05/21/2026
I need to apologize to an HVAC contractor in Tampa. I ruined his entire weekend.
He took a 5-minute online assessment I sent him. A scorecard we built for trade contractors. No big deal, right?
He emailed me an hour later.
"Erin. I'm at $2M a year. I have 10 employees. And I've never even heard of a break even number? I don't know which of my services actually makes me money? I've been GUESSING?"
Yeah. He had been guessing.
His operations score came back a 52 out of 100. Four out of six metrics were red or yellow. Revenue per employee was $85K. Benchmark for his trade is much higher. He didn't know his margins by service line. Didn't know his true cost of labor. His most popular service? Wasn't even close to his most profitable one.
He'd been working harder every year. Making the same money. And he couldn't figure out why.
Now he knows why.
5 minutes on his phone, from his truck, didn't talk to a single person. And he got more clarity on what's actually going on in his business than his accountant has given him in three years.
That's the part that gets people. It's not that the scores are bad. It's that they THOUGHT they were fine.
You probably think you're fine too.
Maybe you are. Some guys take this and everything comes back green. Great. That's a good day.
But if you're running an electrical company, a plumbing shop, a concrete crew, a pool company. And you can't answer basic questions about your break-even, your margins by service, or your real cost of labor. You're making every decision on gut feel. And gut feel gets expensive.
It's free. It's online. It takes 5 minutes. You don't talk to anybody.
Drop "SCORE" in the comments and I'll send you the link. 👇
