S3 EP37 The Service Scale Bench | BONUS Episode!

Most electrical contractors think they need more leads, more vans, more techs, or more marketing to grow. They're wrong. 

When an electrical business reaches the $1M-$1.5M range, hidden weaknesses start showing up everywhere. Systems break. Teams become dependent on the owner. Every decision flows through one person. 

We call it the Broccoli in the Milk Problem. 

In this episode, Clay and Joe break down: 

⚡ Why most electricians plateau around $1M-$1.5M 

⚡ The hidden cost of owner dependency 

⚡ How systems, people, and culture impact scale 

⚡ Why "doing everything yourself" is holding you back 

⚡ How to build a business that creates freedom instead of consuming it 

If your company feels heavier than ever despite growing revenue, this episode is for you! 

🚨 FREE LIVE WEBINAR: SELL YOUR SERVICE, NOT YOUR SOUL 

How to Build a Killer Service Business. Not One That Kills You. 

👉 Reserve Your Spot Here!

Find the growth already trapped inside your electrical business.

Get FREE access here!  🧠 Smart Scale GPT

#MillionDollarElectrician #ElectricalContractor #ElectricianBusiness #ServiceBusiness #ElectricalBusiness 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast, where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and park up those sales.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

I'm Joseph Witani, and together with my co-host, Clay New Meyer, we're here to share the secrets of how electricians sell over a million dollars in a single service band.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Now it's time for sales. It's time for scale. It's time to become a million-dollar electrician.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Hey guys, and welcome back to another great episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast. Today is an extra special episode, and it's another extra episode. Well, we actually talked to you about something that my old journeyman's father taught me, Joe. I know I taught this to the team and it became a big joke. If you follow us on Facebook or Instagram or any of our socials, you might have seen my face on a piece of broccoli. Broccoli clay surprise you when you saw it.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Yeah, broccoli clay.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Broccoli clay. Yeah, that was funny. The whole thing was we were teaching this concept of you can't hide broccoli in a glass of milk. And I think this is so applicable to electricians on what we call the bench, which really tends to happen somewhere around a million to 1.5 million in sales, where it's like, oh, we saw progress, we saw explosive growth, we did amazing stuff. We exceeded the 80k months, Joe, as you know very well from your own performance, your own experience. But then something happens where we get stuck. Are you familiar with this stage?

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Yeah, it's where you start growing and you've gotten to the biggest place you can get with what you already have. But in order to get to somewhere different, you need to change your trajectory and the method you're currently applying. Because if you have got gaps and you just grow and you don't remove the gaps, the gaps just get bigger.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah, absolutely. And I love this analogy, that metaphor of the broccoli and a glass of milk, because when we first heard that, I was like, what the hell is that? What is he talking about? I remember me and my journeyman laughing our asses off the whole way home about it. And for years I reflected on that and reflected and reflected and tried to find the best use, the best meaning, and nothing has ever sat as well as in this stage of business. We call it the master stage, but really you kind of have to master yourself. And I mean that in a in the way of like being honest with yourself and realizing that more hustle won't get us past this stage. You're in a market right now. If you're listening to this, where you probably enjoy listening to us, but every time you jump on social media, as we mentioned before, you're being marketed to. There's another guru telling you what to do in your business. You need more leads, you need more sales, you need more staff, you need more vans, you need more everything. We call it s'mores. Everyone thinks you need some more of this, some more of that, some more of this. And it's never ending, man. It's overwhelming, right until we crash and burn out. You ever burn out in your business, Joe?

SPEAKER_02 2:57

I mean, in a lot of different ways, yes, because I was the main salesperson selling for three crews. And at the same time, though it was really great and we were able to get it done, it was a lot of burden on one person. And I found that unless I adjusted my personal life to support what the business was doing, it just wouldn't function the same way. So I ended up taking from my own personal time to pour back into the business, and then as a result, had less family time.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And your business isn't tiny anymore. I mean, you're not just a guy in a van. Maybe you're spending some time in a van, but you've got staff, you've got customers, you've got payroll, you have overhead, you have expectations, you have all this stuff happening, and yet you're trying to keep everyone fed and you're trying to break through because you feel the hours adding up. It's like we all got into business for the same reasons, right? More time, more freedom, more money, but you end up working for a boss worse than you ever had before, and all of a sudden your your wife doesn't love your employer, your family's no longer on board with it. You know what I mean? And I that too, man. And it's it's oppressive and it's depressing because you're doing this for a bigger reason. And on this broccoli and broccoli and bench soup, I'm gonna call it, you kind of get lost in it, and you really have to reflect and realize I personally can't get us to the next stage. That isn't enough. Any of this relating you with you, Joe?

