Get Roasted. Learn Your Numbers

Published: March 24, 2026 | Restoration Advisers Blog

Someone sits across from you right now and asks you to explain your overhead rate, your gross profit per job, and your net margin.

Could you do it? Right now, out loud, without pulling up a spreadsheet and stalling for ten minutes?

If the answer is no….you're not alone. But you ARE leaving money on the table every single week.

I've watched it for 20+ years. Smart, hardworking owners running themselves ragged. Great work, crews busy, phone ringing….and at the end of the year they're staring at the P&L wondering where it all went. We've helped a lot of those same owners clean it up and walk out with 5+ multiples on their buyout. The ones who got there had one thing in common.

They knew their numbers. Cold.

The ones still spinning? They THINK they know. They've got a rough sense. They know what Xactimate spits out. They can see money flowing in and out of the bank account. But they don't own their numbers from the inside out. And that gap is an issue and can be fixed.

"Just use the software" is a trap

Let me say this as plainly as I can, because it might save you a fortune.

No estimating software, no industry benchmark, no consultant who's never run YOUR business can tell you what your numbers should be.

Business in a box is bogus. Anybody who tells you they've got all your SOPs and the magic numbers you need to hit….close the laptop and walk away. I know that's not what the vendors want you to hear. Doesn't make it less true.

Your overhead is not the guy's down the street. Your job costs ride on your market, your crew structure, your equipment mix, and your footprint. The idea that there's one universal overhead rate you plug in and call it a day is one of the most dangerous myths in this trade.

I've seen overhead run from 15% on one end all the way to 54% on the other….and both companies were doing real volume. The difference wasn't that one owner was dumb. It was structure, geography, team size, a dozen variables unique to each shop. Borrow somebody else's number, and you're flying blind on their instruments. That's how you get roasted. Not the fun kind. Not a funny Netflix episode.

The three numbers you actually have to own

You don't need an MBA. You need three things straight: overhead, job costs, and profit. Nail those, and everything downstream starts to make more sense.

1. Overhead — the one most owners get wrong

Overhead is every expense you can't cleanly pin to a single job. Office rent, admin staff, insurance, truck payments, your own salary. If it touches two or more jobs, it's overhead.

Here's where owners might trip. They either undercount it,  forgetting to pay themselves in the math is the classic, or they don't track it at all and just pray the margin covers it. Neither one works.

Your overhead rate is a percentage of revenue. Doing $1M and your overhead's $250K? That's a 25% rate. And that number has to be baked into every job you price. Not guessed at. Not borrowed from an average. Baked in.

2. Job costs — what actually goes into the work

Job costs are the direct hits on a specific project: materials, direct labor, equipment rented for that job, PPE, chemicals, containment poly. If you can point at a job and say "this cost exists because of THIS job," it's a job cost.

Why it matters: job costs drive your gross profit. What's left after you pay the costs of the work, before overhead lands. Run it per job, and you get a real-time read on which jobs are actually pulling their weight.

One nuance worth pocketing: a PM running one job at a time is a job cost. That same PM juggling five jobs is overhead. The line matters when you're doing the math. The best way to manage this is closely allocate actual time and put exact hours on each job, in scale. 

3. Net profit — the only number that tells the truth

Gross profit is useful. Net profit is the truth. It's what's left after everything, job costs AND overhead, is paid. It's the yearly verdict on whether your business actually survives.

And catch this one, because a lot of owners miss it: your salary is overhead. Net profit is what's left AFTER you've paid yourself. So if your net is zero but you took a real salary, that's not the same as breaking even….and it sure isn't thriving. Know the difference.

Confidence comes from knowing, not guessing

Here's what changes the day you own your numbers: you stop second-guessing your pricing.

The thing I hear most from owners? They're uneasy quoting jobs, especially the big ones. Too high, they worry. Leaving money on the table, they worry. So they discount when they shouldn't. They take jobs they never should've touched.

That uncertainty traces straight back to not knowing their numbers. When you know your overhead rate, your cost structure, and the margin you need to hit your profit target, pricing turns into a math problem instead of a gut check. You quote with confidence because you know exactly what the job has to cost for your business to work.

And it changes how you handle pushback. When an adjuster or a property manager pokes at your price, you're not defending a number some software handed you. You're defending a number you built from the inside out. Different conversation entirely. One with confidence. And standing your ground gets you paid with trust.

How to start: get roasted

Here's your move. It's uncomfortable. It's also the fastest way to find out where you really stand.

Sit down with your last 12 months. Pull the P&L. Then answer these, honestly:

• What was my total overhead for the year? (Your salary included.)

• What was my total job cost?

• What was my gross profit margin?

• What was my net profit margin?

• Do those numbers match what I THOUGHT they were?

Most owners doing this for the first time get a surprise….and not a happy one. Good. That surprise is the point. It's the moment you stop guessing and start managing.

Want a resource to work through it? Michael C. Stone's Markup & Profit is one of the best foundational reads out there. Not restoration-specific, but the principles drop right in.

Bottom line

You can be the best tech in your market. Best crew, best equipment, best reputation on the street. And you can STILL run a business that doesn't work if you don't know your numbers. I see it far too often.

This isn't about becoming an accountant. It's about being the OWNER of your business, not just the operator of it.

Owners know their numbers. Operators hope the numbers work out.

This industry's too competitive to leave that to chance. So get roasted now….on your own terms….before the market does it for you.

Klark Brown | Restoration Advisers

I only work with a handful of owners at a time, and only the ones who are done guessing and ready to scale for real. If that's where you're at….you know where to find me. [email protected]