If you try to scale chaos, you only get more chaos. And eventually your business will implode.
When you are small, i.e. less than $750,000 in revenues, you probably can do it yourself. You know exactly what is going on. Growing past this point begins the first step of no man’s land. To get out of no man’s land, you have to hire people and TRUST them to do their jobs the way you want them to. You have to tell them what you expect – they can’t read your mind!
Sometimes that’s the hardest part…trust.
Even when you are a multimillion dollar business, you have to trust the people you put in place to do their jobs.
Can you get to a multimillion dollar business without trust? No. Trying to micromanage leads to burn out and business implosion.
If your business is chaotic and is totally dependent on you, then don’t try to scale.
First, if you think you want to scale, answer these questions:
- Why do you want to grow?
- Are you willing to lead, manage and get out of a truck?
Many of the contractors I work with occasionally say, out of frustration, that they want to get back in a truck. However, this desire is fleeting and over once the crisis is resolved.
Leadership is inspiration – why should people join your team? What are the goals for the company? Management means letting your team members do their jobs and ensuring they are meeting their goals.
If you know why you want your company to grow and you are willing to lead and manage, then here’s how to get rid of the chaos:
- Processes and procedures. (I wrote the manual on these – see below for details – and your investment is much less than selling on additional job)
- Finding competent team members and giving them the authority, responsibility, and accountability to do their jobs.
- Tracking metrics and communicating the results to the team members
- Weekly communications meetings.
- Tracking billable hours.
- Reviewing financial statements
If your business is chaotic, you still have to grow in 2026. You have to grow at least by the rate of inflation. If your suppliers increase their costs, you have to grow by at least those increases. If you give your employees wage increases, you have to raise prices by at least the amount of those increases times 1.3.
So yes, you’re going to grow a little. And, if your business is chaotic, it will still be chaotic because nothing’s changed in this growth.
But, do you want to grow by 10%, 20% or more? Get rid of the chaos.
Get the process and procedures in place, follow them, and trust the people you hire to do those jobs.
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Ruth King is well known as “The Profitability Master.” She is passionate about helping small business owners become profitable and stay profitable. For over 40 years she has coached, trained, and helped contractors and others achieve the business growth and goals they wanted to achieve.
Contact Ruth by emailing ruthking@hvacchannel.tv.
