Post 14: Your Profit Is in the Process
“If you’re always fixing problems on the back end, your process is broken. And it’s leaking profit.”
Let’s say it plainly: profit doesn’t live in your pipeline—it lives in your process.
You don’t lose margin because of bad luck. You lose it in the handoffs, the half-truths, and the hustle culture that confuses “busy” with “effective.”
Ask yourself:
Are your jobs finishing late?
Are your crews playing phone tag all day?
Are your invoices going out two weeks after the work is done?
Are your customers confused about what’s happening?
If you said yes to even one of those, you’ve got a process problem—and process problems are profit killers.
Let me show you how to fix it.
💬 Real Story: Rework Was Eating Their Margin Alive
We worked with a landscaping company doing $4M a year. Solid team. Loyal customers. Great work.
But every month, they were re-doing punch list items on over 20% of jobs. That meant:
Crews pulled off schedule
Extra materials ordered
Clients waiting too long for completion
Office chasing down change orders after the fact
Once we walked through their job flow, the problem was obvious:
Sales wasn’t handing off specs to ops properly
Foremen were using old job folders or screenshots
Clients weren’t being updated when changes were made
In short: no clear process. So we built one.
Standardized handoff meetings
Project dashboard for all departments
Client communication templates
Weekly field audits
In 60 days?
Rework dropped by 80%.
Profit margin jumped 12%.
And the crews were happier too.
5 Process Fixes That Boost Profit
1. Map the Dollar Flow
Where does a dollar go after the estimate is signed? Who touches it? Where does it stall?
✅ Fix: Document your “order-to-cash” journey. From bid to billing, chart the flow and highlight every handoff. That’s where the leaks live.
2. Standardize What You Repeat
If you do it more than once a week, you need a process. If multiple people do it, you need it documented.
✅ Fix: Build SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for your top 5 money-making tasks:
Estimating
Job setup
Job completion & invoicing
Change order approval
Customer updates
3. Automate the Repetitive
Don’t pay people to do what a system can do better, faster, and without forgetting.
✅ Fix: Automate task reminders, customer follow-ups, invoice triggers, crew start times, and daily job reporting. Look at tools like:
Jobber
QuickBooks
Monday.com
Asana
Zapier
4. Audit for Waste Weekly
Don’t wait until Q4 to realize you’ve been doing things the hard way all year.
✅ Fix: Set a weekly 30-minute “process huddle” with your ops lead. Ask:
What didn’t work this week?
Where did we lose time?
What got dropped or delayed?
Then fix one thing each week. That’s how real optimization happens.
5. Build for Repeatability
A business that depends on your memory or your “fix-it-later” attitude isn’t a business—it’s a liability.
✅ Fix: Build processes that work without you. Processes that deliver consistent results, even on a bad day.
Because if your process doesn’t protect your margin—it’s not working.
This Week’s Action Plan
Choose one job that went sideways recently. Map out every step from sale to payment.
Identify 2–3 key breakdowns in process (not people).
Create or revise one simple SOP to address the gap.
Repeat next week.
Small tweaks. Big margin wins.
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