Hiring, Training and Org Design for Snow Profit

Everyone in snow talks about equipment, but the real constraint is people.

Granum recently hosted a five-part webinar series on how to make the most out of the snow season, and the second webinar featured Brian Fullerton, Danny Kerr (Breakthrough Academy) and Matt Crinklaw (Greenius by Granum).

They made a simple case: your winter is won or lost long before the first storm. The real table stakes are the math of your org, the intent of your snow crew hiring, and the rigour of your training. 

Design by numbers, recruit on purpose, and build both skill and commitment—or the weather will make those decisions for you.

Growth in snow isn’t throttled by weather—it’s throttled by readiness. Most contractors could add 10–20% tomorrow if the right people plan existed. You’re looking to build an operating system that allows you to calmly execute once the snow starts to fall, and to do that you need roles that are defined by numbers, targets that ladder to profit, an intentional hiring funnel, and training that hardwires both skill and culture.

Build a simple capacity planning model:

By doing this you’ll see when you need to add a manager, how many technicians you actually need, and the ROI each role must produce. This will allow you to be strategic with your hiring and to grow while still making a profit. 

Go beyond “who reports to whom” and define “who delivers what.” For each role, track core metrics like:

Replace vague job descriptions with clear, measurable outcomes tied to:

Pro tip: Put annually updated targets in a “Schedule B” so the main agreement remains stable year to year.

Look to your own team when building an ideal candidate profile. You probably have an employee in mind that is a top performer, so get them in a room and interview them. Try to capture:

Use this to craft your ad, screening questions, and interview scorecards.

You’ll find Matt Crinklaw delivering this knowledge everywhere he goes. Titles matter in hiring, and in the mindset of the employee hired. Get rid of titles like “laborer/shoveler” and use “technician” or “apprentice” instead. These types of titles show a clear career ladder: 

This reframes snow as a career entry point, not a dead-end job.

Staffing, like sales, runs on a pipeline. The panel framed it as two engines you run in parallel: one that quietly attracts, and one that deliberately goes out to find the right people.

As Danny Kerr puts it: “everyone messages 100 people. That’s 1,000+ warm touches in a week.”

Bonuses should steer behavior, not surprise it. Keep them simple, explicit, and tied to the deliverables you already measure. As Danny put it, you want to drive the behavior you’re trying to influence—quality, volume, and profit.

Anchor each payout to the role’s deliverables in the employment agreement, and report progress on a cadence, so the path to earning stays visible all season.

Training shouldn’t be a pep talk—it should be a system that runs without you. Build layers that teach once and pay off for seasons.

First days set the story employees tell themselves about your company. Make it a story worth staying for.

Great training teaches the job and the belonging.

This is the second in our six-part Snow n’ Tell recap series: