Key Takeaways
- The six core numbers from Law 6 tell you the state of the business. The six supporting metrics in this article tell you why it is in that state and where it is heading.
- A 12-metric dashboard does not require expensive software. It requires a spreadsheet you open every Monday morning and update in 20 minutes or less.
- Each metric has a target range, a trigger threshold, and a defined response. Without all three, you are running a reporting system, not an intelligence system.
- Crew utilization rate and cost per lead by source are the two metrics most contractors at $2M to $10M are missing entirely. Both are high-leverage and both are calculable from data you already have.
- The dashboard is a Monday morning discipline, not a monthly report. Current numbers make decisions. Historical numbers make excuses.
Law 6 established the principle and gave you the six core numbers every contractor at $2M to $10M needs to know from memory. This tactical companion builds the full dashboard: the core six plus six supporting metrics that explain the why behind what the core numbers show. It also covers the build process, the trigger table that connects each metric to a defined response, and the Monday morning pull routine that keeps the whole system running in under 20 minutes a week.
How to Use This Dashboard
The dashboard has two tiers. The core six are the numbers you pull every Monday and carry in your head. They are the instruments on the panel that tell you the current state of the aircraft: speed, altitude, heading, fuel. If any one of them is outside its target range, you know about it before the week starts and you respond that week.
The supporting six are diagnostic metrics. You review them monthly, or immediately when a core number triggers a response and you need to understand why it moved. If your close rate drops three consecutive weeks, the supporting six tell you whether the problem is lead quality, estimate speed, pricing, or follow-up process. The core six report the symptom. The supporting six identify the cause.
The dashboard lives in a spreadsheet with two tabs: a weekly tab for the core six and a monthly tab for the supporting six. The weekly tab has a new row for each Monday. The monthly tab has a new row for each month. That is the entire structure. Do not over-engineer it. The discipline is in pulling and reviewing the numbers, not in building an elaborate system for tracking them.
The Core Six: Quick Reference
These are covered in depth in Law 6. This section is the reference version for the dashboard build.
1. Close Rate — Rolling 90 Days
Calculation: Jobs booked divided by estimates presented, expressed as a percentage.
Target range: 30 to 50 percent for most residential service contractors.
Trigger: Below 25 percent for two consecutive weeks.
2. Average Job Value — Rolling 90 Days by Category
Calculation: Total revenue in category divided by jobs completed in category.
Target range: Specific to your market and service mix. Set your own baseline from the first 90 days of tracking.
Trigger: Drop of more than 12 percent below your established baseline for two consecutive months.
3. Lead Volume by Source — Monthly
Calculation: Count of new inbound leads broken down by source: website form, Google Business Profile, referral, paid ads, direct call.
Target range: Set your own baseline. Track direction more than absolute number.
Trigger: Any single source dropping more than 30 percent month over month.
4. Google Review Count and Monthly Velocity
Calculation: Total review count and new reviews added in the last 30 days.
Target range: Minimum 4 new reviews per month. Strong operators run 8 to 15.
Trigger: Below 3 new reviews in any calendar month.
5. Labor Cost as a Percentage of Revenue — Quarterly
Calculation: Total labor expense including burden divided by total revenue for the quarter.
Target range: 25 to 35 percent for most residential service contractors.
Trigger: Above 38 percent for two consecutive quarters.
6. Revenue Booked Forward — Rolling 30 Days
Calculation: Total confirmed and scheduled revenue for the next 30 calendar days.
Target range: At least 60 percent of your average monthly revenue run rate.
Trigger: Below 40 percent of monthly run rate on any Monday pull.
The Supporting Six
These metrics are reviewed monthly and pulled immediately when a core metric triggers a response. Each one diagnoses a specific possible cause behind a core metric movement.
7. Cost Per Lead by Source
Calculation: Total spend on a lead source divided by leads generated from that source in the same period.
Why it matters: Lead volume by source (Core 3) tells you how many leads each channel produced. Cost per lead tells you what you paid for them. A channel with high lead volume and high cost per lead may be less efficient than a lower-volume channel with a lower cost. Without this number, you are making marketing spend decisions based on volume alone, which is a consistently expensive mistake.
Target range: Varies widely by trade and market. Establish your baseline in month one. Track direction.
Diagnostic use: When Core 3 (lead volume) drops, cost per lead tells you whether the channel got more expensive or just quieter. Different problems, different responses.
Data source: Ad platform spend reports plus your lead tracking log.
8. Gross Margin by Job Category
Calculation: Revenue minus direct job costs (materials, subcontractors, direct labor) divided by revenue, expressed as a percentage, tracked by service category.
