A question for the larger companies out there, and/or the rapidly growing smaller businesses for that matter: What was your primary tool used to grow your business (i.e. avertising and marketing, word of mouth, buyouts, etc.)? I'm a commercial/residential solo op. with part time help and I'm trying to expand as fast as I can. Thanks in advance for your help!
Well if your looking for rapid growth, word of mouth will not get you there. A good advertising/marketing plan is the way I would go about it. Personaly I wouldn't go with a buyout. I would possibly consider one if I was new to the business and needed work, equipment, and money asap. Even then its not guarenteed to work but it may be a good start. It seems to me that there is plenty of work out there if you know how to find it. Myself, I have never looked to grow as fast as possible so I couldn't help you there.
I wouldn't fit into the large category but I've gone from solo to 2 plus full time employees in 2 seasons. What I've found so far is word of mouth is nice but slow and flyers for lawn maintenance have not been that successful so far. I have had the most success getting new maintenance jobs by first selling an extra service( in my case aeration) I put out fryers advertising my aeration service, get the work, do a great job and send out Christmas cards. Its amazing how many of those clients turn into weekly maintenance jobs quickly. You need to be real careful who you have do the first service though. That's your salesman even if they don't end up talking to the client (a lot of times the best scenario) a good job does the best sales job.
I agree. Rapid growth is going to put a financial strain on your company. You have to have the flow in order to be able to deal with it.
For the most part,the companies you see that are large have been in this industry for 10yrs+. After that amount of time, you have proven you can do quality work and then word of mouth gives you all your business. I cant think of any new business out there that got large in their first year or 2. I think if you want to expand as quick as possible, its going to ruin your company. You need experieince in this business so you can handle all the extra workload on yourself. The most profitable companies slowly built to where they are now, instead of diving head first from solo, to super large.
Bigger is not better, been there done that.scaled it back to be able to manage it more profitable and grow slowly set goals, go after high end clients get educated, sell your self properly, do above and beyond quality work and your name will travel. have not had to advertise in 10 years and making more money then we did when we were to big...
BE VERY CAREFUL. Rapid growth is one of the top business killers! Because when you grow that fast you could very easily end up running out of money...quick. Growth is good, but be careful not to grow too fast.
Controlled Growth is what we look for. Once a solid foundation is set one can grow as fast as there $'s can go, but important to decide what you want from being big.
