Hartwell & Sons Plumbing

AI Readiness Assessment
Prepared by AegisBoardroom  |  April 2026  |  Sample Report

Executive Summary

0
Lost revenue per year from scheduling conflicts
12 field crews scheduled via whiteboard and phone calls. Double-bookings, missed jobs, and idle crews add up.
There is no digital dispatch system. Jason coordinates crews each morning by phone, but changes throughout the day are tracked in his head. When two crews show up at the same address, or a crew sits idle because nobody told them the next job was ready, revenue walks out the door. The $95K estimate is conservative and based on documented conflicts from the last 12 months.
0
Margin erosion over three years, undetected
Pricing lives in Tom's memory. No documented pricing strategy. Nobody noticed until the annual review.
Material costs rose steadily. Competitor pricing shifted. But because Tom sets prices from experience and memory, adjustments lagged behind reality. The 8% compression happened gradually across three years, invisible until the accountant flagged it. There is no pricing matrix, no margin tracking by job type, and no process for reviewing rates against current costs.
0
Employees, three generations, no succession plan
Tom (64) still makes every major decision. Jason (38) runs crews but lacks authority. Amanda (41) handles the entire back office alone.
Hartwell & Sons has been in business since 1978, but there is no written plan for what happens when Tom steps back. Key vendor relationships, major client accounts, and bid approval authority all live with Tom. Jason and Amanda have unclear boundaries on what they can decide without him. When Tom is unavailable, decisions stall until he returns.
0
AI readiness score out of 10
Below the threshold for direct AI deployment. Foundational systems and succession clarity needed first.
The score reflects a business built on 48 years of institutional knowledge concentrated in one person, running on paper processes and personal relationships. The company's reputation is strong, but the infrastructure underneath cannot scale, transfer, or survive an extended absence by any of the three family members.
Succession ▾
No formal succession plan. Tom makes final calls on major bids, vendors, and key accounts.
If Tom is unavailable for a week, the business stalls. He holds vendor relationships that took decades to build, pricing knowledge that exists nowhere in writing, and final authority on every bid over $25K. Jason runs the field operations day to day, but defers to Tom on anything strategic. Amanda manages the office, but has no authority to approve expenditures or negotiate with vendors. The authority boundaries between all three family members are undocumented and inconsistent.
Operations ▾
Whiteboard scheduling, phone dispatch, paper work orders for 12 crews.
Crews receive assignments via morning phone calls from Jason. Changes during the day are communicated by text or not at all. There is no route optimization, no visibility into which crew is closest to an emergency call, and no digital record of job completion. Work orders are paper forms that Amanda enters into QuickBooks after the fact, sometimes days later. Scheduling conflicts are discovered when a crew arrives and another crew is already there.
Finance ▾
Margins compressed 8% over three years. Pricing lives in Tom's memory.
The bookkeeper is competent, but all reporting is backward-looking. There is no real-time margin tracking, no job profitability analysis, and no pricing matrix. Tom sets prices based on decades of experience, but material costs and market rates have shifted underneath him. Nobody tracks whether residential jobs are more profitable than commercial, or which job types are losing money. Vendor payment terms have not been renegotiated in years.
Personal ▾
Tom cannot step back. Jason cannot step up. Amanda is carrying the entire back office.
Tom shows classic retirement resistance. His identity is fused with the business he helped build over 40+ years. Stepping back feels like losing purpose. Jason is stretched between managing 12 crews in the field and trying to learn the business strategy side that Tom has never formally taught. Amanda handles accounts receivable, accounts payable, HR, customer service, and office management with no help. All three are working at an unsustainable pace, but for different reasons. This is the single largest risk to the company.

Readiness by Function

0
Overall
Financial Visibility
3/10
Bookkeeper is solid, but all reporting is backward-looking. No real-time view of margins by job type. No pricing matrix. Cash position checked via bank app. Tom manages vendor relationships and payment timing from memory.
Sales Operations
4/10
Strong reputation drives consistent leads, which lifts this score above others. But there is no CRM, no follow-up system, and no tracking on bid outcomes. When a lead comes in, Tom decides whether to pursue it. If he is on a job site, the lead waits.
Operational Efficiency
3/10
Whiteboard scheduling for 12 crews. No route optimization. Paper work orders entered into QuickBooks days after completion. No digital dispatch. Scheduling conflicts cost an estimated $95K per year in lost revenue and wasted labor hours.
Marketing
1/10
Zero marketing strategy. 100% of new business comes from reputation and referrals. No website lead capture. No social media. No email list. No Google Business optimization. The 48-year reputation carries the company, but it is not a strategy.
Technology Stack
3/10
QuickBooks for accounting. Personal cell phones for field communication. Paper work orders. No shared calendar system. No project management tools. No connected systems. Data is re-entered manually between every step of every process.
Owner Sustainability
2/10
Three family members, all overextended, all for different reasons. Tom cannot let go of the business he built. Jason cannot grow into leadership while Tom holds all the authority. Amanda is a single point of failure for the entire back office. No one has a sustainable workload.
Financial (3) Sales (4) Operations (3) Marketing (1) Tech Stack (3) Owner (2)

