How a Service Franchise Builds an Operating System
A service franchise operating system is not a software platform. It is the daily, weekly, and monthly rhythm that makes the business run the same way in every market regardless of which GM is in the seat. Most service franchises do not have an operating system. They have a brand, a website, a payroll provider, and a hope that the local franchisee figures it out. Titan Group has spent three years building a real operating system across our six Junk King markets — a system that runs identically in KC, STL, ATX, DFW, CHI, and PHX. This article walks through how we built it: the route sheet design, the KPI framework, the daily huddle structure, the weekly review cadence, and the monthly P&L close. Use it as a template if you are building one for your own service business.
Section 01
Start with the daily artifact
Every operating system needs a daily artifact — a single document or screen that the GM and crew look at every morning. Ours is the daily route sheet. It is the one thing every Titan operator opens before they do anything else. The route sheet shows every job for the day, organized by truck, with crew assignments, ASP target, magenta TP indicator, and a 1/6 rate flag in red on any job priced at $166 or less. If a GM cannot tell you within 30 seconds what their TP is going to look like at the end of the day, the route sheet is wrong.
Section 02
The four KPIs that matter
We tried tracking everything in year one. It was useless. By year two we had narrowed to four KPIs that actually move the business. Every GM in every market reports against these four every single day. Anything not on this list is interesting but not actionable.
- TP (Truck Productivity) — magenta-coded on the route sheet, target 1.4 to 1.6 productive trucks per day
- ASP (Average Sale Price) — revenue divided by completed jobs, tracked daily and MTD
- 1/6 rate — percentage of jobs priced at $166 or less, kept under 16 percent
- AJS (Average Job Size) — MTD badge on every route card, tracks the trend not the absolute
Section 03
Exclude what does not belong
TP and 1/6 rate denominators exclude NA jobs. This is a small detail that took us a year to get right. NA jobs (no-access, no-show, customer cancellation) skew the denominator and make TP look better than it actually is. Every report at every level — daily, weekly, MTD — uses the same denominator: residential jobs plus local commercial jobs. NA jobs excluded. If your operating system does not have a written rule about denominator exclusions, your KPIs are lying to you. Estimates are also excluded from revenue calculations entirely. An 'estimate' appointment type is not revenue and should not appear in any ASP, AJS, or revenue report.
Section 04
The daily huddle
Every Titan market runs a 9-minute daily huddle at 7:51 AM local time. Same agenda, every day. The huddle is the second-most-important artifact after the route sheet. It is the moment where the GM converts the route sheet into action.
- Yesterday's TP and ASP — review against target
- Today's route sheet — flag any 1/6 rate risk and any high-AJS opportunities
- Crew status — any sick calls, equipment issues, or scheduling conflicts
- One operational improvement — a single concrete action for today
Section 05
Weekly cadence: review, not report
Every Monday, GMs join a 30-minute weekly review with the regional and the central team. This is not a status meeting. It is a review meeting. The GM presents three things: their week's KPI trend, one thing they are stuck on, and one thing they are testing. The central team's job is to unstick and challenge. We track the cycle time on stuck items — the average time between a GM raising an issue and resolution. That cycle time is itself a metric of the operating system's health.
Section 06
Monthly: the P&L close discipline
Every market closes its P&L by the 5th of the following month. This is the discipline that makes everything else possible. CFO Joseph Lester drives the close. Every market gets a one-page P&L summary with the same line items in the same order across all six markets. The GM owns four numbers on the P&L: revenue, labor cost percentage, fuel and disposal cost percentage, and contribution margin. Marketing, royalties, and shared central costs are flagged but not GM-owned. Without the standardized monthly close, there is no way to compare markets, identify outliers, or allocate central resources. With it, the executive team can see the entire portfolio in 15 minutes.
Section 07
Tooling: keep it cheap
Our operating system runs on Google Sheets, Apps Script automations, and a thin custom CRM layer. We do not run on enterprise software. The reason is simple: enterprise software is expensive, slow to change, and requires consultants. Google Sheets is cheap, fast to change, and any operator can edit it. Every Titan market has the same Google Sheets workbook structure: daily route sheet, weekly KPI dashboard, monthly P&L close template, and an employee labor tracker with locked formula columns. The labor tracker email template is locked at the company level — three-column layout, OT badge with hours, KPI cards. It does not change between markets except for the logo.
Section 08
Documentation lives where the work lives
The last piece of the operating system is documentation. Most franchises put their SOPs in a binder or a learning management system that nobody opens. Ours live in the same Google Sheets workbook as the daily route sheet. If a truck team member needs to know how to handle a refrigerant recovery, the SOP is one tab away from the live route. Documentation that is not adjacent to the work is documentation that is not used.
Frequently Asked
Questions, answered.
What is a service franchise operating system?
A service franchise operating system is the standardized daily, weekly, and monthly rhythm that makes the business run identically across every market and GM. It includes the daily route sheet, KPI framework, daily huddle, weekly review, and monthly P&L close.
What KPIs should a service franchise track?
Four KPIs handle 90 percent of operational decisions: Truck Productivity (TP), Average Sale Price (ASP), 1/6 rate (jobs at $166 or less), and Average Job Size (AJS). Track them daily and MTD. Exclude NA jobs and estimates.
How long does it take to build a service franchise operating system?
Twelve to eighteen months to build a working version, two to three years to refine it across multiple markets. Start with the daily route sheet and the four core KPIs, then layer the huddle, the weekly review, and the monthly close.
Do you need expensive software to run a service franchise operating system?
No. Google Sheets, Apps Script automations, and a thin CRM layer cover everything we run across six markets. Enterprise software adds cost and consultant dependency without adding clarity.
Why exclude NA jobs from KPI denominators?
NA jobs (no-access, no-show, cancellations) are not productive truck time. Including them in TP or 1/6 rate denominators inflates the numbers and obscures real operational performance.
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Titan Group operates Junk King across six metros. Free on-site estimates, volume-based pricing, same-day and next-day availability.