5 Ways to Take Your Remodeling Business From Less To More
It’s real easy as a construction or remodeling business owner to get burned out as you try to keep up with everything. This is particularly true now that the remodeling market is picking up. After downsizing to stay in business, and putting in lots of extra effort and hours to make a profit during the recession, many business owners are once again trying to grow their businesses. However many of them are still using the "do more with less" mentality they used during the recession. Maintaining this mentality as they seek to grow will definitely add to the burnout they are already experiencing.
For a good number of these business owners doing more with less may have made sense as sales shrunk and overhead expenses had to be cut back. To clarify things the idea was to do more of what you were already ready doing with less. Now that the economy seems to be improving if you want to do more business than you have been doing you'll need to do and add more inside your business to support that growth, not less.
Five things remodeling business owners can do to take their businesses from less to more:
Get serious about your management style
If you have lost focus or lack the discipline to put business systems in place and stick to them it’s time to commit to and practice new attitudes and behaviors. Before you grow your business consider the adequacy of your financial system to predict and measure results. Do you have a formal marketing plan to guide you or are you winging your marketing? Do you have well thought out job descriptions you can use to recruit, qualify and hold new hires accountable to? Have you established benchmarks for the performance of your business systems? If you don’t have or do these things what example are you setting and what type of employees will join and or stay with your business?
Don’t spread yourself too thin
If you plan to grow your business it and your employees will need your attention and guidance. If your focus is being watered down by other outside activities like a second business, community activities, politics or even involvement at your church; the leadership and oversight needed at your business may be compromised. There’s nothing wrong with being involved in outside activities, but make sure you put qualified middle management and business metrics in place first.
Be sure to think and act like a professional
A growing business that wants to attract and keep good employees needs to act professional. This means having a proactive and strategic marketing plan in writing. It means preparing a financial operating budget and staying within it. It means investing in training and mentoring your employees to be the future leaders your business will need. It means creating a profit sharing strategy and or compensation strategies based on performance. It also means operating legally and safely.
Develop organizational charts, career paths and improve your recruiting process
If you think it’s expensive to train your employees only to have them leave and go elsewhere, think of how expensive it will be if you don’t train your employees and they stay. If you plan to invest in training your employees make sure you can share your business plan with them. Your business plan should show how you plan to expand your organizational chart and the opportunities they have if they are willing to grow with the business. Your goal should be to offer opportunities that are mutually beneficial to the employee as well as the company.
If you want to step back make sure your business and the new leader are ready first
Before you as the leader can step away from your business the business needs to have a new leader already in place. Many business owners are forced back into leading and managing their businesses because the person they hired to do so did not have adequate leadership skills and or wasn’t yet seen as the leader by the other employees. Don’t make this mistake at your business. Before you step away make sure there is a successful transition of leadership from you to the new leader; in the eyes of the employees as well as your customers. Also, make sure you have a way to measure the performance of the business and the leader before you pull away. Again I suggest you have this in place and confirm it is working before you transition out of your office and your roles at the business.
To make sure you will get a return on investment make sure you and your coach agree on how you will measure results. Help with soft skills like leadership and people skills will be challenging to measure because changes and results may be seen as subjective and might be measured differently by different people. However many changes can be measured in an objective way. For example when I was first growing my business I worked with a coach on a financial system and the related QuickBooks setup required to support it. Although he seemed to have the right experience he couldn’t offer me a reference specifically from a construction company. After some discussion we agreed his compensation would be conditional on results and we made a list of desired outcomes to measure. After several months we mutually agreed his system didn't serve the intended purpose and I got the majority of my money back. Unfortunately I lost a lot of valuable time. I assume he did too. However we both learned a lot from the experience, I minimized my risk by agreeing on how he would be compensated, and I still had the money I needed to hire another expert to get it done.
In addition to working one on one with remodeling businesses and their owners I have also worked in the corporate side of franchising. Joining a franchise can be a great option for the right business owner. For example, if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to carve out your own path and direction and evolve your business systems on the fly a franchise might not be a good option. On the other hand if your just getting started, or need to tear down what you have and start over again, and you want to adopt an established and tested business model, and you are willing to actually follow it, not question it, a franchise can be a great way to go. 
If contractors knew how to prepare for this recession, they would have been ready for it and the actual impact wouldn’t have been as dramatic on their businesses. Knowing what you now know, use the lessons learned to better predict and deal with the next recession. Also, start thinking about where you want you and your business to be in the future. Be proactive and create a plan, don't wait to see what happens and where you end up. Rather than do it on your own consider finding a mentor with a track record of success, someone who can help you and will invest the time required to understand you and your business and will invest in you. 
