This post starts with a preview, but has paywall further down. It is primarily written for small business owner-operators doing $1mm to $10mm of revenue. Please consider supporting my writing as a paid subscriber, and hopefully you’ll find a ton of value for your own business.
Periodically, I update you on my day-to-day as the owner-operator of a small business. Whether you’re a new reader or you’ve been along for the ride since the beginning, you may find this series of posts interesting — it’s a lens into my business and my growth as a business owner & operator.
Brief Timeline of Posts:
February 2022: Acquisition Closed
December 2022: 2022 Year in Review (no paywall)
April 2024: 2023 Annual Letter (no paywall)
March 2025: 2024 Annual Letter (no paywall)
May 2025: Operating Update (paywall)
August 2025: Operating Update (paywall)
January 2026: 2025 Annual Letter (no paywall)
February 2026: Operating Update (paywall)
I always start these posts by re-reading my most recent post to see what I had anticipated for myself. Looking at February 2026, the key theme was organic growth.
We launched a new crew (our fourth) in the middle of our slow season. My biggest worry was sustaining enough sales to keep four crews busy — recall that we are in a project-based business, so need an ongoing flow of new leads & closes to keep our crews full.
To that end, my #1 goal for myself in the first half of the year was to maintain a steady hum of marketing activity, week-in & week-out.
More tangibly, I viewed the required improvement as follows:
In Q1 2025, we averaged ~44 new leads per week, and closed ~24 of them (55% closing rate). With a 4th crew in place, we needed to sell ~32 new jobs per week (at a similar average job size), which would require ~59 leads per week.
Therefore, I needed to increase our weekly lead volume by ~15 leads per week or improve our closing rate to 73% off the same lead volume…or more realistically, some combination of the two.
To do so, I outlined two actions to drive our closing rate & lead flow:
Lead Volume: Dedicate 5-10 hours/week building out new industry referral partners, such as landscapers, to generate sustainable new lead flow each week.
Closing Rate: Hired a Sales Coordinator in Johannesburg to improve our response time to client questions and more proactively follow up on quotes.
The remainder of this post is for paid subscribers. It contains the following:
First Half Results
Initiatives we took to improve sales
How our leadership structure has evolved
Sales goals for the rest of the year
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