SPEAKER_02 4:20

100%, you know. And at the end of the day, I often joke with my wife about this, where I'm like, Yeah, my boss is a bit of an a-hole, but like, what can you expect? He's got hard, he's got very high standards, and we always laugh about it because it's like, well, Joe, you've been the boss for your whole life. What are you gonna do about that? And you know, I at the end of the day, I realize I have to focus on what really matters, and that's less churn and burn and more strategic placement of energy.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Hmm, yeah, I love that, and that's exactly what we're getting into, right? So the business is now big enough to expose every weakness because it's a pure reflection of you and always has been. It's always been growing with you, and when you reach your capacity, especially the great people in our community, it tends to be around this one to 1.5 million. A 300k company, you can cover some of this stuff up. It doesn't need to be seen. You're not really a chunk of broccoli in that milk yet. But at 1 million to 1.5 million, all those little problems, those systems that aren't quite worked out, those little memory-based solutions that you have, all those moments where uh your team needs you to make the call, or they don't know how to make a call, or they make it just like you, which is off the hip, which ultimately is not good for your business. All of those are exposed at scale when you're trying to scale past that one to 1.5 million, that bench, ironically, man. Is there anything that comes to mind for you on like systems that you've talked about recently or had that you really felt got a magnifying glass?

SPEAKER_02 5:48

This literally came up in our CSR class yesterday, which is awesome. I have a ton of fun training it. But the thing that came up was well, I brought in a CSR who has lots of experience answering phones for another industry. They should translate into this perfectly. And the answer is, well, yes, but no. The biggest concern with your CSR is that they are the they're the face, they're the voice of the company, the smile. And the customer should have an expected level of care and service every time they call. It shouldn't be different from person to person. So the biggest problem when you grow bigger is if you don't put a process into place and you have multiple CSRs, the customer's expression and impression of your company will vary based on who's answering the phone. And if you have the wrong person answering at the wrong time, you could be losing a huge job without even getting to the door.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah, yeah, uh, massive. And there's so many other places in the business, right? So does your business feel heavier than it used to? Are you making more money, maybe, but enjoying less and having trouble breaking through to the next next rounds for that? Like what falls apart when you step away? That was a big part of your post this morning, or was it yesterday, Joe? Yes, if you step away for a week, what happens then? What's the first things you you notice start to fall? Are you building a better business or just a bigger cage? Yeah, I love what you posted too this week about the guy with the grocery bags, right? What a great example. What did you mean by that, man? Take us through it.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

So, a lot of times we have this machismo background in the trades where it's like, I'm big, I'm strong, can you do all the things? But some of us take it too much to heart and start applying that to everything that we do. And the best example is the instinct to carry every single bag from the groceries into the house at the same time. It's like, can you sure you're strong, you work, no problem. You could do it. Should you do it though? Probably not. Where else are you taking too much upon yourself rather than properly distributing the load so that the outcome could be better and so that the experience could be better with less of draining effect on you? Because I guarantee you have a long driveway and you're carrying a lot of groceries, you can be the biggest dragon you want. The longer the distance, the harder it's gonna be to carry. And running a business is a marathon, it's not a sprint. Thousand percent.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Thousand percent. I think it's a pride problem, too, right? Like a big part of it is like, well, a good dad, a good husband, a good man, like you grab everything, you get it done in one trip. I'm all about efficiency. I want that pride, I want to know that I could do this. Hey, I'm not going into that house without every tool and every spool ready to do the job. I'm gonna do this in one trip.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

I think you shared a picture of guys like spools on his shoulders, and yeah, he was carrying a wire rack through his arms, and he had a tool bag, a tool bag, and you could tell he was dragging a ladder behind him. It was like he was suited up like a pack mule that you're like riding into the mountains. He was insane.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Totally. Here's some secret sauce. Um, and I think this helps for you to like maybe you're with us and you're thinking, Well, where do I see these things then? How do I see it? Well, which of these grocery bags should I be leaving down? Should I let someone else carry? What is that like? And this phrase really hit for me is like the areas you perceive to be strong in are usually the weakness in the business. Can I give you a real example of this?

