Recently we had a round of golf with Emerson Patton and Bradley Lucas to discuss what it really takes to scale your business. Bradley is Founder and Managing Director of Seen Services, so he really knows what he’s talking about and it’s worth listening to what he’s got to say.
Here’s what we took away from our round.
If, like Bradley, you’ve built your own successful construction business, you likely started with a hands-on approach, driven by the necessity of getting every bit of the job done. You know every facet of your projects. You’ve built the relationships that keep your pipeline in full flow. Your personal oversight of the quality of the work being down has maintained your reputation. Sound familiar?
But there comes a critical pinch point for every growing business where that exact same hands-on approach becomes the biggest obstacle to further success. Doing more of the same in same way is no longer a viable option for you. You’ve hit a ceiling where your time is fully consumed, simultaneously doing the work, managing the finances, attempting to scale.
Hands-on can often quickly turn into head-in-your-hands the moment when your business stops growing or, worse, starts to go backwards. Because transitioning from an owner-operator to a true business leader is as much a psychological challenge as it is a structural one.
Many contractors find it incredibly difficult to relinquish the granular control they held when they were working on the tools. You know the lingering fear you get that if you are not physically on-site or reviewing every minute detail of a project, the quality will drop, or the wheels will come off.
This need to be sweating the small stuff might be a sign that you are still operating as a subbie in your own head. To scale like Brad has done, you’ve got to overcome the belief that getting involved in everything is the only thing keeping the company afloat. You need to accept that if you’re trying to be in control of every small task as your way of feeling comfortable, you’re never going to grow.
Real growth is built on you feeling a little bit uncomfortable as you move into the next stage of business maturity. Embrace discomfort.
To break through that ceiling, you need to jump into your metaphorical helicopter and take in the view from up there. This means stepping away from the daily operational grind to observe your business as a whole.
When you’re up there are, you’re not the one hammering nails or wiring circuits any more. You’re the one whose job it is to ensure that the whole show stays on the road by making sure everything and everyone else – systems, processes, management teams – are doing what they should be doing too.
So how do you get to take off and head for the skys? A vital part of this is building a proper leadership team. You cannot be the single point of failure. By empowering others to take ownership of specific areas, you free yourself to focus on what you uniquely bring to the firm. Call it the vision, the strategy, the momentum.
But this doesn’t mean spending all day sitting on your throne doing sod all. Even as you step back from operations, you will always be the best salesperson for your business. Think of it like shifting your role from doer-of-everything to leader-of-everything.
One of the most dangerous myths in the construction industry is that the systems which got you to your first million will get you to ten million. In reality, the systems that work at a £3 million turnover will likely break before £10 million. Scaling requires you to constantly reshape, refine, and, when necessary, simplify your operations so they keep on working effectively.
So when you implement new systems or technology, your goal has got to be efficiency, not complexity. Be wary of processes that turn a simple five-step task into a convoluted nine-step one. The objective is to create a slick, repeatable, and consistent experience for your clients and your team, regardless of which project they are on.
Efficiency is the ultimate fix. In the end, it’s the only way to ensure that your business output can double without your personal workload doubling to match it.
Ultimately, the choice to scale means the choice to change who you are within your company. You have to be willing to delegate and rely on data rather than your gut instinct to drive your decisions. If someone comes to you suggesting a change, your response shouldn’t be “I think we should do that,” but rather “Show me the data”.
Do not wait for a crisis to force you to change your structure. Think of it like treating your business coaching and system implementation like a home alarm system: you install the alarm to prevent a burglary, not after you’ve just been broken into.
By shifting your mindset from the guy on the tools to the leader in the helicopter, you stop just managing your work and start building a scalable, profitable and lasting construction company.
It might be the right time now for you to let go of the micromanagement and focus on all the high-value, business-critical leadership work that only you can perform.