In the success stage, you were told you had a decision to make. Will you maintain your current size or move on scale you business? If you’re dreaming of more for your water damage restoration company, then the take-off stage is what is right around the corner.
The goal for this stage is to scale. This isn’t about slow and steady growth, these are big leaps that are provided by large contracts and smart business operations. This isn’t an easy step to take, but as long as you have a plan for your next steps and prepare yourself for the challenges you will face, you can succeed.
The Challenges of the Take-Off Stage
During take-off, your main goal is to grow rapidly. The main challenges of this season are all about preparing for that growth. We’re talking about getting your finances ready, getting your employees ready, and creating the systems that will keep your business running when work is steady.
Begin with your finances. Expect to face hurdles that threaten to keep your from your goals. You will need a strategy for generating more funds because you need a healthy cash flow if you are going to be taking on large jobs.
Once you have funds in place, you will be faced with your next challenge — hiring more employees. You are positioning yourself to say yes to large jobs, like natural disasters, when you have enough staff on board to handle large, emergency water damage jobs. This takes some creativity, since you may not be able to afford hiring more full-time employees just yet. In the past, we have dealt with this by hiring on call staff that only gets paid when they work, connecting with contract workers, and hiring part time employees who have the desire to flex their hours up to full-time once business is booming.
Lastly, you need to have the confidence to walk away from old systems and habits that no longer work for your water damage restoration business. This can feel excruciating, especially when a certain process worked well during the early days of your company. Be brave enough to explore new systems that are better suited for growth. This can feel risky, but you can’t move ahead if you’re aren’t willing to take risks.
The Opportunities of the Take-Off Stage
We can sum up the opportunities of the take-off stage in one word — growth!
This is such an exciting time for a business owner who wants to do something big in the industry. They’re ready to take big leaps, and the take-off stage is an opportunity to start working with the big leagues.
Typically, this is the first chance a business owner has to dominate in their market. If you hope to be a leader in water damage restoration in your region, now is your chance. You are on the verge of moving on past being just another water damage restoration specialist and onto being someone who others look to as an example of success.
Moving on to the Next Stage
Ready to keep growing? Here is what you need to be prioritizing during the take-off stage of your business:
- Create a plan for your growth. Don’t be fooled by the name, “more floods” isn’t a good enough answer. No, you need to know exactly how you will create systems that will bring leads to your business day after day. How will you change your marketing to get more jobs on your calendar?
- Create a strategy for funding the growth you have ahead and get it on paper. This is not about hoping you find the cash, it is about finding the cash, securing it and even planning ahead for further funding when the time comes.
- Start developing the resources you will need to cope with the growth ahead. This includes preparing your human resources department with uniform and repeatable processes for hiring and training each new employee. Additionally, you will need to begin imagining what it will be like to have a large business. What new systems will you need to have in place to accommodate all that new growth? Get those ready now so you can hit the ground running.
For those who haven’t been involved in scaling a business before, the idea of rapid growth can seem like nothing more than a pipe dream. At More Floods, we know that the opposite is true. There are very real, very concrete steps that can be taken to turn a small business into a large and thriving company in the water damage restoration industry. To learn more about how we help business owners do just that, click here or call 1-866-667-3356 to join the More Floods Network.