Mike Andes explains why hiring another worker for a lawn-care business increases capacity but not necessarily efficiency. Efficiency is a ratio, and it only improves if you also optimize route density, property size, and equipment like trucks and trailers.
Do you think it would be more efficient if I had employed someone to work with me? Not necessarily efficient. Efficiency is a ratio. It's not a matter of quantity. Right you would get more lawns done but it doesn't mean you're more efficient. However quantity and capacity are the two things that you're talking about. So capacity is how many trucks do you have to actually get lawns done because if you're going to go solo and be optimally efficient then you're going to have to go buy a bunch of trucks and trailers and equipment and all the rest of it which you might not want to do if you have big properties. So it's more a matter of quantity and your capacity in terms of equipment and things. That's going to be the ratio you're actually talking about there. So you will get more lawns done but whether or not it's more efficient is actually going to be determined by the route density that you have and the property size.
