Stage 2: The Owner Delegates
Remember that I said every stage oscillates from discomfort to comfort and then back to discomfort? For the typical do-it-all remodeler, the feeling of discomfort—and subsequent need to advance to Stage 2—flares when you take on a couple of jobs that each last six to eight weeks or more and take place simultaneously.
Going from one to two projects may be only a doubling of assignments, but it’s a quantum increase in complexity. You think, “I can spend some time over here or over there,” but you know how often things go awry in organized remodeling, let alone disorganized remodeling. It’s time to delegate.
Characteristics:
- First full-time hire typically is for field labor.
- Administrative help gets employed on a part-time basis.
- You as owner retain sales duties.
- You need more business knowledge, particularly how to define job costs and overhead, how to estimate better, and how to manage time—yours as well as that of employees.
- Better systems get put in place, particularly for lead tracking, job cost analysis, and basic company budgets.
Take Note: For many remodelers, the first delegating of work involves a family member, typically a spouse. This solves a problem, but it’s no long-term, systemic solution unless you pay that person the same wage you’d pay an outsider and unless that person is qualified to do the work.
Making a spouse or child your first employee also can set you up for trouble later because each family has its forms of internal communication—forms that can bewilder non-family members who join the company later. In addition, family dynamics don’t always transfer well to business, particularly if a father who doesn’t brook disagreements at the dinner table thinks those same family members will speak up when the family has to hash out business issues.
Ultimately, a whole bunch of tiny, imperceptible flaws in the creation of a successful company are inflated by hiring family members. There’s business, and there’s family, and they don’t easily mesh.