Year 1 in a $300k SDE Services Business

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, that stems from taking over and realizing very quickly we're going to have to replace just about everybody.

So there was a dispatcher, office manager, one, the service manager, and then two and a half technicians. So the half was an apprentice that had been there a few years, but was almost. Which I didn't know this either, was nearly none of his time was billable. So he straight up was just learning.

So the total then was what, four. What did you say? Four, five and a half?

Yeah. Service manager, dispatcher, four and a half. Plus the owner that was really absentee. You know, she is. Was getting up there in age, health issues, you know, was kind of removed from the business for several years actually.

So the. Her son, the service manager, was kind of running it. He didn't have an interest in taking over. He's a technician. He just loves being out there.

Loves in the field, loves managing the guys. You know, terrified of accounting, terrified of sales. Didn't want anything to do with it.

And so when you get in there and discover that you're going to have to replace all the employees. Yeah, say, say more about that.

Pretty quickly realize we did not have the team to really even service the clients that we have, let alone, let's go grow this thing. Kind of a problem employee. You know, all the things that you've heard said before of demanding raises and you owe Me this, and you owe me that.

And we had one of our key technicians who, you know, great, great technician, one of the best in St. Louis. Not reliable, you know, didn't show up after two weeks, just stopped showing up. Just problems in his personal life and lots of other things and just, you know, but then I go back and look at the employment records and yeah, that's kind of his thing, you know, most of the summary just…

But, oh, he's the only one that can do this piece or that piece or he's the only guy that can do this.