If you're a home service owner and want a COO's perspective on your business, take the Owner Dependency Assessment. I'll send you a report I actually out together myself (with Claude's assistance): -5 Quick Wins to implement yourself -4 Primary Gaps -90 Day Action plan -What I would do if I were your COO Then, if you want, we'll chat about the report for 30 minutes. If I can help, we'll discuss it. If not, strategies are yours to keep. I read every answer and give you my thoughts from my seat. Businesses of all sizes are welcome! Click the bio link, comment below or DM me! P.S. If you only want the report and don't want to talk to me, that's cool too.

One of the signs of a maturing entrepreneur is the level of “I don’t want to mess with it” when it comes to creating a logo, website, etc. Early on, I’d spent weeks perfecting them only to render them useless because I had no revenue plan. Build the business, not just the brand.

Anyone else rock out on their way to church while the wife hums along to “a new song”? Happy Sunday!

How does Wednesday happen?

Huge shoutout to @theryanjamesmil for creating a community of dudes in the fight! Super grateful to be surrounded by high-caliber, family-loving Jesus followers on the journey of entrepreneurship and stewardship. If you need people in your corner, connect with Ryan or me. Sometimes you get cool stuff you don’t pay for either.

Saturday mornings for me right now can either be a frustrating regret-filled experience or a joyous, restful experience. This morning, it’s restful thinking back through the week. 4 sales calls 26 referral partner intros made for others Consulted a client through potentially making a rash (and wrong) decision. Significant progress with another client on their sales team. Started implementing AI into an electrician client. Great convo with @RealPlantBrah. Dude’s got a great business mind and building some cool things! Spent Thursday morning with daughter as she prepped for a small procedure. Didn’t spend enough time on this platform this week though. Great week of activity, now just seeing what positive outcomes we can create from the sales efforts!

At what point do kids start saying they want to be professional Banana Ballers instead of major leaguers?

Just doing my part. 👊🏻

One of the scariest places to be is when you have one customer responsible for over a quarter of your revenue. Customer loyalty is a great thing. Customer dependence can crush you.

Everyone assumes the owner/operator is the entire reason work stops when he's gone. In one of the assessments I ran this week, the owner doesn't even touch the work day-to-day. If he took for for a week, the work would still get done. What would struggle for him is that one specific decision or one conversation with a big client that only he can make. It's not just the doing that has to be considered as an owner. The decision-making is equally important to cascade over time.

I have a client with a great heart, but didn't watch the sales team. That's the reason I was brought in. Total sales over previous 6 months between 2 sales reps with zero accountability and nobody watching? 0. Actually. Installed a weekly accountability cadence for new sales rep. Results: 2 sales in 2 weeks Why? They had a system to work from, but more importantly, they were held accountable to outcomes.

There's a direct correlation between dependence and freedom. If you desire to be truly free from the day-to-day, the business can't depend on you anymore.

Full confession: I don't remember how to do every process I've created. I use my own SOP processes the same way I recommend other people use them. Couldn't remember the Frontier Weekly Summit agenda and didn't want to look for it. Asked Notebook and there it is.

Any time I'm asked what I do, it's never frameworks, processes, or systems. None of you care about that. All you care about is the outcome someone can provide you. It's one word I use because it's the most important word to our family. Freedom. Last "real job" I had as COO of a landscaper went fro $1.9M (after 7 years) to $4.3M in 36 months. That wasn't the most important part though. He went on 4 vacations over that 3 year period after zero the previous 2 years. How? He was taken out of the the CFO/COO role within 30 days of hiring his first ever COO. No one cares about: -How I structure meetings -What my framework is -How to create a scorecard They care about: -How they get to move from top field tech to Visionary -When they don't have to lead every meeting anymore -When they can enjoy their kids' events without being interrupted That's what I do.

Trust between operators and their teams can decay over time. One of the most useful ways to spend 60 minutes is to have a radically candid conversation about it. Two people in a room being honest with each other. Simple as that.

Fairly significant regret in life is not getting into golf when I was a kid. My last round was a 115. Granted, gusts out of the south that day. If the 8 YO wants to go this route, I need to go find some more clients.

4 systems every home service owner should set up today: 1. Same-day invoicing. Job isn't done until the invoice is in the customer's inbox. 2. A close-out on every job. Quoted cost vs actual, variances, scope creep, etc. to prevent mishaps from occurring next time. 3. A follow-up cadence on every open quote. Whether automated or not, follow-ups is where you win more jobs than you think. 4. Bookkeeping. Stop running your own books. There are too many options that can give you your time back. All of these can be software or human. None of these have to be sophisticated. Start them, then develop them as you can.

I've learned there are two types of business owners that I tend to work with the most: 1. The upstart (5 years or less) just under $1M of revenue stuck because the system isn't designed to double revenue without significant consequences 2. 10 year company owner in the messy middle (1.5M - 3M) tired of doing things the way he's always done them. Both have unique problems to solve and solutions to implement.

Landing a huge job feels like a massive win when the schedule's light. Even when the schedule's full, those big jobs can ease a lot of pain. Generally, it is. It's revenue in the door. Crews and bills get paid. Gets you through the day or the week. Then you have a couple of callbacks. $1,200 of scope creep no one told you about. 60 days stuck in AR. The OT hours because they had a deadline you had to hit. That $18,000 job you estimated would make the company a $4,000 profit didn't actually make you money. After the real cost, you'd have come out ahead saying no. Take on the big jobs, but do it from a price point that takes everything into consideration. Not just Labor Materials.

"Running the wrong playbook" is the phrase to focus on here. Simple saying, "What got you here won't get you there" gets more true every day the business grows.