Before you decide if private equity is right for you, get clear on the actual problem you're trying to solve. Need capital to grow? Ready to retire? Stuck and need help somewhere specific? That answer should come before any decision about a strategic partner. Then figure out which firm actually solves that problem. The right fit depends entirely on what you need. Don't rule PE in or out blindly. Evaluate your own situation first.
Private equity is buying up a ton of companies still in the home services space. Here's what I would say you need to think about before really mak...
Most home service companies lose the job before they ever knock. A missed window, no call, no update, and the homeowner's already decided what kind of company you are. It doesn't matter how good the work is once you're inside if you already broke the first promise you made. Show up when you said you would because trust starts with punctuality.
We probably all shown up late somewhere in our life. When it comes to home services, showing up late to a customer's house does more than just inc...
There are a thousand ways to structure pay. Most of them are too complicated for anyone to understand, including the field pro trying to earn off it. If your team can't explain how they make money, that's already your first problem. Keep it simple. Whatever the model, hourly, bonus, commission, the rule is the same: if I do this, I earn this. Pay for behavior, not just results. The fastest way to end up with techs selling people things they don't need is to pay purely on outcome. Train people to give a level of service customers actually appreciate, then compensate them for that.
Commission versus salary. How do I pay my field professionals? Here's my take. There are a million pay systems out there. There are a number of di...
Most home service owners spend on ads and miss the moving billboards already in their fleet. Every truck you've got is already paid for, already on the road, already parked in driveways across your market every single day. That's free impressions most owners never count, because they only think about marketing as something you buy, not something you already own. A wrapped van sitting in a driveway for two hours does more for your name in that neighborhood than another week of ad spend ever will.
This is our truck. It is very unique. My brother and my picture are on the side of it. We rebranded the company back in April of 21. So it's been ...
Most owners think about selling their business the second things start going well. I think about it backwards. Treat your business like a stock. If it's performing, you don't cash out, you buy more. Reinvesting in training, in systems, in the team compounds in a business you actually understand and control. Cashing out early on something that's working is the easiest way to leave the biggest gains on the table. If your company is healthy and growing, that's not the signal to sell. That's the signal to go all in.
we want to keep as much money in the business and working for us as humanly possible. Let's face it, your business should be your most valuable as...
When you're small, 80% of your day is fires. A customer waiting, a tech missing a part, whatever's loudest right now. The other 20% is the part that actually grows the company. Scaling means flipping that ratio, and the only way to do it is documentation. Write down how you do things, why you do them that way, and what happens when something goes wrong. If A happens, do you go to B or C? Get that out of your head and onto paper. That documentation is what lets you stop being the fire department and start being the architect.
80% of your day is probably going to be kind of working in the business when you're smaller, you're starting out, so on and so forth. And those ar...
Most people are looking to do just enough. Stay status quo. Keep things "fine." The ones who grow and evolve are willing to do what nobody else will and strive for something greater.
Most people talk about going the extra mile. What I can tell you about going the extra mile is it is a very lonely place because most people will ...
Most techs don’t leave for money. They leave because nobody ever showed them what they were actually earning. Pay rate is one number. Health insurance, 401k match, PTO, a real growth path. That’s the picture. Show it to them or someone else will.
We've all lost a really good technician that we wanted to keep. How do we save them? How do we prevent them from leaving? In my time, where that s...
There's no job big enough to fix a business, but there are plenty big enough to break one. Every owner chases the big contract. The one that feels like it changes everything. But a job you can't actually execute on, doesn't save you. It accelerates whatever was already wrong. Before you say yes to something large, ask the hard questions. Do you have the people to run it? The cash to float it? The margin to absorb what goes wrong (in the case that something does)? One wrong yes can undo a year of right ones.
jobs that we shouldn't take. And I think that we've all faced this in our careers where this job looks like a great opportunity. It's got a big do...
Turnover isn't always a hiring problem. Sometimes it's an onboarding problem. Most companies hand a new tech the keys and hope for the best. We spend two weeks with every field pro before they ever run a call alone. Every minute of it is planned, and we iterate on it constantly based on what's working and what isn't. People don't leave companies in the first 90 days because the job was wrong for them. They leave because nobody made them feel like they made the right choice coming in.
Turnover is something that has plagued our industry for decades. Onboarding is your key to making sure that your employees stay long past the firs...
The fastest way to slow your growth is to add another trade before you’ve mastered the first. Be the industry standard in what you already do. Then, and only then, think about adding a second.
- The common question I get is, well, should I add another trade to the business? - No, you shouldn't. Why? Well, what a lot of people do is feel ...
Home services will always need people. AI just makes them smarter and faster. Our managers used to spend hours analyzing reports. Now they spend that time growing their teams instead. That’s where the compound is.
how we're using AI is essentially to make our people smarter. So a big issue in our business is that a manager can pinpoint a problem. It's more s...