Signature Series - Growth Without Burnout | Vol 5. The Invisible Cost of Operational Drag

The Invisible Cost of Operational Drag

What it’s really costing you when mornings are messy and communication breaks down

By Dave Fairburn, Co-Founder of CrewHero and North Point Outdoors

I’ve always been obsessed with efficiency.

Not just to go faster but to stay sane.

In the early years of North Point Outdoors, we were growing fast. Revenue was up, clients were happy, and new crews were coming on. But despite that success, something wasn’t adding up.

At the end of the month, we were working harder but not earning more.

Margins were tighter. People were tired. And morale was slipping.

It took me years to name it but what we were experiencing was ‘Operational Drag’.

And if you run a service business, there’s a good chance you’re feeling it too.

What Is Operational Drag?

Operational drag is all the small inefficiencies that chip away at your business every day. For Pilots, we call it ‘Induced & Parasitic Drag’. As speed and lift increases, so does Total Drag. Air moving along the control surfaces, skin, rivets, wingtips, doors and windows gets increasingly disrupted. It makes sense, Focusing on how to wax the surface, smooth out sharp edges and adjust the shape of things can significantly minimize the effects. Same goes for your business.

Individually, they seem minor:

• Crews waiting 10, 20, even 30 minutes to start work

• A repair note that gets lost

• Someone forgetting who’s out on PTO

• A truck that leaves without the right equipment

• A foreman who’s answering texts instead of leading

• Overwhelmed owner or manager trying to bring it together and getting frustrated.

But over time, these small gaps compound into something much bigger:

Burned-out managers. Frustrated teams. Slipping profits.

And the worst part? It’s often invisible until you finally see the math.

The Real Cost of Slow Mornings

Let’s talk numbers.

Across the industry, loaded labor (including payroll tax and burden) averages around $32/hour.

The average time for crews to get fully dispatched each morning? 30–40 minutes.

At North Point, with CrewHero, we’re under 10 minutes.

That’s 25+ minutes of regained productivity per person, per day.

Now let’s say you have 25 team members on the clock…

🚨 Here’s What You’re Losing (or Saving) Each Day:

This isn’t “potential” money. These are people you’re already employing. Trucks you already own. Crews you’ve already trained.

All CrewHero is doing is getting them out the door and into billable work faster.

But Here’s Where It Gets Really Interesting…

In most landscape businesses, labor makes up 25–30% of revenue.

That means for every dollar you “save” in labor, you’re really enabling your team to go out and do 3–4X more revenue without adding a single person or truck.

So that $80,000/year in dispatch efficiency?

If your crews are now able to complete more work each day, that time translates into:

• $240,000 – $320,000 in additional revenue capacity

• At a 50% gross profit margin, that’s $120,000 – $160,000 in net new gross profit for the company

✅ $80K saved = $120K–$160K gained.

That’s operational leverage. And it’s one of the biggest missed opportunities in the industry.

Drag Isn’t Just About Dollars — It’s About Culture

The best people on your team don’t want to stand around.

They don’t want to “wait for instructions.” They want to work. They want to build. They want momentum.

When mornings are a mess, it’s not just money that leaks — it’s morale.

And when morale drops, retention becomes a problem.

And when retention becomes a problem, the whole operation slows down again.

It’s a cycle. And CrewHero was built to break it.

Final Thought

You don’t need more crews. You don’t need more vehicles.

You need more clarity — and faster execution.

Operational drag hides in your mornings. It chips away at your margins. It drains your energy and wears down your best people.

But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

If you can win back even 25 minutes a day per person — and put that into productive work — your existing team can generate six figures in additional gross profit annually.

That’s what CrewHero does.

It doesn’t just organize your day, it turns chaos into capacity.