Electrical is one of the best home service businesses to own in 2026 — but it’s also one of the easiest to mess up if you enter it the wrong way.
In this episode of JackQuisitions, Jack breaks down the real acquisition opportunity in residential electrical, and why licensing, labor, and business model clarity matter more than trucks, branding, or marketing.
Jack walks through the two paths buyers consider: building from scratch or acquiring an existing electrical company. He explains why both routes often require the same upfront capital, but come with very different risks — especially if you don’t control the qualifying license.
You’ll learn the biggest traps first-time buyers fall into, what a typical $2M electrical acquisition looks like, and where electrical companies actually make their money (panel upgrades, EV chargers, rewires, and service upgrades — not small service calls).
If you’re thinking about buying a home service business in 2026, this is a must-listen breakdown of one of the highest-upside trades in the industry.
What You’ll Learn
- Why electrical is essential, protected, and scalable
- The biggest risk in the trade: license dependency
- Build vs buy: the true cost of entering electrical
- What a strong electrical acquisition looks like financially
- Why “projects vs service” revenue mix changes everything
💼 Shoutout to Quick Staffers LLC
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💼 Special Thanks to First Internet Bank!
Looking to buy or expand a business? First Internet Bank is a National Preferred SBA lender specializing in acquisitions for the skilled trades. Their SBA loan program offers up to 90% financing for business acquisitions, partner buyouts, and commercial real estate—plus optional lines of credit to fuel future growth. Unlike traditional lenders, they take a “how can we” approach, making deals happen for both first-time buyers and experienced operators.
👉 Special Offer: Mention Owned and Operated for a reduced good faith deposit and a complimentary deal review + buyside prequalification.
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Electrical is one of the best home service businesses to own. It's also one of the easiest to screw up if you enter it wrong, because if you don't control the license and you don't understand the business model, this business could get you into trouble. Today I'm gonna walk you through the approach to owning a residential home service electrical business, whether that means building one from scratch.Or buying one that already has momentum. I'm gonna walk you through the biggest traps for first time buyers and builders and how not to get held hostage by your master or electrician. Let's get into it.Alright, let me paint the typical buyer for you. His name's Ethan. He's 32 years old. Construction management or some kind of generally white collar background makes around a hundred thousand. $115,000 a year. He's tired of helping someone else grow their dream and make someone else money. He has no equity and he wants to own his future.He's saved up a hundred grand. Maybe it's an equity in his house. Maybe he just has it sitting in a bank, but he has it ready to deploy. He's got a wife. He's got one kid and maybe even one on the way. Ethan isn't looking for a side hustle. He's looking for ownership. I get this call all the time. This was even me.I mean this, I am Ethan to begin with. And guys like Ethan, they don't lack the work ethic to get going. They just pick the wrong entry point and they want to do something, take their big shot while they're still young and have the ability to, to take that risk and if they fall to start over again. So here's exactly what I would tell Ethan if you wanted to own his own business electrical business in 2026.Hi, this is Maria with Quick Staffers. I work for a tree service company in Reno. And I'm here to tell you this. Hiring overseas employees with the quick staffers means trained and dependable. I will hand this back to Jack Now guys. We created quick staffers as operators for operators. We know where the pain points are and that's why we started recruiting and placing overseas CSRs.Dispatchers accounts, ar, ap, recruiting positions, admin positions, and then on top of that, we keep them up to date with the newest trends and the newest SOPs with ongoing coaching scripts and quality assurance. If your team is missing calls or you are buried in admin work, we can fix that quickly. Head on over to quick staffers.com and book your call today.First, why electrical? This industry, is it essential? Is it protected, and is it scalable? The answer is electrical checks all three. Every home has electrical and it's in almost every room of every house, and it's moving in a direction that has tailwinds. The housing is increasing electrification with smart homes and electric cars and everything not decreasing, and the demand is not optional, right?It's not. Maybe later it's, you need to do this now or your house. Potentially it's gonna catch on fire or you will not get power, or the electric company won't turn back power onto your house. We just had snowmageddon here in in Nashville, and if your riser went down, you weren't getting power until a licensed electrician came back, reset your riser, got all the right permits and codes up to date, and then gave you the check and then they would turn back on Power.You've also got tailwinds, right? Like I said, more electrification of the home. You have EV chargers exploding for all the new EV cars coming out. You have battery backup systems on the rise. You have smart