Growing any business requires a lot of thought and planning, an effective growth strategy, and the working capital necessary to execute the strategy. In other words, it’s difficult, but not impossible if you have the right financial support in place.
Select Funding provides small business financing to roofing companies that they can use to grow or scale their business. The key to business scaling is to understand what it is and what it requires. If you want to know how to scale a roofing business, here are seven steps to help you achieve maximum growth—and maximum profits!
What Does It Mean to Scale a Business?
There are some key differences between ordinary business growth and scaling, so let’s start there. Business growth occurs when a business adds resources and experiences growth at the same rate. In other words, you might invest in advertising your roofing business in a new service area and add employees to serve that area, and see a related growth in revenue due to your expansion.
By contrast, scaling happens when a business experiences growth at a rate far higher than the rate at which they expend resources. There is more than one way to scale a business. For example, you could find ways to streamline your work to allow you to take on more jobs, or open new locations to fuel your growth. Not every business is ideal for scaling, but some are—and your roofing business could be one of them.
How Do You Know If It’s Time to Scale Your Roofing Business?
The decision to scale a business is one that shouldn’t be undertaken lightly. It’s essential to evaluate your business first and make sure you have the resources and stability to do it. Here are some signs to help you determine if scaling is the right strategy for you:
- Your revenue and profits are increasing. If your revenue is on the rise, then it may mean that scaling is a good choice to accelerate your growth.
- Your customers are satisfied with your service. It’s unlikely that scaling will work if your customers aren’t happy with the work you do.
- The roofing sector is growing. Without a growing demand for roofing services, scaling is unlikely to succeed.
- You have support systems in place. You’ll need human resources, equipment and tools, and streamlined processes and systems to make scaling possible.
- Your team has been prepared for the challenges of scaling. You must be sure that your employees are ready to take on the work required for scaling a roofing business.
- You have access to affordable business financing. While scaling allows for exponential business growth if you do it right, you still need enough working capital to pay for it. Applying for small business financing can help you scale your roofing business.
Assuming that you answered yes to these questions, then the next step is to put a plan in place for scaling.
Scale Your Roofing Business in 7 Steps
Here are seven steps to help you scale your roofing business.
#1: Create a Strategic Business Plan
Before you do anything else, it’s necessary to create a strategic business plan that includes the details of how you will scale your business, including a budget, key personnel, supply chain, marketing, and so on.
It’s important to include a detailed description of where your roofing business is now as well as where you want it to go at the outset, to avoid some of the most common scaling mistakes. You should also outline your marketing strategy and create a budget at this stage.
#2: Secure Financing to Fuel Your Scaling Plans
Next, you’ll need to make sure you have the cash flow and working capital to scale your business and experience the growth you want. There are multiple options available to you, including traditional business loans, small business financing, and even equipment financing.
Without financing, it won’t be possible to take the steps to scale your business. You’ll need money to support franchisees if that’s how you decide to scale. You may also need to hire additional employees and pay for digital marketing campaigns to attract potential customers for your scaled business.
#3: Perfect Your Roofing Services
An important part of scaling any business is making sure that your products or services are optimized and that your customers are happy. You may need to provide your employees with additional training.
On a related note, it may be worthwhile to specialize in certain types of roofing, such as cedar shakes, slate, or tile. The more you can do to offer your customers top-notch services that leave them satisfied and likely to refer their friends and family to you, the better off you’ll be.
#4: Streamline Your Processes and Operations
Since the object of scaling is to achieve growth without a huge increase in expenditures, it’s important to do everything you can to streamline your business and make it as efficient as possible.
For example, you might streamline your bidding process by setting a fixed price list and using it in automation. You could also streamline things like invoicing. Anything you can do to make it easier to run your business at scale is going to be worthwhile.
#5: Put Your Team in Place
Scaling a business always requires extra work, especially in the early stages. You are likely to need to hire people with the skills and expertise to help you execute your scaling plan. These may include a lawyer to draw up franchising agreements, an accountant or CFO to help you manage your money, and an HR expert to help you screen and hire new workers.
Even if your plan involves franchising, you’ll need people to help you attract and screen potential franchisees and support them as they get their new locations up and running. You may also consider outsourcing some of the labor required to scale your roofing business.
#6: Build Your Supply Chain
Running a local business often means that you acquire the supplies you need locally and buy in small quantities. As you scale your roofer business, you may need to rethink where you obtain supplies and how much you pay for them.
You’ve heard about economies of scale and these represent one of the best things about scaling your roofing business: you may pay significantly less for supplies if you negotiate prices for buying large quantities. As you build your supply chain, you’ll need to consider order and delivery times to make sure you can keep your customers happy.
#7: Stay Adaptive
As you scale your business, you’ll need to be as agile and flexible as possible. Even if you’ve taken the time to detail your plans and secure financing, it’s impossible to scale any company without some unexpected challenges.
You’ll need to stay on top of the numbers and track your progress toward financial goals, taking steps to revisit your goals or try new tactics if you don’t get the results you want. Flexibility will allow you to pivot as needed and give you the best possible chance of achieving your goals.
Common Scaling Mistakes to Avoid
Now, let’s review some of the most common mistakes made while scaling businesses in the roofing industry:
- Losing sight of your customers. When you’re spending your time focusing on finances, hiring, and growth, it can be easy to lose sight of your customers in the process. You’ll need to have a strategy to attract new customers from your target audience, improve customer retention, and build customer loyalty.
- Not testing the market. Before you spend any money scaling your business, make sure that you understand the roofing market as a whole and get details on any new markets you’re targeting. Failure to do so can make it impossible to achieve the growth you need.
- Not documenting processes. Whether you’re scaling your business by expanding locally or selling roofing franchises, you need to meticulously document your business and sales processes to make sure that everything is consistent with your brand and business standards.
- Doing too much at once. Scaling can be exciting but if you try to do too much at once, you may end up spreading yourself (and your resources) too thinly. Focus on one thing at a time for the best results.
- Skimping on training. It’s natural to want to save money when you’re scaling your roofing business, but it’s important to know where to cut corners and where not to do so. Employee training is a must for business growth, so make sure that you give every employee the training and guidance they need.
These mistakes are all avoidable if you’re careful and do the necessary planning to make your scaled roofing business a success.
Scale Your Roofing Business with Financing from Select Funding
Scaling your roofing business can be an effective way to achieve your business growth goals and increase your profits. The seven steps we’ve included here can help you scale your roofing company with a minimum of stress while increasing your chances of success.
Do you need working capital to scale your roofing business? Select Funding is here to help! Click here to learn about our small business financing and apply today.
