Breaking Barriers in Home Services

Build from the ground up instead of acquiring — the roll-up model forces you to integrate different cultures, systems, and processes, a long road that doesn't always work; greenfield lets you set ONE culture and one process.

You can't hire an entire new market from scratch — 'transplant' proven executives you've worked with for 10-20 years into new branches so they carry the business culture and processes as the stronghold.

Home services companies got weak at marketing by leaning on lead aggregators post-COVID; breaking into a brandless new market means going back to grassroots, old-school lead generation (door-to-door, make-leads-happen).

You make your money in marketing, not on cost of goods — moving marketing return up or down five to seven points a month is where the profit lives, so the majority of effort goes there.

Engineer the branch model on a 50-mile sales radius, then classify each branch as a ~$12M or ~$24M location by home density and build staffing and lead-gen around that; run a light hub-and-spoke with back office at corporate.

Comp structures based on percentage of volume are the worst and don't scale — align teams on target attainment and margin, and tie pay mostly to growth and EBITDA.

The tension between operations and marketing is built by design; revisit the five dysfunctions of a team every couple of years to stay uncomfortable together but pulling toward the same goal.