Three Quick Wins

$0K
Recovered Revenue
Digital dispatch and scheduling eliminates double-bookings, idle crews, and missed jobs. Jason gets 8 hours per week back.
Click to see how

Right now, Jason coordinates 12 crews from a whiteboard and his phone. Changes during the day travel by text message or not at all. When two crews arrive at the same address, or a crew finishes early and sits idle because nobody told them the next job was ready, the company loses money.

A digital dispatch system assigns jobs based on crew location, skill set, and availability. Crews see their schedule on their phone. Route optimization reduces drive time between jobs. When a crew finishes early, the next assignment appears automatically. Schedule conflicts are flagged before they happen, not after.

The $95K in recovered revenue comes from eliminating documented scheduling conflicts from the last 12 months. The 8 hours Jason gets back each week come from eliminating morning phone rounds, midday rerouting, and the constant "where should I go next?" calls from the field.

0%
Margin Erosion Stopped
Documented pricing matrix replaces Tom's memory. Margins tracked by job type. Tom no longer the bottleneck for bid approvals.
Click to see how

For 48 years, pricing has lived in Tom's head. He knows what to charge because he has done it thousands of times. But material costs rose, competitor pricing shifted, and the margins compressed 8% over three years without anyone noticing.

A documented pricing matrix captures Tom's knowledge in a structured format. It ties pricing to current material costs, labor rates, and job complexity. When costs change, the matrix updates. When Jason needs to approve a bid, he has clear guardrails instead of calling Tom.

This does two things at once: it stops the margin erosion by making pricing visible and adjustable, and it removes Tom as the bottleneck for every bid decision. The business starts to run on systems instead of on one person's memory.

0
Clear Decision Owners
Succession clarity map defines who owns what decisions. Creates a path for Tom to step back without the business stalling.
Click to see how

Today, the decision-making structure is informal and inconsistent. Tom approves major bids, manages key vendors, and handles the largest client relationships. Jason manages crews but defers to Tom on anything strategic. Amanda runs the back office but cannot approve expenditures or negotiate terms.

A succession clarity map documents every recurring decision the business makes, who currently owns it, and who should own it going forward. It creates explicit authority boundaries for Tom, Jason, and Amanda. It defines which decisions Jason can make independently, which require Amanda's input, and which still need Tom's sign-off during the transition period.

This is not about pushing Tom out. It is about building a structure where the business strengthens as Tom's role evolves. Three family members, three clear domains, one shared direction.

First 30 Days

Week 1
Full operational audit with separate family member interviews
  • Interview Tom, Jason, and Amanda separately to understand each person's role, frustrations, and vision for the company
  • Map every decision that currently requires Tom's involvement
  • Document all vendor relationships, key client accounts, and pricing knowledge that lives only in Tom's head
  • Inventory all current tools, processes, and data sources
  • Baseline metrics: scheduling conflicts, bid response times, margin by job type
Week 2
Digital scheduling pilot with 3 crews, pricing matrix started
  • Deploy digital scheduling pilot with 3 of the 12 crews
  • Begin documenting Tom's pricing knowledge into a structured matrix
  • Set up margin tracking by job type using existing QuickBooks data
  • Train Jason on digital dispatch for the pilot crews
  • Amanda begins using digital work orders instead of paper for pilot crews
Week 3
Cash flow dashboard live, succession framework started
  • Cash flow dashboard connected to QuickBooks, showing real-time margins for the first time
  • Tom sees margin data by job type, crew, and customer segment
  • Begin succession clarity framework: documenting decision authority for Tom, Jason, and Amanda
  • Evaluate scheduling pilot results and adjust before expanded rollout
  • Identify which of Tom's decisions Jason can begin handling independently
Week 4
Expanded scheduling rollout, first succession planning session
  • Expand digital scheduling to all 12 crews based on pilot results
  • First succession planning session with all three family members together
  • Pricing matrix draft completed and reviewed with Tom
  • Assessment report delivered with scored readiness, quick wins, and 90-day roadmap
  • Compare Week 4 metrics against Week 1 baselines: scheduling conflicts, response times, margin visibility

This is what Hartwell & Sons received from their AI Readiness Assessment.

Every assessment is built around your specific situation, your numbers, and your constraints. No templates. No generic recommendations.

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