SPEAKER_02 9:09

I'm with you there.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

I'm on a call last week with one of our great clients, uh, doing very well. But this is how much this uh can be even like elusive at the the broccoli and bench soup stage. He said the words out loud in a in a one-to-one call. He said, Man, no one can answer these particular calls like me. I'm so glad I was in the office to take that call.

unknown 9:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah, time out, right? Like this is awesome, super proud, but like that actually means there's a system flaw. That actually means you're doing something you shouldn't be doing because you have great staff in the office who should be able to field every call so that you could step away, knowing that those types of calls don't get dropped when you're away.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Yeah, I think one of the best examples that come to mind, just a spur of the moment, was people are so worried about having to train someone and not be the way you're doing it. But I just thought of a parallel. So, something that I love to do is I pride myself being a present dad. It means everything in the world to me. And what I'm currently doing is I'm training my two daughters on electric work and physical construction and like every project I do, they take with me. Now, granted, they're they're slow, they're not gonna be able to do the work that it's not meant to. But you can treat your employees the same way, right? I need to go slow with them, I need to teach them the fundamentals, and eventually they'll get stronger and they'll be more knowledgeable and they'll be able to carry a load that I can't. So there are so many owners out there who are like, Well, yeah, I've got good staff, but they can't do it like me, so I might as well do it all. When you have to realize that's the point, you're supposed to invest in them so they can grow and they can get better, so that you can step away. Because I don't want to be 65 and have to still run every asset in my business because I didn't train the kids when they were young.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Couldn't agree more. So these areas that seem like strength are actually a warning sign. You can almost think of it like this. I was I was doodling, doing more modeling the other day. You know how I do in the morning. All I do is think strategy and how can I simplify this concept? You are a person, you have a mind, body, and soul. Your business is also a being, like it's an entity, it has a mind, body, and soul. Anything that you have to do, you're physically an acting member of the body, but that should all be muscle memory and process, meaning there should be a way that that body knows how to do the thing that is also a way to train it to the extensions of that body, the people, the staff that work for it to do that thing. And that's the first thing to let go. So when we look through these systems and evaluate it, we're always looking at okay, what systems are in place? Score yourself one to five. How are these systems? Great and locked in. Then the people, who are the people that are doing that for you? Is it fully delegated or you have to do it? And then that owner independence that we've been talking so much about, that founder independence of like, okay, if you step away, does this action still on a scale of one to five? Is this a five? It still gets done, you don't need to do it. And this evaluation is so important. So when I think about the mind, body, and soul, I think about on the bench, usually there's parts of the body that are still us, then the heart of it, the soul. Like I want to I want to give that culture the values, the why behind the body's work so that the culture expands. It doesn't just shrivel up when I step away, it expands beyond. Right. Uh, working with one of our great clients yesterday, and I had the joy of joining their team in the room. And so I have the whole view of their coffee room. And naturally, they've got their brand across the wall, values on the wall with their top five disciplines that they follow, their top five values, right? And all of this is expanding that heart, that soul of the company so that the body stays motivated to do the work. As we know as people, it's an A to B problem. If you don't have a Y between A and B, how often do we get to B?