My experience has shown me that those business owners who think of themselves as contractors will typically be the ones who experience most if not all of these challenges as they grow their produced volume of work. Rather than do things differently they just try to keep up with the growth by doing more hours themselves and hiring more people who will need to be supervised. On the other hand those contractors who seek to become what I refer to as “construction business owners” will be adding to and improving their business systems so they and their team members can share responsibility, work smarter and work together more efficiently.
Why I created the list of article links listed below
Be the leader you need to be. Work on your leadership skills and make sure you understand the difference between leadership and management, and when to use one versus the other. Good employees want to be lead, not supervised.
Know your limits. Do what you can yourself but get the professional help you need to do things right; to avoid costly mistakes, increase the likelihood of success and maximize the results for your all your efforts.
Upon a little reflection I’ve realized there are a lot of ways to organize a contracting business, none of which are the “gold standard” and all of which either purposely or inadvertently express the personality of the owner. At your inner core are you a manager or a craftsman? Are you a little of both? Are you neither? Generally, I’ve noticed successful people have figured out who they are and how they add value to the equation. Then they’ve set up a business system to capitalize on their strengths. 
If you are excited about putting a team of specialized professional craftsmen together to construct a series of varied job types where organization & management are key elements of production & profitability, you’re a good fit for a general contractor operation. A GC set up is generally best for larger jobs like a custom home, a larger addition, or a whole house remodel job. Sometimes smaller jobs that require a higher level of craftsmanship like a special faux finish on walls, or custom built in cabinetry, or precision stone work are best left to the specialist sub contractor. Higher end bath remodels are also a good fit for a GC with a loyal team of trade contractors. You absolutely must develop a team that you work with regularly so you can be assured of consistent quality and integration between trades.
Hiring a construction or remodeling industry expert certainly can be expensive. Depending on the nature of the problems to be addressed the fees can add up quickly. However, compared to the money lost over time by not correcting or improving things that slow you down or increase project costs, years perhaps, the lost revenue and compromised profitability can far exceed the initial cost to fix the problem. Perhaps you could help your boss see the cost as an investment. To do this consider using a simple analogy from your world as an example to help get your intended point across. Maybe consider using the example of having a table saw. Sure you could do your job without one, but it sure would go a lot faster and come out a lot better, and at a much lower labor cost, if he made the investment in a good one sooner than later. And by doing so the labor savings alone would quickly cover the cost of buying the table saw. 
If you hear that objection it may be the truth. But you know what they say about the definition of insanity. Depending on your relationship with your boss perhaps you could ask what he has already done or will do different to get that profitable job. The positive news is that often times the business is actually already in pretty good condition. I find many construction businesses might only need a few tweaks and or new processes to make significant improvements. If the expert helps start with low hanging fruit the initial changes can often generate the additional money needed to finance additional changes.
Most construction business owners are thoughtful and kind people. They are also typically very busy and put in a lot of hours to help keep the business going and keep the employees working. If you see things that your boss doesn't, keep these considerations in mind. Choose a good time to share your opinions and offer your suggestions. Most importantly, do it with good intention and respect. I hope you have a boss who is willing to listen and will hear your suggestions. 
Second is that the supply chain is finally spending money again on marketing to and investing in their remodeling contractor customers. Although still not as busy as they used to be, trade shows this past year have grow in size again as more manufacturers and distributors are back participating at the shows. Also, since about early this past summer, the number of manufacturers, distributors, dealers and trade associations contacting me about speaking at their events has also dramatically picked up. The supply chain is once again spending money to educate their staff as well as their contractor customers, as a way to grow their businesses as well as their customers’. 
think sums things up
When a prospect asks you if you will match someone else’s price for the same job you figure if the other guy can do it for that price so can you, so you say yes.
If you believe in the idea of relative success, where you convince yourself you are doing pretty well if you compare your results to other contractors who are doing far worse than you, then maybe you can be happy staying where you are regarding financial management at your business. On the other hand, if you want to measure your success against truly successful contractors, perhaps use 
If you have been playing Contractor Roulette here is a simple three-step plan to help you end your gambling habit:
Choosing the right association should involve doing a little fact checking. Does the association promote and foster a learning environment or does it seek to push its own agendas on you? Does it offer you training materials that are relevant to your company? Does it offer you a place to network with your industry peers? What is the overall tone of the association? Above all, does it portray a professional appearance? If their agenda is not in-line with yours you may want to re-think your membership.
Membership in trade associations can not only benefit the employees of your company, but it can also project a positive image of your firm to your customers; if you choose your association wisely. Membership in associations shows a business’ initiative, its engagement in a particular trade and its commitment to staying abreast of current developments in the market. It can also affect you negatively by conducting itself in an unprofessional manner and by throwing business and moral ethics out the window. Look closely at the way their key members hold themselves in a public forum and ask yourself one question- Is that the way you want yourself and your company to be seen?
