Scaling is not necessarily again, adding six trucks, adding a dozen employees, two Xing your bottom line revenue. Scaling, at its core, is about building systems that allow you to handle more output or workload efficiently. Welcome back to midweek modern craftsmen. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. It's beautiful here today. It's just a quintessential spring day. The sun is shining. There's a nice breeze, blue
skies. The lawn is green and plush right now. Softball season is in full swing, so I hope that everyone is having as nice of a spring day wherever you are that we are here in New Jersey. We don't have that many of them. It's going to be hot and humid here. Before you know it, today, I'm going to be digging into a topic that I got into with a consulting client of mine recently where he faced this crossroads in his business and
determining how he wanted to scale his business. And I think I'm gonna speak specifically to the smaller, owner, operator type businesses as per usual on the midweek platform, because that's what I know, and that's what I really feel is a very
important aspect of this industry. Because there are so many of us out there, and there's so many of us out there struggling, so many smaller businesses or contractors believe that scaling means chasing the larger, more complex projects, renovations, builds, but that path often comes with
added risk, overhead and a lot of stress. And in reality, scaling can also mean optimizing for smaller projects, projects you can turn around faster that offer better margins if accounted for properly, less downtime and more flexibility for you and your business. And true growth actually comes from building efficient systems that align with your goals and your lifestyle, not just bigger budgets. The key is to finding a scalable model that supports both profitability and personal
freedom. So let's dig into this week's midweek modern grasping real quick. Nick and I are hosting a free zoom workshop next Friday, May 9, at 3pm Eastern, standard time to walk through our business vision and scaling plan worksheet. It's the same one that we shared with everyone on our email list. We'll go through the entire document together answer any of your questions and offer some actual insight as to how we're using that template in our own businesses. If you don't have
that worksheet yet. Make sure you sign up for our newsletter. You can also grab it directly from our Instagram profile, which is at modern craftsman pod. Just click on the story highlights labeled free and also workshops to find both the worksheet and the Zoom link for the webinar, again, it'll be around an hour long. It's next Friday, May, 9, 3pm Eastern,
Standard Time. You do have to pre register through zoom. So go to our Instagram profile, click on the story highlights and download both that business vision and scaling plan worksheet, as well as register for that webinar. Hopefully we'll see all of you, guys and girls there. As mentioned earlier in the intro, I recently had a consulting call with a client who was at this crossroads with his business,
where it seemed, I feel like it's typical. You're you're not quite making the margins that you want or you need to you're working a ton. You're not capturing the time that you're putting into a project. And you think that I need to scale my business right? And the the way that most of us think that we scale is that we have to increase revenue by taking on bigger projects, more complex projects, projects, you know,
instead of being six weeks, go to 12 weeks, six months. That's the way we're going to grow, because it's going to give us enough work, enough work booked out, we'll be able to add an employee, add two employees, and that's our path to financial freedom, or just making a little bit more money, and I, I, I've realized this myself over the years, after making a ton of, a ton of mistakes that I didn't actually afford myself freedom and some financial security until I I grew my business. In a
way different than most of us think. And as I speak to a lot of other people and we have the conversation where it's like, well, I need I need to increase my revenue. I need to land these type of jobs. I want to become a new home builder. I want to do full house remodels. It's amazing to me how how elusive financial security is to small business owners today, it's as if making money and having personal freedom are mutually
exclusive. So that's what I'm going to dig into today, is just a bit of how there are other options for scaling your business outside of just, hey, I need to go from doing bathrooms and kitchens to additions to Full House remodels to new home
bills. There's ways of scaling your business that you don't necessarily have to just focus on increasing your revenue, because often with us, because we're small, because we came from performing everything ourselves to then hiring out certain trades, bringing on a helper, then moving, you know, to two employees, three employees. We don't have adequate systems in place to handle those type of projects, those revenues, and we're putting a lot of eggs in one to
two baskets a year. So I want to dig into just some alternative options that there are for guys and girls like you and like me to make money while not just focusing on, hey, I need a bigger project. I need custom jobs. There's a lot of options out there. And for some reason, if it's ego, if it's, you know, chasing the dragon, if it's keeping up with the Joneses, we don't explore those options. And to me, they've they've been fairly lucrative. So hopefully this helps you, you out a little
bit. Um, all right, so um, for this, this call, we dug into
this guy's program, his goals, what does market look like? His lifestyle, his needs, from a financial perspective, a time perspective, and again, what what has fascinated me over the past couple years of having consulting clients and working with them, is how many people lose sight of the many ways that you can grow or scale your business without adding half a dozen employees, having five or six trucks on the road and just making money off of employees and putting more work in place.
Scaling doesn't have to mean bigger. Lately, