Spot on—revenue looks great on paper until you realize you're working 70 hours a week just to keep up.
A few quick metrics that give the clearest picture of what's actually making money:
- Effective Hourly Rate: (Job Price ÷ Actual Site Hours). Shows really fast if a job is paying $150/hr or pulling you down to $50/hr.
- Drive Time vs. On-Site Time: Unpaid windshield time quietly eats up your profit margin. Keeping an eye on this forces tighter service boundaries and better route batching.
- Close Rate by Service Line: An overall close rate hides leaks. Breaking it down shows if basic jobs close automatically while higher-margin add-ons get passed on.
- Callback Rate: Burning gas and unpaid labor hours going back to fix minor details kills profitability fast.
