July 16, 2025

S2 Ep 47 More Sales, More Problems: How to Survive the Success Wave

S2 Ep 47 More Sales, More Problems: How to Survive the Success Wave

We unpack what happens after electricians hit record-breaking sales months and why it often feels like you’re more trapped than before. You’ll hear real examples of 100K to 300K jumps… and the growing pains that follow.

You’ll discover:
- Why your biggest month might actually be a loss.
- The “bottleneck effect” of fulfillment.
- Dangerous hiring during scale.
- Throttling with intent (rate increases + memberships).
- The one thing you *can’t come back from*: bad service

This one speaks to anyone who’s ever asked, “How do I keep up… and still grow?”

💥 Win of the Week
One of our clients just crossed $300K in a single month after months hovering around $100K but what followed revealed everything he still needed to fix. Another broke his company record at $275K, all in residential service!

And those wins exposed the real pain points... which we help solve.

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00:00 – Massive growth and what comes after it.
01:00 – Real Client Wins | From $100K to $300K: What Sherman and others did differently.
01:30 – The Hidden Problem After a Big Month
02:45 – The painful reality of growing past capacity.
04:00 – The cashflow illusion no one talks about.
06:00 – How to protect your time, team, and sanity.
07:15 – The Dangers of Bad Hiring During Scale.
08:40 – “You Can’t Come Back From Bad Service”
09:30 – The Danger Zone: 2 to 4 Star Reviews
10:00 – Generator Webinar & Giveaway with Duromax.
12:00 – Lead Spike Strategy: Intentional vs Accidental Growth
14:30 – What to look at next when leads/sales explode.
16:00 – “If you did it on accident, you can do it on purpose.”

#ElectricianPodcast #ServiceLoop #LoopMethod #TradesBusiness #BlueCollarGrowth #FieldServiceSuccess #BookedOut #ElectricianProblems #ScaleSmarter #HomeServicePro

00:00 - Welcome to Million Dollar Electrician

00:30 - Record-Breaking Growth and Growing Pains

02:40 - When Success Creates Bottlenecks

05:30 - Solutions: Membership Locks and Rate Increases

07:30 - The Danger of Reactive Hiring

10:30 - Duramax Generator Workshop Announcement

12:20 - Analyzing Growth and Making Strategic Decisions

16:00 - Conclusion and Key Takeaways

WEBVTT

00:00:00.739 --> 00:00:12.333
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician podcast where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and spark up those sales.

00:00:13.160 --> 00:00:20.626
I'm Joseph Lucani and, together with my co-host, Clay Neumeyer, we're here to share the secrets that have helped electricians sell over a million dollars from a single service van.

00:00:20.806 --> 00:00:30.922
Now it's time for sales, it's time for scale, it's time to become a million dollar electrician.

00:00:30.922 --> 00:00:37.091
Hello, hello and welcome back, joseph.

00:00:37.091 --> 00:00:38.814
I am pumped to be here with you, brother.

00:00:38.814 --> 00:00:40.505
We've got a great episode today.

00:00:40.926 --> 00:00:56.975
I cannot wait to get into this at such a special time when you know what it's getting really busy for a lot of electricians again, and especially those in our program where you have these levers, that you find these unlocks, that just they lead to massive growth.

00:00:56.975 --> 00:01:01.290
And what follows massive growth, predictably, are some pains.

00:01:01.290 --> 00:01:18.698
For instance, we're going to talk about a couple records today where guys have gone from average or maybe their biggest months ever being around 100K, to now, like Sherman did, over $300,000 in June, and what follows and what we do next to control that growth.

00:01:18.698 --> 00:01:20.121
I can't wait to get into this with you.

00:01:20.121 --> 00:01:30.180
And we have another client who just again I think he did about 1.2 million last year just had his record month at $275,000.

00:01:30.680 --> 00:01:34.811
Just massive, massive sales breakthroughs all in residential service.

00:01:34.811 --> 00:01:41.911
But what happens after this becomes really important because, as you know, what we sell we have to Complete.

