How do I grow a one-man operation?
I would love to hear some stories about how others went from a one-man/woman show, into running a crew and turning yourself more into a managing role rather than doing everything yourself.
Forum Discussion
Really great question. One thing I've learned is its very difficult to find someone that's going to represent your business like you would.
My advice is if you like things done a very specific way , hire someone new to the field with great potential. Train them until you feel they are ready to be on their own. And reward them with raises or promotions when the time is fit. But its always good to shadow them and overlook what they do or say if they deal with customers. And when business keeps growing , keep training crews and keep investing in marketing.
If you want to keep scaling , there's going to be a point in time where word of mouth is not enough to keep employees busy. You'll need to invest in all types of marketing. Some may not be as effective as others but that's when you narrow down what type of marketing is best for your time and business.
I took over my dad's contract business but it was really him and my uncle working. My dad retired and my uncle left to work on his own , so I was able to recruit a few experienced people and trained them to how I wanted the business to run as far as workmanship and customer service . Once I was able to trust them to handle jobs on their own I hired more help and trained them what our standards are . Meanwhile I was experimenting marketing and found what works for us. I will say this , I've found free marketing isnt the best for our business. There's times where we spent around 7k+ a month but that's what I have to do to keep our crews busy . I do regret getting some business loans and if I can do it again I would avoid loans to scale up. I would scale up with own money. But that's just my opinion for my business. Overall economy isnt too great for building in my area but we stay busy . I over look at job sites and I go sell jobs. I have a project manager that was promoted within , he was the first one I hired to replace my uncle and without him I wouldn't of been able to handle workloads we get .
I hope I was able to give some type of advice or feedback
Very well said and I hear your passion. You are not new to this you are true to this. Thank you for your service and dedication.
This helped me a lot, thank you.
