Getting off the truck, one stage at a time

The truck is not the problem

Most owners who want to get off the truck are not short of effort. They are the bottleneck. Every quote, every schedule change and every unhappy customer comes back to one phone, and growth stops where that phone's day runs out.

So the question is not how hard you work. It is what you are still doing that someone else could do, and what has to be true before they can.

The four stages

Each stage is defined by what the owner does all day, and each one is reached by letting go of something:

1. Solo. You do the work. The move into it: start.
2. First Crew. You hire, and still produce. The move into it: hire.
3. Off the Truck. You run the office while crews produce. The move into it: let go of the work.
4. First Manager. You run the business while managers run crews. The move into it: let go of the decisions.

Read the list as a climb, not a menu. Each move is harder than it sounds because it asks you to stop doing something you are good at.

Find your stage by your day, not your revenue

Revenue is a poor guide to the stage you are in. A high-ticket trade can reach large numbers with the owner still doing every job, and a busy low-ticket business can have three crews at a fraction of the revenue.

Instead, write down what you actually did all day for one week. If most of it was doing the work, you are Solo or running a first crew. If most of it was scheduling, quoting and fixing problems while crews worked, you are off the truck. If you spent it on managers rather than crews, you are past that.

What holds an owner back: four things, in order

When the next stage will not come, something is in the way. Check these four in this order, because an earlier one blocks the ones after it:

1. Mindset. Your own energy and what is weighing on you. This one is not a test and there is no score. Ask yourself four questions: how is your energy, what is weighing on you, who do you talk to about the business, and when did you last take a full day off?
2. People. Do you have the people the next stage needs, in the right seats? Moving off the truck needs someone who can do the work as well as you; moving to a first manager needs someone who can make the decisions you make.
3. Capital. Two parts: can the business pay a new person before their work pays them back, and can you get money if you need it, such as a line of credit, before you need it?
4. Market. Is there enough work in your area, at your price, to keep the next stage busy?

The first one that is not ready is the one to work on. Hiring when you cannot pay for it, or marketing for more work when you have no one to do it, spends money on the wrong problem.

Then find where the jobs leak

Every job also passes through 10 stages, grouped in four parts:

• Attract: Brand and Market Awareness, Marketing.
• Convert: Lead Intake and Booking, Estimating, Sales.
• Deliver: Production, Quality Assurance, Collections.
• Grow: Customer Feedback and Reviews, Next Job and Referral.

No business runs all of them well. Look for the worst leak, the stage where the most work falls out, and fix that one first. The home service KPIs guide shows which numbers reveal each one.

What to do this week

1. Write down what you did all day, every day, for one week.
2. Use it to name your stage honestly.
3. Check the four things in order and stop at the first one that is not ready.
4. Pick one thing that would move it, give it a date within the next seven days, and do it.
5. Look again in a month. The stage moves slowly; the thing in the way should not.

Mapping it in GameTime OS

The Operator's Map in GameTime OS walks this same climb with you. It checks the four things in order, reads the ten stages of the job for the worst leak, and saves each run so you can see what moved since the last one. The mindset questions are a private check-in for the owner only, never scored, and never shown to your team.