00:01:41.911 --> 00:01:44.094
We got to complete it, we got to install it.

00:01:44.094 --> 00:01:53.487
Joe, do you remember kind of your first big months when you were still in the van, still out there grinding brother, and how did you kind of feel this change your business.

00:01:54.149 --> 00:01:56.784
Well, it depends when I was doing it the right way or when I was doing it the wrong way.

00:01:57.606 --> 00:02:00.942
Right Things started to add up and you became the million dollar electrician.

00:02:01.384 --> 00:02:08.044
So the way that we started figuring it out was we realized that one person wasn't able to do the whole thing.

00:02:08.044 --> 00:02:13.543
Where my responsibility shifted from you need to now sell and then install.

00:02:13.543 --> 00:02:28.250
It was I need to separate and instead focus more on the thing that I do best, which was I'm going to hire more installers, I'm going to train more installers and then I'm going to consistently have them do the service so that I can constantly just keep rinsing and repeating.

00:02:28.250 --> 00:02:33.518
So at the one point we were selling for three vans and three install crews, and pretty much that was.

00:02:33.518 --> 00:02:36.044
We were booked out for a few weeks, so I remember the busy times.

00:02:36.466 --> 00:02:36.727
Wow.

00:02:36.727 --> 00:02:40.503
And so before you had those vans, I mean, what would happen then?

00:02:40.503 --> 00:02:41.608
How would you keep up?

00:02:41.608 --> 00:02:42.128
What was that?

00:02:42.128 --> 00:02:43.371
Like you?

00:02:43.491 --> 00:02:45.171
can tell it already already triggers the memories.

00:02:45.171 --> 00:02:47.793
I remember there's one specific time.

00:02:47.793 --> 00:02:55.518
I remember we had just started figuring out how to sell, but we weren't in a position where we could keep up with the volume in which we were selling.

00:02:55.518 --> 00:03:03.282
And I remember we had sold so much during the spring that when summer came, we couldn't take on any more work.

00:03:03.282 --> 00:03:06.127
I couldn't even go to sales calls because I was so booked out.

00:03:06.127 --> 00:03:09.200
I was like, yeah, I can go to a sales call, but I can't come back for six weeks.

00:03:09.200 --> 00:03:14.331
So if you need anything time sensitive, why am I wasting my time with it?

00:03:14.331 --> 00:03:33.122
It was very, very, very difficult because you had the money in your hand, but it was a bottleneck because it was like, yeah, you can have $100,000 a month, but if you can't sell anything for the following month because you're so busy installing it, it's not a $100,000 a month, it's a $50,000 a month, and that's really the thing that people need to really consider.

00:03:33.743 --> 00:03:35.328
Oh, wow, okay, Hang on.

00:03:35.328 --> 00:03:36.872
That was a major cliffhanger there.

00:03:36.872 --> 00:03:38.302
What do you mean by that?

00:03:38.302 --> 00:03:40.229
Why is it just a $50,000 a month?

00:03:40.770 --> 00:03:41.491
Well, let me break it down.

00:03:41.491 --> 00:03:45.032
So let's say you have a metric in which you need to hit Sake of argument.

00:03:45.032 --> 00:03:50.817
I'm just going to say for this argument, let's say it's 100,000 a month you need in order to operate your operation right Now.

00:03:50.817 --> 00:04:02.590
I need to do that consistently, and the way that I'm going to get those sales is by being able to offer the emergency service, being able to be responsive to people's needs, have prompt installs, and those would be the things that allow me to serve my clients at the highest level.

00:04:03.471 --> 00:04:17.966
Now, when we got to the point where we were so booked out like even so much as like I was doing three installs per day for six weeks, it was insane, because if you were to say one, I can't keep up with any warranty work that happens.

00:04:17.966 --> 00:04:26.487
Two, if I have any delay whatsoever, I have to reschedule a whole pile of people, often losing them, meaning it's costing me more in marketing.

00:04:26.487 --> 00:04:32.855
I then often have to pay my techs overtime, meaning that now I'm paying them more than it currently was allotted for.

