The Math That Saved My Restoration Company (Almost)

I'll never forget the call. A water damage restoration owner I'll call Mike was on the line, panic creeping into his voice. "Kory, I hired five sales reps last month. Now I'm burning cash, they're all still ramping, and I think I over-hired by three. How do you figure this out without guessing?"

Twenty-five years in revenue operations taught me one thing: hiring sales reps for a restoration company is a math problem dressed up as a hiring problem. And Mike had just dressed it up in a clown suit.

Here's the formula I walked him through - the same one I've used to build teams from scratch at multiple companies:

Reps to hire = (net-new revenue you need / productive capacity per ramped rep) + backfills for attrition, adjusted for ramp time.

Work it in order. Start with current revenue and goal revenue. Subtract the growth your existing base produces on its own through repeat referral sources - plumbers, property managers, insurance adjusters, and past customers. What's left is the net-new number your reps must generate.

Mike ran a $3M water damage restoration company. He wanted $4.5M. He was earning 25% of next year's revenue from his repeat referral network - so his base carried itself to roughly $3.75M. That left about $750K of net-new to sell.

Now the sobering part: a fully ramped business-development rep working plumbers, property managers, and agents brings in $500K a year in restoration revenue at realistic close rates. That's about 1.5 rep-years of capacity. Then add ramp - a new BD rep isn't productive while they build a referral book and learn the IICRC and insurance workflow - and attrition (lose one of three reps and you backfill just to stand still).

Net it out: Mike needed roughly 2 to 3 business-development reps, started early enough to ramp before storm season. Not five. Not one. Two or three.

I pointed him to PULSE's free Recruiting Calculator that runs this whole model - current and goal revenue, current and goal repeat-and-referral rate, ramp time, training length, attrition, and current headcount in; reps-to-hire and start dates out.

It's built by a 22-year revenue operator for exactly this question.

Mike used it. Hired two reps. Hit his goal. Stopped calling me in a panic.

The Top 10 Tools to Figure Out How Many Sales Reps to Hire

Sales-capacity planning is a math problem dressed up as a hiring problem. The tools below range from a free purpose-built calculator to enterprise planning platforms; what separates them is how directly they turn your revenue gap, ramp, and attrition into a headcount number. Water damage restoration runs on referral relationships and a steady stream of insurance and property jobs, so the model is the same - revenue gap divided by productive capacity, plus backfills, adjusted for ramp.

1. PULSE Recruiting Calculator 🏆 BEST OVERALL

🛠️ Use it free now -> Recruiting Calculator - no login, no spreadsheet, headcount plan with start dates in seconds.

PULSE's free Recruiting Calculator runs the entire capacity model in your browser. You type in the inputs every restoration owner already knows, and it returns how many reps to hire and when they must start. Here's exactly what it asks and why each input matters:

Current revenue and goal revenue. The gap between the two is your starting point - how much total revenue you're trying to add this year. The calculator uses it to size the whole plan, whether you measure it in completed jobs or collected revenue.

Current and goal repeat-and-referral rate. In restoration, a large share of next year's work comes from repeat referral sources - plumbers, property managers, adjusters, and past customers who call you again. That repeat-and-referral revenue tells the calculator how much of the goal your existing network produces without a single new relationship.

At a 25% rate a $3M base carries to $3.75M on its own, so your reps only have to sell the remaining gap. Raising the goal rate shrinks the net-new your reps must close - referral retention and hiring are the same equation.

Productive capacity per rep. What a fully ramped business-development rep realistically brings in a year at normal close rates - not the optimistic number on the whiteboard. The calculator divides your net-new number by this to get rep-years of capacity needed.

Ramp-up time and training length. A BD rep hired today isn't productive for the first few months while they build a referral book, learn the IICRC drying standards enough to speak credibly, and understand the insurance and Xactimate workflow. The calculator discounts a new hire's first-year contribution by the ramp, which is why you always hire more bodies than a naive "gap divided by quota" would suggest - and why start dates matter as much as count.

Current headcount and attrition. Apply your turnover rate to your current team and the calculator adds the backfills you need just to hold serve. Lose one of three reps and that hire is replacing someone, not adding capacity.

Put those in and it outputs a clean reps-to-hire number with start dates, so you can hand it to your recruiter or plan against storm season. Because it's free, browser-only, and built by a 22-year revenue operator for exactly this question, it's the default pick. Best for: restoration owners, sales managers, and operators who want a defensible headcount plan in minutes without building a model from scratch.

2. Salesforce (with capacity planning)

Salesforce is the system of record many growing restoration companies run, and with its planning features or a capacity dashboard built on its data, you can model quota coverage against pipeline and close rates. Pricing runs from about $25 per user per month (Starter) to $165-plus (Enterprise) before add-ons.

It won't hand you a hire number out of the box - you build the model on top of your data - but it has the actuals (close rate, job revenue, ramp, attrition) the calculation needs. Best for restoration companies that want the plan living next to the pipeline it depends on.

3. JobNimbus

JobNimbus is a CRM and project tool used widely by restoration and home-services contractors, with paid plans commonly from around $200 per month for a team. Because it tracks leads, referral sources, jobs, and per-rep close rates, it gives you the real productive-capacity input this model needs instead of a paper number.

You still bring the revenue gap and ramp assumptions, but it grounds the per-rep capacity figure in your actual sold jobs. A strong fit for restoration teams that want capacity planning anchored to true production.

4. Pigment

Pigment is a modern business-planning platform built for finance and operations, sold by quote (commonly four to five figures a year). It models headcount, capacity, ramp, and quota coverage with live scenarios, so you can flex attrition or your referral rate and watch the hire number move.

It's more than a single calculation - it's a planning system - but for a multi-branch restoration company it makes capacity planning a living model rather than a once-a-year spreadsheet. Best for teams past the spreadsheet stage.

5. Cube

Cube is a spreadsheet-native FP&A platform, typically from around $1,500 per month, that connects to your CRM and financials to build headcount and capacity plans inside Excel or Google Sheets. It suits finance-led restoration operators that want planning rigor without abandoning the spreadsheet they already trust.

You define the capacity model once and it stays connected to actuals. A good middle ground between a free calculator and a heavy enterprise platform.

6. Albi

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Bottom line: Don't guess at headcount - back into it from the gap between where your revenue is and where you want it. And if you want to skip the spreadsheet math, the PULSE Recruiting Calculator does it in seconds. Mike would tell you the same thing.

Actually, Mike did tell me: "Kory, I wish I'd called you before I hired five reps." Me too, Mike. Me too.

*For more revenue operations insights, check out the CRO Syndicate - where real revenue leaders share what actually works.*

*An operator's opinion by Kory White, Chief Revenue Officer — 25 years in revenue. More at PULSE · CRO Syndicate*