When you add a new trade, it isn’t sales that breaks. It’s operations. Most owners just hire technicians and forget the rest. Dispatch gets more complex. Inventory multiplies. Pricing changes. And now you’re building training for a trade you don’t even have a background in. Adding a trade sounds easy. The complexity underneath is what takes companies down.
It isn't sales that breaks when you add a new trade. It's operations. Most owners start a new trade by just hiring technicians and forget about al...
This is $5 million worth of parts and equipment, and it’s one of the best investments we’ve made. Not because inventory is exciting. Because when a customer calls, we’re not waiting on a supplier. We pull what we need, get to the home fast, and take care of the problem. Speed is the product.
I'm standing in our distribution center. This distribution center in Indianapolis supplies five of our locations. Behind me is about a million and...
Most people set goals they’re sure they can hit. I set one I might not. I’m from Indianapolis, and I’m putting a team together to win the Indy 500. Because the best part of a big dream isn’t just the finish line. It’s everywhere the chase takes you on the way there.
My goal is to build a team to win the Indy 500. As business owners, we all have really big goals. As we have grown our company at Peterman Brother...
If your leads dried up, don’t spend a dollar until you’ve done two things. One, check your op metrics. You’re likely leaking leads out of a funnel you already paid to fill. Two, go back to your existing customers. They already trust you and many need services they don’t know you offer. Fix the leak and mine the base before you ever touch the ad budget.
What do you do when your leads suddenly dry up? Most people think throw more money at it. What I'll tell you is that's the wrong approach. What yo...
A $1M owner and a $10M owner have the exact same 24 hours. The difference is what fills them. The $1M owner spends the day fighting fires and working in the business. The $10M owner spends it building leaders and systems that put those fires out without him. Same clock. Completely different calendar.
A $1 million owner and a $10 million owner have the same 24 hours in a day. Let me show you what's different about their calendars. Growing a busi...
The job never gets easier, the problems just morph into different problems. That’s the job. Leaders live in the gaps, in everything that’s broken. Just don’t forget the other side of the ledger: we run 600 calls a day. Something’s working. Count that too.
The one question I always get is like, when does it get easier? I was like, it doesn't. It just morphs into different kinds of problems that you'r...
The wildest service calls we run are 20 feet under a street. Sewer and excavation at that depth is one of the most complex, safety-critical trades there is. Here’s the business lesson buried in there: almost nobody can do work at that scale. So when a homeowner has that level of problem, we’re the call. Hard capabilities are a moat.
We've all seen some wild service calls. Let me tell you about the wildest that I've ever seen. Most of the wild service calls that we do today inv...
Everyone in the trades says they value training. The real question is what level you’re actually training at. Ours spend 12 weeks between this classroom, a 5,000 sq ft working lab, and the field with our pros before they’re on their own. The goal isn’t trained techs. It’s the most trained techs in the industry. What does your training actually look like?
And when people talk about training in the trades, what does your training look like? At what level are you training your people? I'm standing in ...
Growth doesn’t break companies, but growing before you’re ready does. Ask the questions first: do you have the people, the leadership, the processes for 40% more work? We hired to catch up to our growth instead of ahead of it, and it’s the hardest way to run a company.
A lot of people just grow to grow and look out in the world and see 20, 30, 40% growth. Well, like, is your company stable enough to take that on?...
The bigger the company gets, the more the game becomes making sure every small piece runs at full strength. That’s what this board does. Daily pace against monthly budget, work in versus work sold, all 12 locations at a glance. We know where the day’s focus is before the coffee’s done.
This board here runs a $500,000 a day home services company. What do I look at when I first come in each morning? The things I'm looking at are ho...
Our 3-year vision is $200 million. Doubling a $115M company doesn’t happen by working harder though. It happens by becoming a different leader. So that’s the actual 3-year project: absorb everything, steal good ideas from anyone (including $5M owners doing something better than us), and evolve ahead of the growth.
Speaking of three-year vision, what is the revenue associated with that and what's the skill that you're working on to be a leader you have to be ...
The moment I started dreaming big about building this company, everything started finding me. My business coach found me. My peers found me. The ideas found me. That’s not luck. When you put a big dream out in the world, people want to help, and they want to see you do big things. So why not you?
The true superpower that we have as humans is there is nothing stopping us from dreaming big. And what I have found, when I dreamed big about buil...