00:04:32.855 --> 00:04:41.689
And if I can't actually bring the revenue in because I'm not able to make the sales, because I can't actually even serve the people, then I have to make that 100,000.

00:04:41.689 --> 00:04:46.759
I made last month stretch two months, so it's not like I made $100,000.

00:04:46.759 --> 00:04:48.987
It's like you didn't.

00:04:48.987 --> 00:04:51.848
You just had two $50,000 months and that's really bad.

00:04:52.470 --> 00:04:52.670
Wow.

00:04:52.670 --> 00:05:21.692
So you could almost look at it like this too you collected $50,000 in deposits on that work that you weren't able to complete in that cash crunch time, and that's something that we talk a lot about when it comes to dispatching for profit, as we call it, or making a profitable office, where we're trying to actually prioritize the work that needs to get done so you can bring those big checks in house, but when you're short on staff, you're short on staff, and so please continue.

00:05:21.692 --> 00:05:22.454
Yeah, jump in.

00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:28.887
So the solution that we found was that, eventually, like my partner and I were saying like, well, how do I clone Joe?

00:05:28.887 --> 00:05:30.654
Like what do we do to get more Joe's?

00:05:30.654 --> 00:05:32.541
And we realized you can't.

00:05:32.541 --> 00:05:34.545
Like at the time, we couldn't you know.

00:05:34.545 --> 00:05:44.622
So we instead said we need to do rate increases, we need to do membership locks, and what I mean by membership locks was one my price went up in general.

00:05:44.622 --> 00:05:47.309
If you wanted me to do anything, like I'm booked six weeks.

00:05:47.309 --> 00:05:51.129
You want our level of service, I'm happy to serve you, but this is the rate in which we're going to do so.

00:05:51.129 --> 00:05:58.882
The second was we considered our first class pass almost like a valve, and saying like we're so booked that we can't even possibly take someone on.

00:05:59.543 --> 00:06:06.031
We'll say okay great Well, currently the valve is shut and I'm only going to service our in-house club members.

00:06:06.031 --> 00:06:19.711
So either you become a club member and you can get on the calendar, or you're on our standby list, and when, eventually, we free up in three months, then we'll call you back and see if you still want the thing done.

00:06:19.711 --> 00:06:25.391
And the majority of time people were like either well, I need it done, so I'll pay the rate, or I don't get none and I was going to waste your time anyway.

00:06:25.391 --> 00:06:26.982
Or you know what the?

00:06:26.982 --> 00:06:34.497
So we were able to get the sale now with a person who's already committed and then also have future opportunities already locked in.

00:06:35.439 --> 00:06:48.139
Love it, so throttling by supply and demand, really to say you know what, if we can't service this amount, then we're going to have to qualify at a deeper level in a way that we can prioritize those who are most serious about working with us.

00:06:48.139 --> 00:07:14.007
Correct, correct, sell this stuff.

00:07:14.007 --> 00:07:16.218
In fact, maybe you want to argue that red, black, blue, that's black phase, and red was actually your marketing.

00:07:16.218 --> 00:07:16.740
Phase one was marketing.

00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:18.326
Then we were able to match it with our sales.

00:07:18.326 --> 00:07:23.985
Now the third phase, phase C, the blue is to actually install this stuff and collect on it.

00:07:23.985 --> 00:07:37.673
And when we try to reactively bring people in who are new to our brand, that's kind of the old way of hiring and firing and what we've seen time and time again is that person's just not quite in your culture yet.

00:07:37.673 --> 00:07:43.512
In fact, I would argue that usually at that time is when we start to take shortcuts on process, isn't it?

00:07:44.134 --> 00:07:55.857
Yeah, and the scariest thing is that it's actually the most volatile and dangerous part of your business Because, let's say, sake of argument, at the time, you are the owner of the company and you've done everything in your power to create this reputation.

00:07:55.857 --> 00:07:57.687
You focus on your customer service.

00:07:57.687 --> 00:07:59.632
You've personally treated all your customers the right way.

