.elementor-widget-text-editor{font-family:var( –e-global-typography-text-font-family ), Sans-serif;font-weight:var( –e-global-typography-text-font-weight );color:var( –e-global-color-text );}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:var( –e-global-color-primary );}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap, .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-default .elementor-drop-cap{color:var( –e-global-color-primary );border-color:var( –e-global-color-primary );} Solid Field Work, Fragmented Systems Fiat, Inc., a commercial HVAC services company serving facility and property managers, had no shortage of work. Service calls, maintenance contracts, and project-based jobs kept crews busy, and leadership was actively exploring growth into new markets and segments. What the business lacked wasn’t demand — it was the internal structure to scale that demand profitably. Growth Was Outrunning the Org Chart Leadership brought in Waters Business Consulting Group to bring clarity to operations, financial performance, and growth strategy. The diagnosis revealed a business running on informal habits rather than documented process: no clearly mapped workflow from marketing through service, production, and accounting, and no consistent distinction between service work, maintenance contracts, and larger projects — a gap that was quietly eating into margins. Larger projects had no formalized checklist process for materials, equipment, and leadership oversight, and the sales pipeline lived largely in people’s heads rather than in the company’s Simpro system, limiting visibility into new opportunities and revenue predictability. The people side had similar gaps. Sales and account management roles lacked clear definitions of responsibility and compensation, technician productivity and billable efficiency weren’t systematically tracked, and there were no formal KPIs to catch over-labor on jobs before it became a pattern. As Fiat evaluated merger opportunities and new-market expansion, integration planning and payroll coordination added another layer of complexity leadership needed help navigating — along with guidance on the right legal structure for the business itself. Mapping the Business From Marketing to Production WBCG’s approach started with detailed workflow mapping sessions spanning marketing, sales, estimating, accounting, scheduling, and production — creating, for the first time, a documented picture of how work actually moved through the company. That mapping led directly to structural fixes: clear process distinctions between time-and-material service work and project-based jobs, approval checkpoints like credit qualification and project-size thresholds built into the workflow, and a formal checklist process for projects above defined dollar amounts. On the growth side, WBCG guided leadership in defining target market segments and refining how warranty, maintenance, and service offerings were positioned, while formal position descriptions brought clarity to sales and account management roles. Lead tracking tools and better use of Simpro’s reporting capabilities gave leadership real pipeline visibility for the first time. Underneath it all, new financial models analyzed labor as a percentage of revenue across service, maintenance, and project categories, and technician productivity tracking gave leadership a way to measure billable efficiency directly. As merger conversations progressed, WBCG also supported integration planning, payroll coordination, and job costing alignment, along with organizational chart clarity to keep reporting lines clean through the transition. The Results: Revenue Nearly Quadrupled The financial trajectory reflects the operational overhaul. Revenue grew from approximately $1.32 million in 2018 to $5.19 million in 2021 — including a roughly 69% jump from $3.06 million in 2020 to $5.19 million in 2021 alone. Gross profit grew right alongside it, from about $640,000 in 2018 to $1.68 million in 2021. Beyond the numbers, Fiat now has a documented end-to-end workflow, clearer operational lines between service, maintenance, and project work, real pipeline visibility, and the organizational and financial clarity needed to navigate merger integration with confidence. The business is positioned toward higher-value work with a refined sense of exactly which markets it’s targeting. Ready to Bring Structure to Your Growth? Strong field performance can only take a business so far without the systems to support it. If your growth feels harder to manage than it should, a free consultation can help identify where structure is missing — and what to fix first. Contact Waters Business Consulting Group to schedule a free consultation.

.elementor-widget-text-editor{font-family:var( –e-global-typography-text-font-family ), Sans-serif;font-weight:var( –e-global-typography-text-font-weight );color:var( –e-global-color-text );}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:var( –e-global-color-primary );}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap, .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-default .elementor-drop-cap{color:var( –e-global-color-primary );border-color:var( –e-global-color-primary );} A Successful Firm, an Owner Footing the Bill On paper, Provident Law was doing fine. The Phoenix-based firm, built on strong convictions about justice and client care, had a solid practice and a loyal client base. But managing partner Christopher Charles knew something wasn’t right underneath the surface: he was personally subsidizing part of the firm’s overhead out of his own pocket, quietly reducing his own take-home pay to keep the business running smoothly. He didn’t have a clear picture of the firm’s true breakeven point, didn’t know exactly how many attorneys the practice needed at current fee levels to cover its costs, and was struggling to get the accounting system to give him answers instead of more questions. “John Waters has been key to helping my firm understand its revenue and helped us create a strategic plan for sustaining and growing our business. He tries hard to understand our business and it is obvious that he truly cares about our success,” said Christopher Charles, Managing Partner of Provident Law. Finding the Real Numbers Behind the Practice Waters Business Consulting Group started where every strong financial strategy has to start: with the historical numbers. WBCG dissected Provident Law’s true overhead costs and analyzed past financial trends to understand where the business had been and where it was actually heading. From there, the work turned to identifying exactly how much revenue needed to come in each month — in the form of partner contributions — to meet overhead obligations, since the firm’s profit margin left little room for error. That analysis led to the central deliverable of the engagement: an accurate breakeven calculation, along with a simple way for Christopher to recalculate it himself as the business grew or changed. WBCG also helped identify the type of internal bookkeeping support the firm needed and forecasted where the practice was likely to grow across 2019, 2020, and 2021. None of this happened in a single meeting — WBCG met with Christopher two to three times a month to review financial performance and help him prepare a clear “state of the law firm” update he could share with his partners. Turning Numbers Into a Conversation Partners Could Understand Perhaps the most delicate part of the engagement wasn’t the math — it was the conversation that math made possible. Christopher had been quietly covering a gap in the firm’s operating funds, and he needed a way to explain to his partners why shared overhead fees needed to increase. With WBCG’s help, he was able to present the numbers clearly enough that the partnership could understand not just what needed to change, but why. Clarity Where There Was Once Guesswork By the end of the engagement, Christopher had a fundamentally different relationship with his firm’s finances. He understood what it took to meet and exceed Provident Law’s monthly obligations, and he had a clear rationale for bringing on additional attorneys to support that goal. The firm transitioned to a higher-quality accounting system, and Christopher gained visibility into billable hours and rates relative to attorney headcount, the maximum volume of matters the firm could realistically manage, and the average case size needed to hit growth targets. He could now track, week to week and month to month, how many matters opened, how many billable hours were logged, and how much was actually collected — the operational heartbeat of the firm, finally visible. Not Sure What Your Breakeven Number Actually Is? Many successful business owners are, in effect, subsidizing their own companies without realizing it. If you don’t have a clear, current answer to “what does my business need to bring in this month to break even,” that’s exactly the kind of clarity Waters Business Consulting Group can help you build. Contact Waters Business Consulting Group to schedule a free consultation.