This is not a test. This is how you build the habit. Read each module, understand the principle, recognize it in the field. The same model runs every time — same scene, same result.
Phoenix Regional SOP M.P. 201.01 is the Strategic Decision-Making Model used on every fire department emergency incident. Arrive. Size up. Identify critical factors. Make the call — offensive or defensive. Execute the plan. Forecast what's coming next.
The same model applies to every property visit. The stakes are different. The structure is the same. Skilled trades work is not guesswork — it's a repeatable decision process. The tech who runs it consistently, runs it profitably.
You pull up to a property and the clock starts — not when you ring the doorbell, but when your truck appears on the street. The customer sees your vehicle, your appearance, and the way you move before a word is said. That first impression sets the tone for whether this becomes a contract or a wasted hour.
The size-up is not a quick glance at the reported problem. It's a systematic walk of the entire property or system — identifying what is critical, what is not, and what will affect scope, time, and pricing. On a fire scene, the incident commander sizes up the building before committing the crew. Same principle here.
This is where you identify access issues, unusual conditions, or custom work that adds time inside the slot. A flooded valve box on a 1-hour repair is still a 1-hour slot — the digging just made it a harder hour, and the multiplier prices that. You identify it in the size-up, price it into the contract, and the customer sees one number. No surprises. No renegotiating mid-job.
Know the boundary: the multiplier handles complications within a slot. If the complication means the job needs more time than the slot holds, that's not a multiplier — that's the next slot up. Round up first, multiply second.
Every labor package is a time slot, not a time estimate. When you bid a job, you're committing a piece of your day — and the slot covers the whole commitment: the estimate trip that already happened, the load-out, the drive, the work, the pack-out, the customer calls, the paperwork. A "one hour job" was never one hour. The slot already knows that.
After the size-up, you have information. Now you assess three critical factors that determine the strategic decision. These are not a checklist you complete in order — they're running simultaneously during every interaction. You're always processing all three.
After sizing up the property and assessing the three critical factors, you make one decision: do we do business, or do we not? Offensive means you proceed — build the contract, perform the work, earn the commission. Defensive means you decline — professionally, without explanation, and without apology.
The offensive decision leads here. You've sized up the property, assessed the critical factors, and decided to proceed. Now you build the contract correctly — every time, the same way. The labor package covers overhead, profit, and tech commission. Materials are separate. The total is the total.
The price on your book wasn't pulled from the air. Under it sit two lines. The company floor covers every dollar the company spends to put you on the road — truck, insurance, overhead, profit target, all of it. The tech floor sits above that: it's what the same package has to sell for your commission check to reach a real career number for the year. The price was set above both.
That's why the checklist below says never negotiate the labor package. Knock $50 off a package and you didn't discount the company — the company's floor gets covered first. You discounted the gap. The gap is your check.
Your day has a cost — the daily rate. Everything your day sells over that rate is commissionable, and 60% of it comes back to the crew (the company keeps 40%). Multiple techs on a crew split the 60%. So a full, honestly-bid board isn't the company's win — it's the check. Beat the daily rate by more, and every dollar past it splits the same way.
New information changes the size-up. An offensive job can become defensive mid-visit if conditions change — the scope grows beyond what was priced, the customer changes the ask, or a hidden problem makes the job unprofitable at the quoted price. The SDM is always running. Offensive can always go defensive if the facts change.
"Same model. Different scene. Same results."
Phoenix Regional SOP M.P. 201.01 · Strategic Decision-Making Model · adapted for the trades
Robert Kemp · Captain, Phoenix Fire Dept · 18 yrs residential contractor · Founder, Blue Collar Pay