00:07:59.632 --> 00:08:02.252
Your language is good, your appearance is good, you're awesome.

00:08:02.252 --> 00:08:06.245
And then you get so busy because that particular service is in such demand.

00:08:06.286 --> 00:08:09.589
People are like, yeah, I want to work more with this guy, but then you have so much to do.

00:08:09.589 --> 00:08:11.031
You're like I need guys.

00:08:11.031 --> 00:08:11.572
What do I do?

00:08:11.572 --> 00:08:13.615
I'll take this guy, I'll take this guy, I'll take this guy.

00:08:13.615 --> 00:08:21.774
And then you let them loose and you realize well, he had commercial background, has never talked to a homeowner, and this guy's an industrial guy and he's never seen Romex.

00:08:21.774 --> 00:08:25.309
And this guy's green as a garden hose and doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

00:08:25.309 --> 00:08:30.095
And I've got a mixed even the skills it's.

00:08:30.095 --> 00:08:32.216
Do they represent my brand?

00:08:32.216 --> 00:08:35.461
Do they communicate the values to my customers?

00:08:35.461 --> 00:08:40.736
Can they speak to the customers in the way that would be in alignment with how I would do it?

00:08:40.736 --> 00:08:50.754
So if I hire wrong, I could be gutting my reputation in the attempt of trying to grow, which is the exact opposite effect we want to be doing.

00:08:51.644 --> 00:08:56.032
And I told you this the other day and I'm sure you can attest to this because we live by this as well.

00:08:56.032 --> 00:08:58.994
There's one thing we can't come back from.

00:08:58.994 --> 00:09:00.951
It's bad service.

00:09:00.951 --> 00:09:19.636
It has to be the North Star and we've talked about this in the context of sales actually, and when sales are picking up in that big month, we'll tend to start shortcutting the process there too, which again just pulls back from that five-star service that we've put so much effort into creating that experience.

00:09:19.636 --> 00:09:24.274
When we fall short of that, we start to lose on the front end.

00:09:24.274 --> 00:09:27.149
Now we're talking about losing on the installs as well.

00:09:27.208 --> 00:09:37.614
So imagine a company that did do just explosive growth double or triple the revenue in a single month, and they started to cheat just a little bit on the sales end.

00:09:37.614 --> 00:09:42.534
And then they started to have fulfillment issues and cheat just a little bit on that with the experienced guys.

00:09:42.534 --> 00:09:50.429
And then they bring new guys in to fill those voids and next thing, you know, the total experience has now gone into the most dangerous zone.

00:09:50.429 --> 00:09:57.739
Personally, that we talked about on another podcast which isn't a one-star review, by the way somewhere between two and four, and we don't know.

00:09:57.739 --> 00:10:00.386
That's the worst possible case.

00:10:00.386 --> 00:10:04.775
So the question starts to become well, how do we fix this?

00:10:04.775 --> 00:10:06.339
What do we work on here?

00:10:06.339 --> 00:10:07.892
And I want to get to that.

00:10:07.892 --> 00:10:15.777
But I think it's time we got to pause this here for just a second and talk about following up even one of our last podcasts with Duramax.

00:10:16.346 --> 00:10:19.924
As you guys know, now, the podcast is powered by Duramax portable generators.

00:10:19.924 --> 00:10:21.932
We had Jesse Hurd on the show.

00:10:21.932 --> 00:10:33.231
We're literally doing some great things with Duramax, including a generator webinar, and if you guys haven't got that already, we really want you to go ahead and comment.

00:10:33.231 --> 00:10:39.211
Jen Speck, wherever you're hearing this first, whether you're in the Facebook group with us, send us a DM.

00:10:39.211 --> 00:10:43.591
You're on YouTube, drop that comment below wherever you're listening to this, wherever you can reach us.

00:10:43.591 --> 00:10:51.174
If you're on your podcast channel and you need somewhere to go to send that message, please go to servicelooplelectricalcom and just use the contact form.

00:10:51.174 --> 00:10:58.429
Or if you're already friends with us on any of the social channels.

