The 20 Site Rule:

Early in my career I thought scaling meant growth.

More sites.
More people.
More tools.

What I learned the hard way is that scaling is really about making sure every decision you make can survive growth.

There’s a point in this business where things start to break.

I call it the 20-site rule.

You can strong-arm operations up to about 15–20 facilities with hustle, good people, and sheer willpower.

After that, the cracks start showing.

Reporting stops lining up.
Communication breaks down.
Managers solve problems differently.
Training gets inconsistent.

And suddenly leadership is spending all their time putting out fires instead of running the business.

Not because the team is bad.
Because the system doesn’t scale.
If something works at 10 sites, great.

But the real question is:
Will it still work at 20? At 50?

Because if the answer is no, you’re not solving a problem, you’re just delaying it.

True scale requires looking at everything through that lens:
• processes
• systems
• communication
• reporting
• even how decisions get made

The best operations leaders I’ve worked with don’t move fast for the sake of speed.

They build once, intentionally, so they don’t have to rebuild later.

That shift, from fixing problems to designing durable systems, changed how I lead.

And it’s saved a lot of time, money, and unnecessary churn along the way.