Electrical contractor
IllustrativeComposite scenario. Not an actual client.- Owner on site
- Every day, required
- Documented processes
- None. One head
- Leadership autonomy
- No defined role
- Succession readiness
- Not possible
- Owner on site
- By choice
- Documented processes
- Mapped and in use
- Leadership autonomy
- Running independently
- Succession readiness
- On a funded path
Everything runs through me. That is the problem.
Dave has been on every job site for two decades. He estimates every bid, manages every crew, handles every callback, and sources every material. He would like to let his leads take over. He has no idea what the business is worth or whether it could survive a transition without him.
What the North Star surfaced
- 1All knowledge is tribal. Estimating, scheduling, and supplier relationships live in one head. No documentation exists, so no employee can operate independently.
- 2Key people have no defined role. Both leads are capable of more but have no authority, no scope, and no path to ownership.
- 3Succession is impossible as built. No buyer or employee can acquire what is not documented and does not run without him.
- 01 · Destination
The number they were building toward
Valued the business honestly, showed the discount the market applies to key-man dependency, and set the target the employee buyout would actually require.
- 02 · Roadmap
What had to change, in order
Promoted one lead to operations with genuine authority, moved scheduling to the second, and converted twenty-one years of estimating instinct into a documented, repeatable process.
- 03 · Rocketship
The systems the team now runs
Built job management from bid to invoice, an estimating playbook any qualified employee can run, and a weekly financial dashboard that replaced weekend bookkeeping.