00:10:58.450 --> 00:11:00.477
Because here's the thing that one's coming up in just a couple of weeks joe and I booked the thing.

00:11:00.477 --> 00:11:03.086
There's also a free draw for a generator, but you've got to attend to be into that draw.

00:11:03.086 --> 00:11:07.846
We're going to do the actual draw right during that webinar, and here's who it's for.

00:11:07.846 --> 00:11:29.072
Anyone, whether you're new or experienced in generators will learn from this and get some additional leverage in that niche, which is going to help you actually be able to make micro generator offers, even on projects or homes where they don't know they need it yet or they haven't asked for that thing, and you can do that all without being pushy.

00:11:29.072 --> 00:11:30.394
Super excited for it.

00:11:30.394 --> 00:11:32.746
Joe, how excited are you for this workshop?

00:11:33.788 --> 00:11:36.674
I mean jazzed up is a major understatement.

00:11:36.674 --> 00:11:38.339
I mean, you guys all know generators are my jam.

00:11:38.339 --> 00:11:39.326
I love them.

00:11:39.326 --> 00:11:44.003
They're like the lifeblood of my company or former company, and I love it.

00:11:44.003 --> 00:11:44.826
I truly do.

00:11:44.826 --> 00:11:59.208
And the thing that I'm so excited for is I think people are sleeping on portables in the worst possible way, and when they come to this session, you know, god willing, we're going to do everything in our power to make sure that they not only take something away, but something they can apply immediately.

00:11:59.208 --> 00:12:03.326
That's going to put more cash in their pocket, like that day, if they apply the lesson.

00:12:03.827 --> 00:12:04.328
Love it, man.

00:12:04.328 --> 00:12:05.211
Thanks for the share.

00:12:05.211 --> 00:12:07.785
So that's coming up in just a couple of weeks.

00:12:07.785 --> 00:12:16.433
Uh guys, if you've already been registered for that event, do watch for the communications That'll be in your inbox Maybe already has been by the time you hear this podcast.

00:12:17.206 --> 00:12:20.416
Back to our little issue here of explosive growth.

00:12:20.416 --> 00:12:26.398
There's actually some leading and lagging indicators that I want to ask you guys to pay attention to.

00:12:26.398 --> 00:12:33.238
Incredible sales tend to follow again the phase A, b and C here.

00:12:33.238 --> 00:12:37.307
Sales tend to follow again the phase a, b and c here.

00:12:37.307 --> 00:12:40.472
Sometimes we see a blip in marketing and that will result in incredible sales months.

00:12:40.472 --> 00:12:45.769
Sometimes it's just a matter of we had more leads, so, in other words, it got busier.

00:12:46.250 --> 00:12:53.032
And if that's you guys, if you're in that position, then I just want you to pay attention to where did my leads come from this month?

00:12:53.032 --> 00:13:15.374
And that's why our team all use our KPI book, because if you recognized a 50% increase in leads as well as a 50 to 100% increase in sales, then two things are happening, and you need to be able to make great business decisions in your company, and one of the best ways to do that is to ask yourself where did this uptick in leads come from?

00:13:15.374 --> 00:13:17.912
Was it from a new effort?

00:13:17.912 --> 00:13:23.445
Was it from something that we optimized, or was it from something that we scaled?

00:13:23.445 --> 00:13:25.688
Or did it come unintentionally?

00:13:25.688 --> 00:13:40.768
And I really want to challenge you guys if this is something that happened unintentionally, then to look at the market and ask ourselves why and because, if the leads came unintentionally, what are the chances, joe, that that's a sustainable outcome?

00:13:41.515 --> 00:13:41.956
It's not.

00:13:41.956 --> 00:13:46.759
It's like you stepping in the shade and then realizing oh wait, there's a cloud ahead of me.

00:13:46.759 --> 00:13:47.681
Can I control that?

00:13:47.681 --> 00:13:49.446
Nah, I can't do that.

00:13:49.446 --> 00:13:50.196
How can I replicate it?

00:13:50.196 --> 00:13:51.820
I can't, I just got to get lucky again.

