Maximize EBITDA, Then Decide Next

JD Beck bought a plumbing company in June 2022 doing about a million dollars a year. He had never touched plumbing. He'd spent his career in trades management, most recently in elevators. This year Mountain Valley will do just under six million.

In this one: the $1,700 hire that turns a five-day permit into a one-day permit, why he can name every technician's average ticket but not where his last call came from, and par pricing, which pays techs half of every dollar above the floor.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:41 - Welcome to Lazy Leverage
01:26 - The Buy, and What He Runs Now
05:46 - Why Local Hiring Stopped Working
11:21 - The Permit Coordinator Who Cut Five Days to One
13:20 - Specialization, and Judging on Outputs
15:47 - Optimize Throughput, Not Utilization
19:30 - Maximize EBITDA, Then See
21:37 - The $5 Million Marketing Wall
26:49 - Pick One Channel and Get Good at It
29:48 - Global Talent as a Marketing Advantage
35:36 - Par Pricing, and What Gross Margin Tells You
41:01 - Running OpenClaw on a Plumbing Company
43:12 - Remote Management Is AI Enablement
48:05 - Citizen Soldier

References Mentioned in This Episode -

Books:
Gerber, M. E. (1995). The E-Myth revisited: Why most small businesses don't work and what to do about it. HarperBusiness.
Goldratt, E. M. (1984). The goal: A process of ongoing improvement. North River Press.
Roff-Marsh, J. (2015). The machine: A radical approach to the design of the sales function. Greenleaf Book Group Press.

People & Frameworks Cited:
Justin Roff-Marsh, Sales Process Engineering, on optimizing throughput over utilization
Eliyahu Goldratt, and Theory of Constraints
Michael E. Gerber, and the E-Myth
Alex Hormozi, on picking one channel and getting great at it
Isaac Zimmerman, on hiring for the smallest possible jobs
Rich Jordan
John Wilson
Yossi Wachtel, Monkey Wrench Plumbing, Heating, Air & Electric, and "reverse hospitality"
Jameson, the West Coast deck guy, on local content
Par pricing, borrowed from solar sales

Tools Mentioned in the Episode:
ServiceTitan, Slack, OpenClaw, Upwork, Google PPC, QuickBooks Online, Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses

Follow Jon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmatzner/ | https://x.com/MatznerJon | https://jonmatzner.com/
Follow JD Beck: https://x.com/dirtyhandsops | https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndavidbeck/ | https://www.mtnvalleyplumbing.com/

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