The handful of numbers a home service owner should know cold, what healthy looks like for each, and the back-of-napkin math to check your own shop this week.
The one thing to internalize
Your business is a machine that turns marketing dollars into booked jobs, sold tickets, and repeat customers. Money leaks at every link, and it is almost never the link you think.
Step 1
Opportunities
×
Step 2
Booking Rate
×
Step 3
Close Rate
×
Step 4
Average Ticket
Revenue = Opportunities × Booking Rate × Close Rate × Average Ticket When revenue swings, one of these four numbers is slipping.
01
How a dollar moves through your shop
Two truths fall out of this picture: buying more leads is the most expensive way to grow, and the back end is where the durable money lives.
📣Marketing
Spend turns into inbound calls & form fills. The link most owners obsess over, and the most expensive one to lean on.
📞The Phone
Booking Rate = calls that become jobs. The purest free growth in the building: you already paid for these leads.
🚚The Truck
Close Rate × Average Ticket = revenue per opportunity. The fastest dollar: the customer is already standing there.
🔁The Back End
Follow-up on dead quotes, memberships, reviews and referrals. Where compounding happens.
02
Three formulas to check your own shop
Each one turns a gap into dollars. Run them with your real numbers this week.
FORMULA 1
Conversion leak
(target % − current %) × monthly calls × average ticket
FORMULA 2
Recovery
unsold estimates × recovery % × avg estimate value
FORMULA 3
Pricing
price increase % × revenue ≈ added net profit
03
What healthy looks like
Working ranges to orient you. Plenty of shops have fine revenue and thin net: busier than ever, no money at month-end. These ranges tell you where to look.
Margins
Metric
Weak
Healthy
Strong
Gross margin (service)
<45%
50–60%
60%+
Net margin
~5%
10–15%
20%+
Marketing % of revenue
>15%
8–12%
<8%
Operating numbers
Metric
Weak
Healthy
Strong
Booking rate
<60%
65–75%
80–85%+
Revenue / tech / month
~$30k
$45–55k
$60k+
Demand-call close
<70%
70–80%
85%+
These are orientation ranges, not verdicts. Your trade, market, and job mix all shift them. What matters is the gap and the math, built from your own numbers.
04
The seven levers
Each one lives at a link in the chain. The metric to check, the math, and where the problem usually hides.
1
Inbound Conversion
Booked jobs ÷ inbound opportunities
(target% − current%) × monthly calls × avg ticket
Usually hides in: an untrained phone, calls to voicemail, slow speed-to-answer, "I'll have a tech call you back."
2
Technician Close & Ticket
Sold ÷ presented estimates; revenue ÷ jobs
(target ticket − current) × monthly jobs
Usually hides in: one price instead of good/better/best options. Average ticket is often the fastest dollar in the building.
3
Follow-Up & Recovery
Unsold estimates that ever get a second touch
unsold estimates × recovery% × avg value
Usually hides in: no follow-up sequence. Quotes die in a glovebox. Found money already in your CRM; the cost to chase is a text.
4
Pricing Structure
Menu vs. T&M; consistency; last increase
price increase% × revenue ≈ near-pure net
Usually hides in: every truck quoting a different price, fear of raising, no menu. Owners underestimate how much of a price increase drops straight to the bottom line.
5
Retention & Membership
Active members; % recurring; repeat rate
members × plan value + repeat lift × ticket
Usually hides in: no membership offer or no ask process. Recurring revenue smooths seasonality and is what a future buyer pays a premium for.
6
Referral Engine
Referrals/month; review velocity; trade partners
lower CAC + incremental inbound × ticket
Usually hides in: word-of-mouth only, no systematic ask, no review-by-text. "We get referrals" is not a referral engine. Luck isn't a system.
Why it's different: it has no clean dollar figure of its own. It's the reason the other six fixes don't stick. If you can't say your booking rate right now, this is your lever, and knowing that is worth more than any benchmark on this page.
05
Worked examples: the napkin math
Three shops, three leaks, thirty seconds of math each. Swap in your numbers.
A · Booking leak
"About 200 calls a month, a little over half book, average job around $425."
(80% − 55%) × 200 × $425
$21,250/mo≈ $255,000 / year, from a phone already ringing
B · Recovery leak
"60 quotes a month just never close. We don't chase them."
60 × 12% × $1,200
$8,640/mo≈ $104,000 / year, recovered with a text
C · Pricing
$2M shop, hasn't raised prices in two years, roughly 10% net.
7% × $2,000,000 = mostly net profit
+$140,000take-home: roughly $200k → $330k from a price menu
Next step
Ran the math and found a number you don't like?
The free Revenue Leak Snapshot ranks your leaks in dollars in about 60 seconds. And a free 30-minute Revenue Leak Call gives you a straight answer on which one is costing you most, and whether a full diagnostic is worth it.