From $30K to $200K: what changed for Colby

Austin Gray

11d • 🔔 Wins

When Colby started with us last year, he had about $30,000 operating cash after taking over a tree biz

Same crew. Same trucks. Same equipment.

AND same pricing...

Fast forward: He’s now sitting on $200,000 cash and his tree business blew past his $680,000 goal

Nothing “magical” happened.

Here’s what actually changed:

1. He stopped being the bank.

- We flipped his terms to requiring 50% deposit on quotes.

- That one move alone took the constant “uh, it’s pretty tight right now…” feeling and killed it.

2. He raised his day rate based on real costs.

- Started the year at $3,500/day.

- Dialed in his real crew‑day costs (labor, fuel, wear, machines, etc.).

- Bumped to $4,400/day and kept selling.

3. He actually knew his numbers.

- No more “I think we’re making money.”

- Job costing + clear targets = confidence to charge what the work is worth.

His words, not mine:

> “For me it was a pretty profound change because I was doing both at the same time… starting rate this year for our day was $3,500 and now we’re $4,400, and in that mix we added 50% deposit in. Revenue last year was $400,000 and we’re on track to exceed our goal of $680,000 for the tree service."

This is what happens when an Operator:

- Stops guessing on pricing

- Stops fronting all the cash for clients

- Starts running a real operating system instead of a “busy job”

If you’re reading this and:

- You don’t take real deposits

- You don’t have a crew‑day rate you can explain on paper

- You’re still waking up wondering if there’s enough in the account for payroll

…these are the exact levers we install inside OPS Accelerator.

I’m launching another Texas location to go from $0 → $100K/month this year using the same system we teach in this group, and the first Accelerator cohort is going to see that build in real time.

We're kicking off Jan. 31st with this year's Accelerator cohort

If you want to fix your pricing, lead flow, cash collection, and crew‑day math the way Colby did, drop “OPS” in the comments or go here to apply for OPS Accelerator:

👉 Book A Game Plan Call

Let’s turn “cash is pretty tight right now” into “there’s just under 200K in the account” like Colby did

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