panels and surge protectors and service upgrades and smart homes. It's going in a direction of more, never less.And with that. All the tickets are climbing higher. The higher ticket work is only getting more and more common as you go through this business model and as this business model progresses. Lastly, like there's a huge moat. So to put it bluntly, you have licensing as a moat and you have dangerous DIY as a moat, right?The barriers protect the margins 'cause not everybody can start this business tomorrow. And so that's a catch 22 though, because on one side it's wonderful because it protects your business, but on the other side, it also hinders you from getting into the business because Ethan isn't licensed. And so this moat protects against him from this business model too.The real first decision is not, does Ethan want to do electrical or not? It's more so how Ethan enters electrical. Uh, does he want to build the infrastructure or buy the infrastructure? Does he want speed? Does he want control? So let's walk down both paths real quick. The first path I always go is build, right?If Ethan builds, the first thing he needs is not a van. It's not the logo that the fancy website's not marketing. He needs the license. He needs a master's electrician because in most states to even qualify to own a business, you have to start with the license. So Ethan has a few options. He hires a master electrician.He, he. Find someone who's willing to jump on and be an early member or early employee of his business, maybe get some equity, maybe get some profit share. It's still gonna cost him 120 grand a year for that master electrician. But here's the part that people don't want to hear. It's like it's, yeah, you can find that person.You can find the person who wants the equity and who wants the money. But the problem is that this business problem isn't a business problem to start. People problem. You have to find the right person who's motivated, who you trust, who's gonna be willing to be your business partner in the long run while you scale, grow, and build this business.If your master store electrician walks the ability to operate walks with him, that's the build game. Now, let's talk startup capital. If you want to do this right, you're gonna have to buy a series of things to start this business. Uh, you found your master electrician, you're ready to go. You need a van that's gonna cost you a nice used van.30 gear, 30 to $60,000. A series of tools to operate 10 to $20,000 inventory, another 10 to $20,000 insurance, bonding, branding, website, working capital. You're looking at another 80 to a hundred thousand. Your realistically in this thing between 100 and 200,000 just to get this off the ground. So Ethan has burned most of his savings.Just to enter this business, and he still doesn't have momentum. The market reality is that he has zero reviews. He has no dispatcher, no dispatchers, and no CSRs. Uh, he has zero brand trust. He's new to the game. He's paying full pricing for retail from suppliers 'cause he doesn't have pricing for buying power yet.His leads are expensive. He just has to try different lead sources to figure out which one works. And he's competing with people who have 10, 15, 20 trucks. 500 Google reviews and have, have had years to learn this business. They, they have goodwill within the community. So what does that actually translate to?It realistically translates to, if he's brand new to the game, two to three years of monthly grind where cash is tight. Recruiting is really, really hard. Um, marketing is trial and error, and if he's not careful, the debt can add up really quickly. So. Build can make sense. If Ethan's already licensed, that's a huge step to move towards build, right?A, because you're already licensed so you don't have to pay all that money to a licensed master electrician. But B is because you're licensed, you're already in the game. You already know those suppliers. You already have the connections. You've already have some maybe commercial contracts that you can lean on.If times really get bad, you can pay people less or not pay people and do it yourself. Prior to scaling, because you've done it before, it's usually slower. It can be riskier and it's harder than people think. But that's the build on the other side is Ethan acquires. And so the energy is completely different on an acquisition and it has a different set of, um, pitfalls.So to start, we're gonna. Uh, look at this from a clean slate. Instead of building momentum, he's buying momentum. And so this is kind of what a, a snapshot of a deal would look like if you were to buy an electrical company. So, realistically, he's gonna find somewhere around a $2 million top line revenue company that's maybe doing four to $500,000 in SDE, which is all pretty good.Those numbers seem to, to match up. Where you would be finding something. Um, and then you're just gonna look for a purchase price around 1.2 to 1.5. This is where it's gonna get hard 'cause brokers are gonna want to push this price up. But realistically, that's what it's kind of worth, uh, about 2.5 to a 3.5 x.If it uses the SBA seven A loan, you're only gonna put down about 10%, so maybe 120 to 150 K cash down. So that's the same range, the same money as. Having to build the business and having to buy the business, you're still at that 100 to 200,000 range. Now, the benefit here though, right, is that the same amount of money he's gonna get a licensed master's electrician already in place, whether that's the old owner or maybe one of the employees that's being used as