Why it matters: Average job value (Core 2) tracks what you billed. Gross margin by category tracks what you kept after paying to deliver the work. A service category with a high average job value and a thin gross margin is a volume trap. You are doing a lot of work and keeping a small fraction of it. This metric identifies which categories are building the business and which are consuming capacity without building it.
Target range: Most residential service contractors target 40 to 55 percent gross margin. Below 35 percent on any category is worth examining.
Diagnostic use: When labor cost percentage (Core 5) rises, gross margin by category tells you which service line is the source.
9. Referral Rate
Calculation: Leads sourced from customer referrals divided by total leads, expressed as a percentage. Track monthly.
Why it matters: Referral leads close at higher rates, carry lower acquisition costs, and typically produce better average job values than cold leads from paid channels. A rising referral rate is a compounding asset. A declining referral rate is an early warning signal that customer satisfaction is sliding before it shows up in reviews or close rate.
Target range: A healthy referral rate for established contractors in residential service runs 25 to 40 percent of total leads.
Diagnostic use: When close rate (Core 1) drops, check whether referral rate also dropped. If both fell together, the problem is likely quality or experience, not sales process.
10. Average Days to Estimate
Calculation: Average number of calendar days between lead receipt and estimate presented. Track monthly.
Why it matters: This is the estimate-side companion to the 5-minute response rule from Tactical 4. You may be reaching leads quickly on the phone, then taking seven days to get an estimate in front of them. A prospect who waits a week for a number has usually gotten two other numbers by then. Speed to estimate is not a courtesy. It is a close rate lever.
Target range: For most residential service categories, under three business days. Same-day or next-day is competitive in most markets.
Diagnostic use: When close rate (Core 1) drops and lead volume (Core 3) is stable, check average days to estimate first. It is the most commonly overlooked close rate driver.
11. Callback and Complaint Rate
Calculation: Number of jobs requiring a callback or generating a formal complaint divided by total jobs completed in the same period, expressed as a percentage. Track monthly.
Why it matters: Callbacks are a direct labor cost with no corresponding revenue. A crew doing ten callbacks per month on an average job count of 80 is burning roughly 12 percent of its capacity on work that does not bill. This metric also leads review performance. A contractor whose callback rate is rising will see their review score soften within 60 to 90 days as dissatisfied customers who did not get a callback resolution leave public feedback instead.
Target range: Below 5 percent of jobs completed. Above 8 percent is a quality control problem.
Diagnostic use: When review velocity (Core 4) slows or average review score drops, pull callback rate for the prior 60 days. The two metrics move together more often than not.
12. Crew Utilization Rate
Calculation: Billable hours worked divided by total available crew hours in the period, expressed as a percentage. Track weekly or monthly depending on your scheduling cycle.
Why it matters: This is the metric that connects labor cost percentage (Core 5) to its root cause. If your labor cost percentage is rising, it is either a pricing problem or a utilization problem. A crew that is available 400 hours per week but billing 280 hours has a 70 percent utilization rate. The 30 percent gap is paid labor producing no revenue. Identifying that gap, and whether it is caused by scheduling gaps, drive time, callbacks, or slow job flow, is the entire purpose of this metric.
Target range: 75 to 85 percent for most field service operations. Below 70 percent consistently indicates a scheduling or lead volume problem. Above 90 percent consistently indicates you are understaffed and likely deferring bookings.
Diagnostic use: When labor cost percentage (Core 5) rises, pull crew utilization before looking at pricing. Most labor cost problems are utilization problems wearing a pricing costume.
Building the Dashboard in One Afternoon
The dashboard is two tabs in a spreadsheet. One afternoon to build. Twenty minutes per week to maintain.
Tab 1: Weekly Core Pull
Columns: Date, Close Rate, Avg Job Value, Lead Volume (total), New Reviews, Labor % (fill quarterly), Booked Forward. One row per Monday. The goal is to open this tab every Monday morning and fill in the six numbers before you start anything else. The pull should take 15 minutes once your sources are identified. Add a conditional formatting rule that turns any cell red when it crosses a trigger threshold. You want the problem to announce itself.
Tab 2: Monthly Supporting Pull
Columns: Month, Cost Per Lead by Source (one column per channel), Gross Margin by Category (one column per category), Referral Rate, Avg Days to Estimate, Callback Rate, Crew Utilization. One row per month. Pull this on the first Monday of each month before you pull the weekly tab. It takes 30 to 45 minutes when your data sources are organized.
Data Sources You Need to Identify Before You Build
Before you build the spreadsheet, identify exactly where each number comes from so the Monday pull is a retrieval exercise, not a search exercise.
