Episode Details
Back to EpisodesOperations: Understanding and Communicating on Production Hours - A Key to Profitability
Description
Addressing a question we received from a listener, Marty Grunder talks about the importance of understanding how hours impact the profitability of a job, how he helps his team understand the impact they can have, and what they do to monitor and manage hours.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show!
️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel!
Episode Chapters:
00:00 - Start
00:31 - Why Production Hours Matter: You Sell Time
03:09 - Get Off Paper: The Case for Software Systems
07:36 - The Estimation Standardization Meeting
09:54 - How Grunder Grew from $4.5M to $18M
12:31 - Finding Your Minimum Job Size & Profit Sweet Spot
14:00 - Start Simple: Taking Action on Production Hours
Resources:
Virtual Sales Bootcamp
Grunder Landscaping Field Trips
The Grow Group
Show Notes:
Core Principle: You Sell TIME
Every hour you pay for labor needs to be billable vs. unbillable (travel, training, loading/unloading, repairs, shop work). The sooner your entire team understands this, the better your financial performance.
Universal Language: Hours transcend language barriers. Sold for 110 hours, took 130 = No bueno. Sold for 110, took 105 = Bueno.
Get Off Paper, Get Software
Why It Matters:
-
Pay teams to serve clients, not push papers
-
Young workers expect technology - paper systems hurt recruiting
-
Impossible to scale or create sellable business with paper trails
-
Software eliminates human error, provides real-time data
Recommended: Aspire or LMN (far ahead of other landscape software)
The Chick-fil-A Test: Imagine writing your order by hand for someone to read before cooking. That's the inefficiency of paper systems.
The Estimation Standardization Meeting