00:13:51.820 --> 00:14:03.937
I would rather know the thing I'm doing came from a specific thing, so that I can put my pulse on it and say how do I make this happen or how do I prevent this from happening?

00:14:04.477 --> 00:14:05.097
Absolutely.

00:14:05.097 --> 00:14:17.701
And if you love that size of a month and you're able to handle it, then the simple solution is to okay, how do we keep that number of leads, how do we leverage this great month and invest it in that phase A of our business?

00:14:17.701 --> 00:14:31.105
Then If it was also complemented by phase B the sales and things just going better I want you to really examine, put the microscope on your business again and ask yourself what changes or training have we made?

00:14:31.105 --> 00:14:42.087
Is it because we're more experienced with a process like our loop method and it's just clicking and conversions have gone up and average ticket have gone up, and is that trend consistent?

00:14:42.087 --> 00:14:44.769
Or is it all of a sudden blip that's unexplainable?

00:14:44.769 --> 00:14:48.710
Again, if it's unexplainable, is it going to be sustainable?

00:14:48.710 --> 00:14:48.970
Joe?

00:14:49.309 --> 00:14:54.711
No, because the thing is is that if you don't know, how could you possibly make the right moves?

00:14:54.711 --> 00:14:55.851
It's once again.

00:14:55.851 --> 00:14:58.852
You're blindfolded and you're being told hey, tell me where I went to.

00:14:58.852 --> 00:15:01.974
You can count your steps back, but you have no idea what you avoided.

00:15:02.573 --> 00:15:08.197
So, even trying to restep, you're going to step in something again.

00:15:08.197 --> 00:15:09.583
I like the way you said that you're going to step in something again.

00:15:09.583 --> 00:15:19.177
So one of the best places you could find yourself is we did intentionally increase leads and we did intentionally increase sales and maybe that lagging indicator is like holy crap.

00:15:19.177 --> 00:15:19.658
It worked.

00:15:19.658 --> 00:15:29.083
So now we have to we're forced to focus on phase C, which is improving installs and that install schedule and the effectiveness of those.

00:15:29.083 --> 00:15:31.918
Obviously, we need to expand on that team.

00:15:31.918 --> 00:15:41.437
Obviously it will have to grow, because you know this is the new future of you, you know this is your new intent and what you're going to find is it is going to break down inevitably.

00:15:42.243 --> 00:15:46.243
There is no one that steps into a new level If you've been at 100k months.

00:15:46.243 --> 00:15:52.000
There's no one that gets to 250k months without stepping in it, without feeling some shit go down.

00:15:52.000 --> 00:16:00.075
So put your magnifying glass on the shit, because what the shit is telling you is not that you're inadequate, not that you're unworthy.

00:16:00.075 --> 00:16:02.645
It's telling you where do I have to focus next?

00:16:02.645 --> 00:16:07.480
So ride those waves, ride that frustration, but try to look at it logically.

00:16:07.480 --> 00:16:11.977
Try to let what the data tells you make your decisions for you guys.

00:16:11.977 --> 00:16:25.654
That's how you can grow, get to the next level and actually improve this thing to a way where you can have these 200, 250, 300k plus months consistently build a team, never shortcutting on that training.

00:16:25.654 --> 00:16:26.857
We're down to the last minute, joe.

00:16:26.857 --> 00:16:28.301
Any last words from you on this one.

00:16:29.023 --> 00:16:32.697
If you can do it on accident, you can do it on purpose.

00:16:32.697 --> 00:16:34.602
You just need to know where it came from.

00:16:35.524 --> 00:16:38.216
I love that Great finish Mic drop.

00:16:38.216 --> 00:16:39.721
We're already here for the day.

00:16:39.721 --> 00:16:40.403
Thank you, guys.

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We'll see you next week.

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My pleasure Be blessed friends.

00:16:48.075 --> 00:16:50.003
And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast.

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We hope you're buzzing with new ideas that charged up to take your business to the next level.

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So don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share the show with fellow electricians.

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Together, we'll keep the current flowing.