SPEAKER_02 13:11

You don't. It's just you need a clear map. And if nothing else, it's also like growing, trying to grow a plant in bad soil, right? If you step away because you need to constantly be watering and constantly fertilizing, you're planting in the wrong spot. But if you can establish a culture where it's like, all right, it has good soil, it has good roots, it's got a self-irrigating system. Great. I can go and take a beach trip and not worry about coming home and having all my plants dead.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Absolutely. Yeah, it's a great way to look at it, right? And then the mind piece is that's the management piece, that's the executive decision layer, that's the measurement and management. What do the KPI tell us? Having the data-driven decisions. Usually the founders require their last. So you're delegating the body, right? You're delegating the soul by putting that stuff out there, making sure the why is understood, and then you're delegating the management last. Because let's be honest, you could be at Disneyland with your family and still be the mindset for the business. You could still be answering CEO level questions and helping decisions get made. Management's the last thing you're going to delegate, right? This is so important. I need you guys to know. We have just a minute left, Joe. So we're going to rip through this, but we need you guys to know this hidden cost of this, right? And that's where this month comes in because most people don't start a business, or, or as we said, they do start a business for that money and freedom, not to work harder for someone who's a jerk than they ever did before, not for the pressure, the dependence, the responsibility, the stress. Um, your front, your family probably isn't a fan of that level of income either, or that level of responsibility in your business. So we need you to shift out of this. We know that you need to shift out of this. So we've got two things for you today, guys. Uh, one is our smart scale GPT, because you don't need s'mores, you need smarts, because most electricians are smoked from this overdependence, overstuck, overwork, underpaid, right? And so this smart GPT, you're gonna be able to grab that in the link below, and that's gonna help you evaluate and find the trapped revenue, profitability, and scalability that's already within your control. You don't need more leads necessarily, you don't need more apps to help with more sales, you don't need anything else other than this GPT to deep dive and find those hidden unlocks in your business. Best thing ever, I'll give you guys a quick note on this. Uh, Joe, you know what an Easter egg is? I do.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

So it's usually a built-in feature that no one really knows about, but when they stumble upon it, they're like, Yes, I didn't know this was here. This is so cool.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Yeah. So we put an Easter egg in this. That's so much fun. So uh you guys know this exclusively from the podcast now. If you type all caps coach mode when you get started with this GPT, you can choose like Hulk Hogan, David Goggins style, a friendly uncle, uh uh Aussie at the pub. There's all these different personalities that you can have uh work with you through the GPT, the the QA and the coaching. And it's so hilarious, man. So please grab that and enjoy. But of course, this only leads up to what we're doing next week, next Wednesday night, uh, seven days from now. Another workshop and our monthly workshop here to uh this month. This is the last free one we're ever going to do, by the way. After this, they're all paid, but that does not mean it sucks. In fact, we've put more effort into this workshop than what and than any other one, I think. Like we're like 16 hours into planning and preparation and making sure this is one of the best ones yet. And it's called the sell your service, not your soul workshop: how to build a killer service business, not one that kills you. So we're gonna give you the exact logical framework to scale your business and get over the broccoli and bench soup. And that's gonna be massive to you guys. So, all you're gonna do is go to the links below wherever you're seeing this, you'll see it in the description, a link to the webinar page and that chat GPT, the smart scale GPT, so you guys can figure out and unlock and get untrapped uh from your own business. Joe, anything to add to that, brother?

SPEAKER_02 17:11

You know, I just there's only one thing that comes to mind, and that is I want to communicate to everyone listening to this that the success you want is attainable, but usually there's fear and uncertainty in the way. And that's what we're trying to alleviate. Come to the uh come to the webinar, come to the training, and we'll help you work through that in a step-by-step thing so that you can have the confidence to take those steps. And once the fear is gone, success seems way easier to get to.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Again, at 300k, nobody notices at 500k, no one notices 600k, you can get by, but at 1.5 million, everyone notices, and you'll start to feel the broccoli in the cup of milk problem, too. I don't want you guys to get stuck on this bench, so please take full advantage of this. We can't wait to see you there. Have a great week and enjoy this extra episode. And I think we have Brandon's podcast episode coming out next, which is an awesome interview. So, shout out to Brandon. Oh, and a quick win of the week. Uh, we had our our off-the-school, off the tools night school, actually. Uh, we had over $400,000 in wins in that Joe, uh, which was incredible in just six weeks. And there's going to be another one. So if you guys are interested in that, send us a message that says night school. Anywhere you're following us, anywhere we're chatting. If you're on YouTube, throw it in the comments. We'd love to uh give you more information and help you understand how to actually put the trade back in trade business, meaning they taught us the craft and set us free for an hourly wage, but we want you to learn the trade and make the most of it too. Thanks, guys. We'll see you next week.