Path to Scale™FAQ
Answers about Path to Scale, the Profit Leak Inspection, the Retrofit and the Fractional COO Service Agreement.
The Inspection includes a benchmark scorecard, a job-to-cash leak map, an owner bottleneck map, a ranked leak report and a 90-day plan.
The Retrofit is a 90-day project. The Fractional COO Service Agreement is 12 months of ongoing leadership.
We sign an NDA before you send anything, work only from read-only exports and use only the access you approve in writing.
Every job is different; the steps aren't. Each one is scheduled, worked, finished, invoiced and paid, and your systems record when. Process mining rebuilds that flow from those dates, step by step, so you can see where work and cash wait by job type, crew and customer.
Yes, as a tool inside the operating system we build, never as the headline. It drafts invoices, change-order logs and follow-ups from your own records. Routine ones go out on their own and are logged; your staff sees only the exceptions, like a price that isn't on the agreed list. Your data stays in your systems and is never used to train anything.
Buyers pay less for a business that depends on its owner or one big customer, or whose margins swing. We measure those the way a buyer would and fix them. We don't promise a valuation.
Founder- or family-owned commercial and building-services contractors doing $10M–$75M anywhere in the US: mechanical and HVAC, controls, electrical, plumbing, fire protection and specialty trades.
Yes. We're based in New York and work on site across the metro area, including Long Island, Westchester and northern New Jersey. Everywhere else we work remotely, and travel for any on-site visit you ask for is billed at cost.
Coaches teach, peer groups share opinions, and software vendors sell tools. We measure your own job data, put a dollar value on each leak, fix it with your team, and prove the result before and after.
Our founder, personally. Path to Scale is founder-led, and every engagement is led by the same senior operator from kickoff to readout.
Same problems at bigger scale: crews in the field, scope that changes mid-job and billing that falls behind the work. And we don't guess: we measure your own job data, and the Inspection is guaranteed.
No. We focus on commercial and building-services contractors.
A benchmark scorecard of 12 KPIs, a job-to-cash leak map, an owner bottleneck map, an initiative review, a ranked leak report, a 90-day plan with 5–10 quick wins, and the first 3 quick wins launched, all in 30 days.
$7,500, paid upfront. 100% credited toward the Retrofit if you sign it within 30 days of the readout.
Most firms have more than they think. Billing and payment dates sit in your accounting system, so the cash side starts right away. For the rest, your office pulls 50–100 job files on our checklist; if they're on paper we add a digitization step, quoted after a quick look at a few of them, and the timeline runs longer.
If the Inspection doesn't identify at least 5× your fee in profit and cash opportunities, we keep working for up to 10 more business days at no charge until it does. If it still doesn't, your full fee is credited toward any next step with us within 90 days of the readout. Opportunities are counted as annualized margin gain, plus one-time cash freed (counted once), plus avoided costs, using a method we agree in writing at kickoff. The guarantee applies to firms with $10M or more in revenue that provide data or job files within 7 days of kickoff and make the owner and staff available for interviews. It covers opportunities identified, not results you later realize, which depend on what your team implements. The full terms are in your engagement agreement, which controls if it differs from this summary.
About 2 hours for the owner, plus the readout, and 30 minutes each for 4–6 staff. Your office sends read-only exports on our checklist (or a sample of job files) within 7 days, and the 30 days start when the data arrives.
The Retrofit is a fixed 90-day project that installs your operating rhythm and fixes your most costly workflow. The Service Agreement is 12 months of ongoing leadership, with one measured improvement and one automation every quarter.
Both are quoted in writing at your readout, once we know which leaks are biggest and how your data is set up. Retrofit fees are set so the leaks already identified cover them several times over, billed monthly over 3 months; your full Inspection fee comes off the first invoice if you sign within 30 days, and you can stop after month 1 and pay only for that month. The Service Agreement is billed monthly for 12 months, with a performance exit after month 6. COO On Call, for owners not ready for a full engagement, is priced on your free 30-minute call.
No. By week 10 of the Retrofit your own Integrator or operations lead runs the weekly meeting, and every automation comes with written procedures.
No. The weekly meeting replaces status meetings and firefighting, and we do the measuring, building and reporting. Your GM co-owns the fixes.
Email any time and we reply within one business day. Meetings and reviews run on a fixed calendar set at kickoff, on site in the New York metro or by video elsewhere.
That's common. Software records the work; it doesn't change the step where work waits. We don't sell software and you don't need new software: we work with ServiceTitan, BuildOps, Procore, QuickBooks, Sage, Foundation or spreadsheets, find where jobs and cash wait, and fix that step with your team.
We sign an NDA before you send anything, work only from read-only exports, and never share anything that identifies you. Your numbers go into anonymized, aggregated benchmarks only if you agree. Any automation gets only the access you approve in writing.