You Hired Too Fast… And It’s Costing You
In this YouTube monologue, Mike Andes explains why many small‑service business owners lose money by hiring more staff than they can effectively manage. He illustrates the point with a case study of Carter from Rough Cuts, whose crew efficiency score was under 30%—meaning 10 budgeted work hours required 30 actual clock hours, and crews of 3‑4 were sent to jobs that only needed 2. Carter had never tracked these numbers. Andes argues that correcting pricing (raising rates from $60 to $100) can immediately improve labor efficiency and cash flow. He ultimately advises scaling back to a solo operation while retaining the existing 50 mowing customers, tightening routes, and ensuring jobs are correctly priced, thereby creating a lean, profitable service model.
