In this episode, James Kennedy chats with Jeffrey (Jeff) Heybruck, CPA and founder of Lucrum Consulting in Charlotte, NC. Jeff breaks down how he helped a high-end landscaping firm transform its maintenance arm from custom, ad-hoc work into packaged, recurring revenue – boosting margins, simplifying ops, and making the company far more attractive to a private-equity roll-up. Along the way, he shares CFO tactics for pricing, renewal timing, quoting, and why you shouldn’t kill an “unsexy” service that quietly drives both profit and pipeline.
About Jeffrey Heybruck
A former public accountant and land-development finance leader, Jeff founded Lucrum Consulting in 2010. He serves contractors, homebuilders, and field-service firms with fractional CFO support – budgeting & forecasting, pricing architecture, service-line P&Ls, and exit readiness. When he’s not tuning unit economics, he’s coaching popcorn sales as an Eagle Scout dad.
What You’ll Learn
- From a la carte to productized: Turning one-off maintenance tasks into a clear 5-part package (turf care, turf treatments, plant/shrub care, fall services, irrigation).
- Price the drivers, not the vibes: Quote by turf type (Bermuda vs. Fescue) and square footage; stop leaving add-ons unbilled.
- One renewal date, massive sanity: Moving all contracts to Feb 1 reduced admin chaos and improved cash forecasting.
- Recurring revenue = higher EV: Why a profitable maintenance book helps in PE roll-ups – and how PE diligence views it.
- Marketing you’re already paying for: Your trucks are billboards – keeping maintenance keeps you visible in the right neighborhoods.
- Quoting at speed: Use satellite views (e.g., Google Earth) for fast, accurate estimates; verify on-site.
- CFO lens on ops: Capture missed revenue, align billing with delivery, and track margins by service line.
Episode Highlights
- “Don’t shut down maintenance. Your crews are in the exact neighborhoods you want – those trucks win future installs.”
- “We standardized renewals to Feb 1. Admin dropped, collections smoothed out, and forecasting got easier.”
- “For pricing, we only needed turf type and square footage – the rest is the package.”
- “Private equity loved that the recurring book existed – and that it actually made money.”
More About Jeff’s Role
At Lucrum Consulting, Jeff builds the finance engine for $2M–$25M contractors and service firms: disciplined budgeting & cash control, service-line margin reporting, scalable billing processes, pricing and packaging, and sell-side prep that stands up in diligence.
