Stage 4: Complexity Grows
Generally, there are two reasons why you’d want to go to Stage 4: You want to grow dramatically or you want the business to survive after you’ve gone. If you’re a replacement contractor with visions of your home improvement firm planting flags from Maine to Monterey, it’s clear you need advanced systems. But even if you don’t want to grow dramatically and rather want to leave your company to a child, your goal still is to build a firm in which you as owner only coach, train, and mentor.
Characteristics:
- You are no longer responsible for sales; if you continue to sell, you contribute no more than 20% of the company’s sales revenue.
- Your sales manager produces a steady flow of jobs, sold at the targeted gross profit to the right clients.
- The department heads you manage, hire, and train are responsible for hiring, training, and managing their reports.
- A board of directors manages company culture, expectations, and profits through department heads.
Take Note: Perhaps 100 full-service remodeling firms extant today are operating as Stage 4 firms. First, transitioning to a system in which you’re responsible for less than a fifth of the company’s revenue stream can be a monstrous task. And you have to adjust your personality, too, shifting from doer to teacher.