a qualifying applicant.Um. He's gonna get a, he's gonna get electrician. There's gonna be five to six trucks, hopefully in good condition. Not bad condition. Depends on the deal. A dispatch system, maybe a thousand plus customers, probably at 2 million. Three to 4,000 customers, a hundred to 200 reviews. Some supplier discounts. Some trained technicians who already know processes and procedures on how to sell versus uh, you getting an electrician from a commercial job who doesn't understand revenue generation, uh, and it's gonna cash flow from day one.So buying can still be buying a job. This, this at this range and this level is going to be buying a job. You will be in the business daily, but it can also be buying infrastructure. Buying those relationships, buying that brand equity in goodwill with the community and buying speed to make that same $2 million on that grind is gonna take a long time.There's a J curve to this and making sure that you can successfully get ahead and buy ahead of the hard. Hardest parts of the beginning stages is what you're looking for. If you are a home service business spending 10, 20, or even 30 grand a month on marketing, and you still can't confidently say where book jobs are actually coming from, then you need to hear this service.Scalers is hosting an in-person workshop. Called booked solid, where a small group of operators get in a room and work through the stuff. Nobody ever has time to slow down and do what Can I actually track what's working that I should double down on what's not working that I should kill, and how do I consistently fill the call board without wasting money?Sam and his team go deep on Google ads, L-S-A-S-E-O, Facebook, and even traditional marketing. But the big thing is lead handling and follow up, which is where revenue quietly leaks, you'll leave with a real actionable 90 day marketing plan and so much more. It's hosted by Sam and his team at Service Scalers happening March 3rd through the fifth.In Akron, Ohio at Wilson, you can save 500 bucks with code booked early Bird, but it's a small room, so seats are limited. If marketing has been sitting on your to-do list for way too long, then this is probably the nudge that you need. Here's the trap. The master electrician needs to stay via a contract long enough that you can replace it or plan to replace it either with yourself or one of the other employees who's willing to be a qa.If you don't do that, you didn't buy the business, you bought a temporary. Kind of group of electricians. So if you're buying electrical, you really need to understand this topic is with electrical licenses control and making sure that you're focused on service work, not commercial installation work.Because if you get into commercial late installation work, all of this changes. It's a different type of business altogether. Here's a real quick checklist, uh, when you're looking to buy an electrical business, here are a few upfront things I would ask. Who holds the qualifying license and do they produce revenue?Are they an employee or are they more of an owner office worker? If that person quits, how long can we legally operate before we need to replace them? In a lot of states, there's a 30, 60, or 90 day, uh, transition period, which the local government gives you. To be able to continue to operate in the case that you lose a master electrician.What percentage of revenue comes from projects versus service work? This is huge, guys, because if you pick the wrong model of business, you're gonna be running two smaller businesses. You'll be running a million dollar. Commercial installation, new, new construction business, and you'll be running a, um, residential service business for a million dollars.And these are vastly different people. They're vastly different operations, different trucks, different everything. One is residential service, focus on that for this case. And then commercial is its own beast. New construction, its own beast. If you think you're getting residential, make sure you're not getting this one.If you are getting commercial and want to do commercial, great. There's huge opportunity there. But it, no, it's not residential. It's not the same thing. Uh, and lastly, how many techs can run without that main person, meaning? What is your backlog, uh, on your roster or your bench of actually skilled electricians?Because electrical can be a very technical, uh, business and making sure you have somebody who understands the ins and outs of intricacies in the code. Uh, while some of the apprentices may be run more of the volume, they have that person to lean on. And then last but not least, what's the plan in case the backup license goes?Or in case the first license goes, make sure you have a backup license. What's the plan? Start day one. Hey, I'm gonna get it myself, which I own my own electrical license. So making sure that you at least have a path to own your own electrical license, or that you're contractually obligated to keep your electrical license in some way, shape, or form.What actually makes money an electrical. So when you're looking at electrical service. Again, we're not focusing on commercial. We're not focusing on new construction. They make their money in completely different ways. In electrical service, you make money when you sell upgrades. Not low dollar service calls not changing out one outlet or moving this plug here to here.You make it on the big jobs. And the big jobs are panel upgrades, right? You get a lot of old houses that need panel upgrades. They're old, their, their services have been