I think you're fine.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just mean, like, for my personal growth as a leader, like, I expected a lot of things to happen without driving directions that were, that were clean and measurable and et cetera, et cetera. So, like, realistically, at the end of the day, we're sitting at a spot where I think it's good now, but to drive accountability is like it is again. It's making sure that you're providing goals and.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That are reachable and holding people accountable to those goals on the whole, at every level, whether that's you running a system or you're just doing it in Excel spreadsheets. So.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, that's a good question, though, because that's a hard one, especially.

[A]

It's tough. Well, it. What? Holding leaders accountable is, like, way more nuanced than texts. One, because, like, leaders, you learn to trust them. You rely on them. There's like, it's, there's. There's like a. For me, anyways, like, I work directly with our leaders every day. I get to interface with our text all the time, which is awesome. But, like, I primarily work with like six people, so, yeah, there's just more going on there. And it's also a little bit more nuanced, like with a tech, with a, like a direct performer. It's like, hey, your booking rate was bad. Your number of phone pickups was that, like, it's a fairly black and white, like, conversion rate was bad. Average. Sick. It was bad. It's just not that complicated with leaders. It's is. It is more complicated.

[B]

Yeah. No, you've hit the nail on the head. And that was a very hard thing for me to overcome. Actually, recently. Really recently, it's like, even though the health of the business is good too, like, it's not necessarily an indication of somebody doing well, even if that's that person's direct outcome. Like, once you get to a size where other people can actually facilitate the change and the drive necessary. It doesn't mean that the win is coming from the leader himself. So it makes it even harder to come up with kind of direct, general, measurable KPIs. Like, it's. It's a hard thing. Like, what do you KPI leader on turnover rate of technicians? Like, is that the leader's fault or is that the owner's fault if the pay is not good? Right. There's. There's just like so much, it's so nuanced. But I think that the goal is to at least try. Like, there has to be something somewhere that you're working towards that's understandable. And then the cool part is, if you're doing that, then when you start running into these things where it's like, hey, are you really driving change and wins in this business? You can change what your current system versus having to go, I don't know, let me make a system right now to figure it out. Yeah, you just tweak. You tweak, you. You pull, in the words of an old jack, you turn the knob instead of pull the lever. You can just dial it.

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's complicated. So I think the biggest thing that we've taken away, there's a quote for this. I'm stealing this from somebody, but it's the man, not the land. So I think it's from farming. Right. So what we found is anytime something feels weird inside a department or like performance is bad or techs are leaving, like, it actually is pretty much always the manager. And there's always, what makes it hard is there's always reasons. There's always like, oh, that guy was whatever, and this guy was whatever. But, like, at the end of the day, the way I think about this is the. The leaders of our team, like, are representative of me and are here to, like, drive the business forward in a positive direction for all stakeholders, employees, customers, me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And sometimes people are bad at that, and sometimes people are great at that, and when they're bad at it, it can be tricky to tell. But I think you just have to look at all of the things happening around that department. Like, hey, are. Are a bunch of people leaving? Is performance down with no real explanation? Is there a plan to improve performance? Are you having to push? Like, does it feel. How hard does that department feel? And if it feels like hard, probably the wrong person.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, the way that it makes it even harder, though, is there's plenty of instances where technician turnover is High. But your recruiter, right. You have a full time recruiter at your business who's doing a freaking fantabulous job and who's driving good technicians back into the business. But your turnover is still high. And so the department's actually doing well. Right. The, the. That business unit might be actually growing and succeeding and yeah, it feels hard. So that's maybe a good indicator. But like how is that measurable? And so that's what I always come back to is, is.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, there's certain instances where we've ran into it a few times now where it's a situation like that where turnover's high but the business is growing and doing well. Is it growing as much as it probably should? No. But where is that? You know, where's that indicator? And I think that the hard part is like the indicators are all there. They just. You have to trust them versus the one final indicator which is growth. This growth is not the end all be all from.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Straight from somebody going through it right now, guys. So if you're smaller, it's very applicable.

[A]

What, what's, what's one thing that you wish you would have delegated earlier?

[B]

I'll tell you actually right now I'm going through it is. I. We should already, and you might disagree with me, but we should already have somebody in marketing assisting with marketing measures. Not necessarily running marketing, but at least coordinating marketing measures earlier on than what we are doing right now. It's become a, you know, the, the intricacies and the busy work is much more difficult for me at this moment. As somebody who owns marketing, it's gotten to a point where it eats up the majority of my time and it's worth it. Right. It's valuable. But I do think that there is an inefficiency. The second one, and we've talked about this a ton. Recruiting. Recruiting should have been done at 3 million. Bring someone in last year to make sure that this year, no matter what's the case, we have backups that. That's where I'm sitting in terms of. And then the. I'll give you another one too. The only other one that I wish we would have done is I wish I would have trusted myself in my marketing more and hired more people, technicians.

[A]

Specifically, to be kind of short staffed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So like, like, compared to what you could be. I remember you explaining your team and I was a little surprised.

[B]

Yeah, we have, I have had a poor history of like worrying about worrying rather than just saying, hey, it's. I'm Gonna make it okay. Like if I have to go knock doors, I'll make it okay for that. Forgetting, like, hey, an additional headcount to fill is going to be right. Three calls a day. Like I can find three calls a day past what we have.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So like that's been, that's been something that I wish we would have done because we, I think our growth trajectory would be actually more than we are today. But again, we're doing all right. I can't beat myself up. Marketing and recruiter is the answer. If you are, you know, circling three to five, it hurts, but it's definitely worth it.

[A]

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[B]

When did you hire your marketing director, John? Out of curiosity. I know this is.

[A]

We hired it in.

[B]

We hired him in size versus date.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because I love.

[A]

We were north of 10.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But like I agree with you. I remember like pre Jesse, it was Brandon and I every day managing lsas changing budgets. Like it was a lot. It was a very time consuming thing. And that was before, you know, everything got harder to get leads.

[B]

Yeah. And there's more now and there's. Now you have to deal with AI and all this kind of stuff idealistically in the long term it makes it easier. But for now it's definitely.

[A]

So yeah, it's definitely complicated. But yeah, I'd say two and a half years ago is when we did that. We were probably like 13ish million and yeah. Great change.

[B]

Sweet. That's awesome.

[A]

Awesome. All right. So really like scaling from owner to operator is we're, we're hiring leaders either promoting from outside. We talked a little bit about like benefits of each, talked about delegating a little bit.

[B]

Definitely focusing on sales strategy. Right. And even making that the service manager's job is sales and revenue generation.

[A]

Yeah. I mean we're a business that it's leads and sales. Like that's all the, that's all that this really is, is it's leads and sales. And I think we can over complicate this as much as we want but at the end of the day, leads and sales, like without either of those the business fully stops.

[B]

So those are your two most important as recruitment, marketing. Recruitment. That's how I like to say it because but you say sales, I say recruitment. But it's the same thing. It's like people to generate revenue. Yeah, I'm with you.

[A]

Awesome. All right, make sure you leave us a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. We're trying to be popular.

[B]

Also before you go, make sure to comment below how much you want me back on the podcast so that John allows me to come back every once in a while and see you guys.

[A]

Yeah, like a, like a 1 to 1010 being.

[B]

Nah, my heart's gonna hurt so bad after this.

[A]

We didn't even notice we got comments.

[B]

On this weird man. Appreciate you guys.

[A]

Thanks everyone.