- Close rate: Your job management system (Jobber, HouseCall Pro, or your scheduling software). Estimates created vs. jobs booked in that system.
- Average job value and gross margin: Your accounting software. QuickBooks job reports or your CRM’s revenue reporting.
- Lead volume and source: Your CRM or a manual lead log. Google Business Profile Insights for GBP leads. Ad platform dashboards for paid leads.
- Review count and velocity: Google Business Profile dashboard. Check it directly; do not rely on third-party tools that may lag.
- Labor cost percentage: Your accounting software. Payroll plus burden divided by revenue in the same period.
- Booked forward: Your scheduling system. Filter for confirmed jobs in the next 30 days and sum the expected revenue.
- Crew utilization: Your scheduling system or a manual time log. Billable hours scheduled divided by total available hours.
- Callback rate: A manual log if your system does not track this natively. Every callback gets logged on a running list. Count them monthly.
The Trigger Table
This is the table that turns the dashboard from a reporting system into an intelligence system. Print it. Post it next to wherever you do your Monday pull. When a metric crosses a trigger, you run the response that week. Not next week. This week.
| Metric | Trigger | First Response |
|---|---|---|
| Close Rate | Below 25% two consecutive weeks | Review last 10 lost estimates. Write one sentence on each: why did we lose it? |
| Average Job Value | Drop of 12%+ below baseline for 2 months | Pull gross margin by category. Identify which category drove the drop. Review pricing in that category. |
| Lead Volume by Source | Any source drops 30%+ month over month | Check that source for technical issues first (GBP suspension, ad account flags, form errors). Then check cost per lead for that source. |
| Review Velocity | Below 3 new reviews in any calendar month | Run an active ask campaign with every job completed that week. Personal text, not a mass email. |
| Labor Cost % | Above 38% two consecutive quarters | Pull crew utilization rate first. If utilization is below 75%, scheduling is the problem. If utilization is above 80%, pricing is the problem. |
| Booked Forward | Below 40% of monthly run rate | Call three dormant prospects that week. Check if pending estimates are past follow-up date. Consider a short-term promotion in a target zone. |
| Cost Per Lead | Rises 25%+ on any channel month over month | Review targeting settings on that channel. Check whether a competitor entered the same keywords or geography recently. |
| Gross Margin by Category | Below 35% on any category for 2 months | Pull the last 5 jobs in that category. Review material costs and labor hours against the estimate. Identify where the gap between estimate and actual is occurring. |
| Referral Rate | Drops below 15% for 2 consecutive months | Check callback rate for the same period. A rising callback rate almost always precedes a falling referral rate. Fix the quality issue before addressing the referral ask. |
| Avg Days to Estimate | Above 4 business days | Identify the bottleneck: scheduling backlog, estimator capacity, or proposal preparation time. Address the specific bottleneck, not the symptom. |
| Callback Rate | Above 8% for any month | Pull the callbacks by crew or technician. Quality problems in field service are almost always person-specific, not company-wide. Identify the source. |
| Crew Utilization | Below 70% for 2 consecutive weeks | Check booked forward number first. If booked forward is healthy, the utilization problem is in scheduling efficiency or drive time. If booked forward is also low, lead volume is the upstream problem. |
Five Moves You Run This Week
Move 1: Build the Two-Tab Spreadsheet (90 minutes)
Open a new spreadsheet. Build Tab 1 with columns for all six core metrics and a date column. Build Tab 2 with columns for all six supporting metrics and a month column. Add conditional formatting to flag cells that cross trigger thresholds in red. Label every column with the metric name and the source where the number comes from. Do not fill in any numbers yet. Building the structure and identifying the sources is the entire task for this session.
Move 2: Identify Every Data Source (30 minutes)
For each of the 12 metrics, write the exact location where you will find the number: which software, which report, which menu path. If you cannot identify the source for a metric, that is the gap to address before you try to pull it. Write a note in the spreadsheet column for that metric: “Source not set up yet.” That note is your action item for the following week.
Move 3: Run Your First Full Pull (45 minutes)
Pull all six core metrics for the most recent complete week and enter them in Tab 1. Pull all six supporting metrics for the most recent complete month and enter them in Tab 2. This first pull will take longer than 20 minutes because the sources are unfamiliar. That is expected. By week three the pull runs in 15 minutes. Do it manually this first time regardless of how long it takes.
Move 4: Print the Trigger Table (5 minutes)
Print the trigger table from this article. Post it next to wherever you do your Monday review. The table is not useful as a digital reference you have to find. It needs to be visible when you are looking at the numbers. One page, posted on the wall. When a number goes red, you look left at the trigger table and run the response that day.