running multiple, multiple, multiple amps through them for the last 30 years. It's time. The breakers are obsolete for a reason. It's time to switch their panels, upgrade their panels, new panels, and that's gonna bring you in about.Three to six grand. You're looking at EV chargers. Again, we get a slew of these EV chargers because the world is going towards electrification. Um, service calls are great, but they really don't drive the meat and potatoes of your revenue. And so off the service calls, you want some rewires. You're looking at rewiring whole houses again, knob and tube style.Or just really old electrical, uh, that is gonna potentially cause problems for people's houses, maybe even a safety issue. Uh, and then lastly, you're looking at like service upgrades. You're looking at surge protection or safety work. It's all high and high, high margin stuff if you can sell it correctly with that math, we go move into a truck.A truck can roughly do if you're talking sales and install models. So electrician goes out there, he sells it, and then he installs it himself. You're looking at about three to $500,000 per truck. So about six trucks can bring you between 1.8 and three, so we'll call it $2.5 million a year. And if this operation is clean, this can be a huge wealth vehicle as you scale that up.But. This is math driven. It's not the HVAC or the plumbing hype. You gotta keep it within this realm of math to understand where and what you have to install and how to get the margins out of it. We just made a ton of money. We're pumped. We grew from $2 million a year, top line to $2.5 million a year.Top line at that margin. We're running. We're running 20% margins, 20 to 25%, E or S, DE. So now you're looking at an additional, what's that? Uh, 75 grand that you just added to the bottom line to take home or to put back in the business, that's awesome. But where does it suck? So electrician labor shortage is real good.Electricians, especially that understand how to generate revenue is a very difficult thing because this market is, and this industry is fragmented and kind of older school, it's focused more on the installation side, uh, which is again, another catch 22. But for this point of purpose, it's hard to find good electricians who understand this.Um, and you gotta compete with like. Commercial contractors and lit and unions, like, there's a big, uh, demand, uh, code's constantly changing. Um, failed inspections. When you miss those code items, they burn your cash. They burn your margins. Um, there's real liability here, man. Like if you mess something up and something catches on fire, that's on the company.Not to mention it's on you personally from a ethical and moral level as it can, you burn down someone's house like it's not a joke. It's something that can really haunt you at night. So making sure that your team is well trained in doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing is huge. You know, if you lose a technician, you lose a good technician, uh, that can hurt revenue for three, four, or five, six months before you can find another one because again, labor's hard.Um, and then marketing can be hard. Marketing can be hard in a different way. Uh, the good news is that the market is fragmented. So if you're going up against electrical only contractors, it can be easier. But on the whole, generating demand for electrical can be more difficult at the same levels if you were to compare it to HVAC or plumbing.But this is operational leadership. You just gotta make sure that what you understand is it's not passive investing when you're looking at these things. All that aside, what should I tell Ethan? I'm telling Ethan that if you're operationally strong, you can understand people and manage cash flow and want faster Wealth creation, buying usually wins, but if you already have your license and you want to still do this game, but don't have maybe enough saved up.Or you have a legit partner who you believe in, who's your childhood best friend, who really wants to hustle with you. Uh, then buying is better because you can start at a very similar spot, but without all the headaches of, um, having to actually go through the acquisition process. The question is not can Ethan start or buy an electrical company?The question is, does he want to build infrastructure by infrastructure? Do you want speed? Do you want control? Do you want to be the technician or do you want to be the owner? So to close all out. Electrical's essential. It's protected. It's anti DIY, it's high ticket and it's extremely scalable and I think it's one of the next big private equity love shield out there.It's gonna have a huge amount of, uh, expansion in the multiples in the near future. That's my belief. Not financial advice, but. It is leadership dependent and it is licensed dependent, and if you don't run it correctly, it can destroy you. But if you do run it correctly, it can be a giant wealth vehicle for you and your family.Most people don't fail because the industry's bad or there's not enough work. They fail because they didn't buy towards their skillset or build towards their skillset, and then on the back end, they didn't understand their business model. If you like what you heard today, if you think you're gonna buy an electrical business.Comment whether you're gonna buy or build, which one you're gonna do. And tell me which of these breakdowns you want me to do next. HVAC, plumbing, subject roofing. Drop it below, subscribe. Uh, if you want more real acquisition breakdowns and case studies. I'll see you on the next one.
