BRAD CRUICKSHANK Cruickshank Inc., Atlanta
Neither a deliberate nor a last-ditch effort, Brad Cruickshank’s successful expansion from residential into light-commercial work began with a bit of good luck. When a retailer opening an Atlanta location first approached him about a small job, Cruickshank hadn’t considered that Cruickshank Inc. would head in the commercial direction. A subsequent run of ultra-light jobs didn’t provide much guidance either.
“When it started out, it was ‘Do you have someone who can put up a toilet roll dispenser?’ It’s hard to know where that’s heading,” Cruickshank says.
Last year, Cruickshank Inc.’s commercial services division generated about a third of his company’s $3.8 million revenue. Cruickshank attributes the success in part to his bringing a residential “do-whatever-it-takes” philosophy to the commercial world.
“In commercial, expectations are lower,” Cruickshank says. “They’re just happy if you show up, so by providing the kind of customer service we do in residential, we’re two steps ahead.”
Cruickshank’s commercial business didn’t take off, however, until he recognized that a commercial business would require a dedicated staff and budget, as well as a different operational approach.
“I started out with my residential carpenters doing this repair work,” he says, “but I quickly realized that scheduling and time are critical, so I had to have dedicated men. Commercial services also has its own fleet of vans, and they have a set inventory of tools and equipment.”
The commercial services division operates differently too, Cruickshank says, billing differently, and tracking different data and key performance indicators. His commercial crews are different as well, mostly versatile, independent-minded workers who like being on their own and working evenings and weekends.
With each running its own set of books, Cruickshank says, his residential and commercial services divisions are essentially separate companies. Despite that degree of separation, however, Cruickshank hasn’t split the two into separate corporate entities and markets them under the same Cruickshank Inc. name. A split, he says, would be costly — there’s the cost of incorporating; insurance rates are better for one large company than two smaller companies; and accounting fees would increase if more returns are filed.
Still, Cruickshank is considering a new market identity for his commercial division and wishes he had looked into it sooner.
“If I had addressed that earlier, we could have been generating goodwill under that name for years instead of just starting it now.”