Move 5: Commit to the Monday Protocol (permanent)
Block 30 minutes on your calendar every Monday morning before anything else starts. The first 15 minutes is the core pull and Tab 1 update. The remaining 15 minutes is reviewing the numbers against the trigger thresholds. This is not a meeting. It is a standing discipline. Rockefeller did not review Ledger A when he had time. He reviewed it because reviewing it was how he started his day. The routine is the point.
Next in the Series
Thursday, June 5 — Law 7: Serve the Customer Nobody Else Will Serve. Richard Sears built the largest retail operation in America by serving the rural customer Marshall Field left on the table. Positioning domain.
Full series index: korekomfortsolutions.com/laws/
Three Ways to Apply the Laws
Echelon Intel Report ($197) — The external intelligence complement to your internal dashboard. Competitor review velocity, keyword positions, website authority, and permit pull rates mapped against your market. The numbers on your competition, written down and current.
Competitor Intelligence Report ($297) — A deep file on one specific competitor. Their traffic sources, keyword positions, and GBP review geography. The cost-per-lead data your competition does not want you to have.
Managed Websites ($149 to $698/month, build $997 to $4,994) — A contractor website built and maintained as a compounding business asset. Every build decision is driven by the intelligence the Echelon Report provides, not by instinct.
The map was always there.
This is just the first man drawing it for you.
Disclosure: Kore Komfort Solutions is an educational publisher. Some links in this article may be affiliate links, meaning KKS receives a small commission if you purchase through them at no additional cost to you. This does not affect which products are mentioned or recommended. All analysis and recommendations are editorially independent.
Frequently Asked Questions
What KPIs should a contractor track weekly?
The six core weekly metrics for a contractor at $2M to $10M are close rate on a rolling 90-day basis, average job value by service category, lead volume by source, Google review count and monthly velocity, labor cost as a percentage of revenue, and revenue booked forward for the next 30 days. These six numbers, tracked every Monday and known from memory, give a contractor the clarity to make decisions about marketing spend, pricing, hiring, and cash flow before problems become emergencies.
What is crew utilization rate for a contractor and how is it calculated?
Crew utilization rate is billable hours worked divided by total available crew hours in a period, expressed as a percentage. A crew available for 400 hours per week that bills 300 hours has a 75 percent utilization rate. The 25 percent gap is paid labor producing no revenue. Target range for most residential service operations is 75 to 85 percent. Below 70 percent indicates a scheduling or lead volume problem. Above 90 percent consistently indicates understaffing. This metric is the primary diagnostic tool when labor cost percentage rises.
How do I calculate cost per lead for a contractor business?
Cost per lead is total spend on a lead source divided by leads generated from that source in the same period. If you spent $2,400 on Google Ads in a month and received 32 leads from that channel, your cost per lead from Google Ads was $75. Track this separately for each channel: paid ads, Google Business Profile (which carries a cost in the form of time invested), and referral programs if you run them. Organic and referral leads carry near-zero acquisition cost. Comparing cost per lead across channels, combined with close rate by source, tells you which channels are actually profitable and which are producing volume at a loss.
What is a healthy gross margin for a residential contractor?
Most residential service contractors target 40 to 55 percent gross margin, defined as revenue minus direct job costs (materials, subcontractors, direct labor) divided by revenue. Below 35 percent on any service category is worth examining closely, as it means the work is consuming capacity without building meaningful profit. The most useful way to track gross margin is by service category rather than as a company-wide average, since different service lines often carry significantly different margins and a blended average can mask a losing category inside an otherwise healthy business.
How often should a contractor review their business metrics?
The six core metrics should be reviewed every Monday morning before the week starts. A 15 to 20 minute pull and review is the target once data sources are identified and the routine is established. The six supporting metrics are reviewed monthly, on the first Monday of each month, and pulled immediately whenever a core metric triggers a defined response and you need to understand the cause. The discipline is the Monday morning pull without exception. Numbers reviewed when convenient are not an intelligence system. Numbers reviewed on a fixed schedule are.
What software do contractors use to track business metrics?
Most contractors at $2M to $10M can pull all 12 metrics from a combination of their job management system, accounting software, and a manual log for metrics their software does not capture natively. Job management platforms like Jobber and HouseCall Pro provide close rate, average job value, and scheduling data. QuickBooks or similar accounting software provides labor cost percentage and gross margin. Google Business Profile dashboard provides review velocity. A simple spreadsheet is sufficient to aggregate the numbers into a weekly dashboard. Expensive business intelligence software is not required and often adds maintenance overhead that undermines the Monday routine.