Mike Andes explains why service-business owners earning $300k–$600k annually get stuck doing admin and sales work themselves. The owner's personal field work generates $100k–$150k, which is often the entire profit margin. Delegating means the business can't afford the overhead of new staff unless it's actively growing.
When a business is at $300,000 to $600,000 in annual revenue, it's a weird middle because you need and want someone to do admin for you, and there's some calls and emails coming in, but if you're not growing and you're gonna stay in that revenue range, you've gotta do the admin yourself and you've gotta do the sales yourself. You can't delegate those, get off the truck, and be fully overhead to the business. At that size, the amount of revenue that you produce out in the field, $100,000, $150,000 in annual revenue that you could produce out in the field doing work, is likely the entire profit of the business.
