Guide To Scaling Your Commercial Roofing Business
What are the main problems that prevent the growth of a company? The issues vary depending on the business. There are many small problems could lead to failure or a bottleneck in growth. Regardless of the company, there are a few areas that are vital for the growth of an enterprise. Those areas include pinpointing your target market, funding, team building, culture, customer loyalty, and developing efficient systems and workflows. If you’re looking to expand your roofing company in the commercial space, this blog will help you think about some of the most essential pieces of your company that will help your business thrive.
Reevaluate Your Target Audience
By this point in your business, you’ve likely gotten past the basics such as hiring and organizing jobs. However, when seeking to grow your company, some of the basics need to be revisited. When expanding into the commercial space, you’ll have to shift your target market to more lucrative options. Small, one-off jobs in neighborhoods may have been enough at one point, but now you’ll want to focus on the kinds of customers that can bring opportunities beyond one job.
You’ll have to do your own research in your area to find the best opportunities for you. Here are a few ideas to help get you started. First, one of the most lucrative options would be landlords and companies that lease buildings. Landlords might have dozens of houses or apartment complexes that you could potentially lock in for a job. It’s important to remember that you don’t necessarily have to reach out to people that need a roof immediately. In the commercial space, costs like replacing roofing and building upgrades are usually budgeted ahead of time, so you should plan for that too. Even if your customer doesn’t need a roof replacement or repair now, you can lock in a future date.
Companies that lease buildings are a great option because you can potentially have many jobs to work on for that company. The buildings they own could be operated by different types of businesses, but that doesn’t change your business approach. Similarly, working out deals with factories could have potential since they’ll need to replace or upgrade a large amount of roofing at some point.
Secure Funding
Almost any business looking to scale will need some sort of outside investment. Profit margins may be so great that you can afford to handle all of the costs of growth on your own. However, in most cases, additional money is needed to generate extensive growth. Our blog on funding a commercial roofing business can give you some additional insight. If your company has been in business for a while, it may not be too difficult to get funding. If your business is small and it’s you that’s going to personally take on the responsibility of funding through a loan, you’ll need to make sure you meet the required credit score. Having a higher credit score will qualify you for loans with lower interest rates, ensuring you’re not overpaying in interest over time. Whichever way you choose to get funding, make sure you aren’t borrowing too much or giving away too much equity in your business. Those decisions are up to you, and they rely on how much money you’re currently making as well as how much you expect to grow.
Establish a Scalable Team
A business is only as successful as the ability of its employees. When you have a smaller team it's easier to keep things running smoothly. Communication is high and everyone on the team knows each other. However, once you grow to the point where you have multiple teams running different jobs, organization becomes vital. Make sure you create a proper team structure that allows you to consistently build teams as you hire without sacrificing the quality of work. That’s easier said than done, but one skill that’ll help you as a business owner is delegation. It’s impossible for one person to keep everything organized in a growing company. Getting in the habit of delegating the work out to your team is vital for long-term success.
Building a team requires the knowledge of how much a job will cost. The proper amount of people need to be allocated. If done incorrectly, estimating job costs could leave you in financial turmoil. Therefore, it's worth it to hire an estimator to avoid undervaluing the cost of a project. Knowing this information will allow you to build up your teams at scale and finish jobs with efficiency.
Create a Worthwhile Culture
There has been a big emphasis on culture in recent years, and for good reason. If employees don’t feel comfortable talking about their work, the company's reputation will be at stake. Therefore, it’ll be harder to find and hire employees. You don’t have to go all out and install slides and bean bags in the office like Google, but do create the kind of environment you’d be proud to tell friends and family about outside of work. Creating a worthwhile culture not only helps with company reputation, but also promotes job satisfaction and retention.
Ensure Customer Loyalty
The company culture has an effect on customer loyalty as well. Customers can tell what your company is like just by interacting with one or two people. It goes without saying, but always make sure that customer interactions are professional and are always of value. Part of customer loyalty is making sure that they want to come back to you to do business again. This is especially important if you’re early in your career. Years down the line, your customers will need roofing work done again. If they had a positive experience with you all those years ago, they’ll want to work with you if you made a good impression.
Develop Efficient Systems and Workflows
To keep things organized, you’ll have to move to digital solutions to keep track of customers. Investing in a customer relationship management (CRM) system will give you a structure that’ll keep your company organized as you scale. There are many options out there such as Hubspot, Salesforce, and others. The simplest form of a CRM could be a spreadsheet, but if you don’t have experience with CRMs you should probably explore some of the more established options. In addition to a CRM, you’ll need to make sure you develop efficient logistics and infrastructure practices to support growth.
Don’t Expect to Grow Too Fast
By the nature of the roofing business, you’ll have to have employees on location to get the work done. This means that you can’t necessarily grow too fast because you would need employees, equipment, and materials all over the country. This is certainly possible, and a good goal to shoot for, but it’s important not to spread yourself too thin. Lay the foundation for growth without overextending yourself. Scaling a business isn’t easy, but if that foundation is solid, you’ll be prepared for many of the challenges that arise.
