Most owners can run 1 truck themselves and 2 trucks with a tech. Past 3 trucks, you must delegate or break. Most break because they delegate badly.
The delegation ladder.
1. Tell. "Do X this way." Used early in onboarding.
2. Discuss then tell. "What would you do? OK, do X." Builds judgment.
3. Discuss then decide. "What would you do? Try it." Develops ownership.
4. Decide then inform. "Use your judgment, tell me what you did." Full delegation with accountability.
Most owners try to jump from #1 to #4 and are shocked when techs make different decisions. Move up the ladder gradually with each person.
The 3-truck org.
- Owner (operations, customer escalations, finance)
- 2 service techs
- 1 lead tech (who is also a service tech but handles training and route adjustments)
The 5-truck org.
- Owner (strategy, finance, big-customer relationships)
- Field manager (operations, scheduling, complaints, training), full-time, salaried
- 4 service techs
- Part-time bookkeeper
The 10-truck org.
- Owner (strategy, growth, hiring senior people)
- Operations manager (multiple field managers report up)
- Sales / customer acquisition lead
- 2 field managers (each over ~5 techs)
- 8–10 service techs
- Bookkeeper or part-time CFO
Common delegation traps.
- Delegating responsibility without authority
- Re-doing delegated work yourself when it's not perfect
- Reversing decisions in front of the team
- Not communicating decisions you've delegated (so others bypass the new owner)
Rule of thumb. If you'd say "let me just do it myself," you've identified the next process to delegate this quarter, not the reason to keep doing it.
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