The most dangerous thing about growth is how good it makes a broken business look. More leads mask a bad booking rate. More calls hide a falling conversion rate. Revenue climbs, so nobody looks under the hood. Try this with your leadership team: if the leads stopped tomorrow, what would scare us? Whatever the answer is, that’s the thing you should be fixing right now, while it’s still hidden.
@officialchadpetermanTranscript
Growth in a business can hide a lot of stink. Let me tell you why. Growth can oftentimes make everyone look smart. We know what we're doing. Everything's perfect. We've got more leads, but it's covering up a low booking rate. We're running more calls, but our conversion rate is dropping. Our average ticket is sliding. All of these things, because we have more leads and revenue is growing, will often overlook all of the things that we need to be focused on. The one thing I want you to ask your leadership team, if a revenue stopped tomorrow, what would scare us? What is wildly inefficient in the business, but being covered up because we're generating more leads, because we're running more calls, all of these things. If that stopped, what would you have to get really efficient at, really darn quickly, or else it could implode?
Download Transcript
Related Videos
Here’s the fastest way to know if you’re making money or just staying busy: know your three numbers. 50% gross profit. 35% overhead. 15% profit. If you can’t say where you stand on each right now, that’s the first problem to fix.
If I could only track five numbers in my HVAC sales department, it would be: revenue per lead, close rate, average install revenue, discount rate, and revenue to budget. Most owners track none of them daily and then wonder why the month got away from them. Measure every day and the numbers stop surprising you.
If your tech left for $2 more an hour, money wasn't the problem. The problem is there was nothing else keeping them. Techs spend most days working on their own. If the money's right, it's the one-on-ones, the organizational support, the daily encouragement that keeps them here. A small raise can't outbid a place people actually want to work and feel supported.
This is where we build technicians from scratch. Zero experience walks in, and electricians, plumbers, and HVAC pros walk out. Everything in this lab is functional. They can tear it apart, we can plant faults, and they can fail safely here instead of in a customer’s home.