Why Two Service Businesses Can Make the Same Money and One Owner Burns Out
In this clip, I break down why the difference is not effort or skill, but where the owner sits in the operation.
One structure creates leverage. The other quietly turns the owner into the bottleneck.
This is a look at why growth questions often miss the real issue, and how the way a team is built determines whether a business actually gives its owner freedom or just more responsibility.
Two service businesses can look identical on paper.
Same revenue.
Same number of employees.
Same take home income.
And yet, the experience of running them can be completely different.
One owner has a business that feels manageable.
The other has a job that never shuts off.
This clip highlights a pattern I see constantly in service businesses. The difference between owning a business and being trapped inside one often has nothing to do with revenue and everything to do with where the owner sits in the operation.
The illusion of “same numbers”
Picture two shops.
Both have:
An owner
Four employees
Around $1–$1.5M in revenue
Roughly $200K in owner income
On the surface, they look equal.
But here’s where they diverge.
Shop A
The owner manages the team.
They have someone answering the phone.
They oversee installs.
They touch sales, operations, and quality control without being stuck in any one role all day.
They’re running the business.
Shop B
The owner is the business.
They’re the installer.
They’re on the phone at all hours.
They handle sales because they’re “the best at it.”
They still have four employees, but everyone depends on them for everything.
That owner doesn’t have a team.
They have four people waiting on them.
Same income. Very different cost.
Both owners might take home similar money.
But one of them is paying a hidden tax:
Mental load
Constant interruption
No real leverage
No margin for error
No one to lean on when things break
In Shop B, every stop runs through the owner.
Installer.
Salesperson.
Problem solver.
Decision maker.
That’s not leadership.
That’s bottlenecking.
And bottlenecks scale stress faster than revenue.
Why growth questions usually miss the point
In service businesses, the question I hear all the time is:
“How do I go from $1M to $3M?”
But that question skips something more important.
What does the business look like while it’s growing?
Because growing a business where the owner is already maxed out doesn’t create freedom.
It just multiplies pressure.
If the owner is still:
Installing all day
Answering calls at night
Closing every sale
Putting out every fire
Then growth just means a bigger, louder version of the same problem.
A team isn’t headcount. It’s distribution.
A lot of owners say, “I want to build a team.”
What they really mean is, “I want help without losing control.”
That’s understandable.
It’s also where things get stuck.
A real team means:
Responsibilities are distributed
Decisions don’t funnel through one person
The business can operate without the owner touching every detail
Until that happens, revenue growth doesn’t reduce workload.
It increases it.
The question that actually matters
When people ask me about scaling, I usually redirect the conversation.
Not to revenue.
Not to marketing.
Not to hiring.
I ask:
How much money are you taking home and how involved do you have to be to earn it?
Because two owners can make the same income:
One through leverage
The other through exhaustion
Only one of those is sustainable.
Where the shift actually starts
This isn’t about stepping away completely.
And it’s not about “working less” as a goal.
It’s about deciding:
Where the owner adds the most value
Where they’re just filling gaps
What needs to stop running through them personally
That’s how businesses grow without breaking the owner.
The real takeaway
Revenue doesn’t tell the whole story.
Profit doesn’t either.
The real signal is how dependent the business is on the owner’s time and presence.
Two shops can make the same money.
Only one gives the owner a future.