Beyond Breaking Even: The Service Business Owner's Playbook for Real Profit - Softcover

Hubbard, Justin

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798995390701

Publisher: Hubb & Spoke Media, 2026

Synopsis

I built Grizzly Junk Pros from a single truck to a multi-seven-figure operation — six trucks, over 6,000 jobs a year — without my day-to-day involvement. And I can tell you, the generic business books didn't get me there.

Most service business owners are working harder than ever and still wondering where the money went. The trucks are running. The phone is ringing. And somehow, at the end of the month, the numbers don't add up.

Beyond Breaking Even is the financial and operational playbook for service business owners at every stage — whether you're just trying to survive, grinding for growth, or already profitable and ready to compound.

This book covers what the generic business books skip: how to read your real numbers, control your cash flow, price your work to actually make money, know your market and own your reputation, build lead flow that doesn't depend on luck, tighten your operations until efficiency becomes a competitive edge, protect what you've built, and use AI and automation to run your business smarter than the competition.

No consultants. No guesswork. This is for the plumber, the roofer, the landscaper, the junk remover, the dumpster hauler, the cleaner, the HVAC technician, the electrician, the painter, the pest control operator, the pool service company, the mover, the handyman — the operator who needs legitimate answers, not frameworks designed for companies with marketing departments and venture capital. Every system, every number, and every framework has been tested in my own service business. Operator to operator.

The book is organized across six parts:

• Part 1: Foundations & Money — read your numbers, control your cash, price for profit
• Part 2: Market Positioning — know your market, own your reputation, attract the right customers
• Part 3: Marketing & Lead Flow — get found, convert leads, build retention that compounds
• Part 4: Operations & Efficiency — systems, people, vendors, and the tools that buy back your time
• Part 5: Expansion & Innovation — grow without overextending, diversify revenue, protect what you've built
• Part 6: Future-Proofing & AI — use AI and automation to run your business smarter than the competition

Across 37 chapters you'll learn:

• Why your P&L is lying to you — and how to use it as a diagnostic weapon
• The True Job Cost formula that reveals which jobs are truly making you money
• The Three-Touch System that converts estimates that went quiet into booked jobs
• The Two-Path Review System that builds your reputation while protecting it
• The Six-Layer Moat that protects your market position when competition floods in
• How to hire, train, and build a team that doesn't need you on every job
• How to use AI and automation to capture leads, follow up, and run your operation more efficiently than operators who haven't built these systems yet
• The five rules that govern what you do with profit once you have it — because building it and keeping it are two different skills

The service industry is changing. AI is displacing white-collar workers who will enter your market with better marketing, better systems, and more capital than the competition you're used to. The operators who build now will hold their position. The ones who wait will scramble.

Whether you're fighting to break even or already profitable and ready to scale — this is the playbook that takes your service business to the next level.

For weekly strategies and real-world insights for service business operators, subscribe to my newsletter, the Haulers' Edge.

About this title

About the Author

I went to college because that's what you're supposed to do. Got the business degree. Took on a mountain of student loan debt. Everyone told me it was the smart move. The safe bet.
I paid off my six-figure debt in under ten years. Not from a corporate job. Not from climbing someone else's ladder. But by starting a junk and dumpster company with one truck and figuring out the rest as I went.
That was 2014. Today, Grizzly Junk Pros (Connecticut) has served over 16,000 customers, runs six trucks, operates more than 100 roll-off dumpsters, and completes over 6,000 jobs a year — without me touching the day-to-day. Along the way I invented the Grizzly Bag, acquired two hauling companies, and launched and sold a gutter cleaning business in three years.
The pattern never changes: build it, systematize it, test, collect the data, analyze, and decide whether to change course, stop, or move forward.
The system that handed me a degree and a pile of debt didn't teach me any of that. I learned it by doing it wrong, reading everything I could get my hands on, and refusing to accept that the way everyone else was doing it was the only way.
That's the thread that runs through everything I build. I reject the idea that you have to underprice to win jobs, hustle yourself into the ground without profit, or stay small because growth feels risky. Most of what the industry accepts as normal is just broken systems nobody's questioned yet.
I started Adimize dot com — a peer-to-peer marketing anti-agency for service businesses — because I kept meeting blue-collar owners handing their money to big agencies running set-it-and-forget-it strategies that weren't delivering. I also created Service Hubb AI, a marketing CRM built for how service businesses truly operate. I publish The Haulers' Edge Newsletter weekly and host the Smokin' Profits Podcast.
Beyond Breaking Even is the playbook I run every day.
I live in beautiful sunny Tampa, Florida with my wife and our soon-to-be four kids.

From the Back Cover

Most service businesses don't fail — they just never actually become businesses. They stay jobs. Jobs the owner created for themselves, can't step away from, and can't sell. Jobs that pay okay when things are good and threaten everything when they're not. You did a few hundred grand last year and took home a fraction of it. That's not a revenue problem. That's a business problem. And it's about to get more complicated.
A new competitor is entering your market right now. They've never gotten their hands dirty — but they know digital marketing, they understand margins, and they're already running AI tools you haven't heard of. They're not coming to compete with you. They're coming to replace you.
Beyond Breaking Even is the playbook for making sure that doesn't happen. Job-level profitability. Pricing that protects your margins. A team that can run without you. Recurring commercial revenue that doesn't have to be re-earned every month. And the AI tools and market positioning that keep you ahead of whoever shows up next. Stop breaking even. Start building.
I started Grizzly Junk Pros with one truck and no clue what I was doing. Today it runs without me. It took longer than it should have because I was figuring it out as I went. This book is the shortcut I didn't have.

From the Inside Flap

Most service business owners are doing the work right and running the business wrong.
They're up before dawn. They're on every job. They're answering every call. And at the end of the year, after the trucks are paid for and the crew goes home and the taxes hit — there's not much left. Not because the business isn't generating revenue. Because the business was never built to keep any of it.
Beyond Breaking Even is the book that fixes that.
Across 37 chapters, Justin Hubbard breaks down the financial systems, marketing infrastructure, operational playbooks, and AI tools that transformed his own company from a one-truck hustle into a multi-truck, 100+ dumpster operation completing over 6,000 jobs a year — without his day-to-day involvement.
This isn't advice from a consultant who's never run a route. It's an operator's playbook, written in operator language — whether you're grinding and barely keeping it together, or running a solid operation and ready to build the version that doesn't need you in it every day.
Whether you run a hauling company, a landscaping crew, a cleaning business, an HVAC operation, or any other service trade — the financial principles are universal, the systems are transferable, and the AI chapter alone will change how you think about what's possible with a small team.
The only question is whether you're willing to build it differently than everyone around you.

"Getting advice from Justin — someone with real-world experience and the scars to prove it — helped me run my company more efficiently and profitably, without any of the usual crap. If you own a service-based business, this book will pay for itself a hundred times over." — Royce Porkert, Owner, Junk Holler

"Beyond Breaking Even is my story in action. When I met Justin, I had a pickup, a trailer, and four dumpsters. Today I've got a hook-lift truck, thirty dumpsters, and a second truck on the way. His strategies helped me more than double my business and gave me the clarity to run it with confidence." — Leo Falardeau, Owner, Drop N Go Haulers, MA
"Justin writes like a fellow entrepreneur who's lived through it. His straightforward approach, backed by real experience, makes complicated financial and operational strategies simple and actionable. You can tell he's been in the trenches — and that's what makes this book stand out." — Barry Hartman, Co-Founder & CEO, 505-Junk, BC

Edition details

• Publisher: Hubb & Spoke Media
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798995390701
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 459