May 1, 2026
What is a fractional operations manager? A fractional operations manager is an experienced executive who runs the operational side of your restoration business on a part-time, ongoing basis — usually one to three days a week — without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire. They install systems, manage department heads, fix margin leaks, and act as the second-in-command the owner has been trying to be.
I’ve spent 36 years in this industry. I built a DKI franchise from a card table in my basement to the largest revenue office in North America. I won 12 consecutive Franchise of the Year awards. And the single biggest reason most restoration companies between $1.5M and $8M never break out: the owner is still the operations manager. That’s not a criticism. It’s a math problem. A fractional operations manager fills that gap — not as a coach, not as a consultant who hands you a binder, but as an actual operating executive sitting inside your business one to three days a week, owning outcomes.
Production oversight: Job costing reviews, scope discipline, dispatch and scheduling, equipment utilization, subcontractor management, and hard conversations with project managers who keep losing money on jobs they should be making 40% on.
Estimating and pricing discipline: Auditing how Xactimate is being used, where line items are being missed, whether O&P is being captured, and how change orders and supplements are being handled. This is usually the first place I find six figures.
KPI installation and review: Installing the dashboard the owner should have built three years ago, then running the weekly meeting around it. Most restoration companies are tracking the wrong things — or nothing at all.
People development: Coaching crew chiefs, project managers, and estimators. Building development plans. Holding accountability conversations the owner has been avoiding.
Cash flow and AR: Tightening the collection cycle, building the AR aging discipline, making sure the owner can actually see cash position weekly.
You’re between $1.5M and $10M in revenue. Your gross margins are below where they should be. You haven’t taken a real vacation in three years — if the business stops when you’re not there, you don’t have a business, you have a job that owns you. You’ve tried hiring a full-time ops manager and it didn’t work. Or you’re planning to sell in the next three to five years — a buyer is buying the operating system, not you, and if the system doesn’t exist independently the multiple drops by half.
In the restoration industry the working range is $4,000 to $12,000 per month depending on company size, days per week, and experience level. Any engagement that doesn’t pay for itself within 90 days isn’t worth doing.
A business coach asks you questions and supports your growth as an owner. A fractional operations manager has line authority over the operations of your business and is accountable for outcomes — margin improvement, system installation, KPI performance, and people development. Coaches support. Fractional executives operate.
Yes — and usually faster than a full-time hire. An experienced fractional executive has run the playbook in dozens of restoration companies and walks in pattern-matching from day one. A full-time hire is often learning the industry while learning your specific business.
The end state is an operations layer that runs without the fractional executive — a full-time operations manager developed in the role, a documented operating system, KPI dashboards the leadership team runs themselves, and an owner who can take a real vacation. A clean exit is the goal from day one.
Mike McCabe is The Profit Detective — Master Cleaner, Master Restorer, 36-year restoration industry veteran, and Fractional Operations Manager at Floodlight Consulting Group.
Most engagements pay for themselves within the first week.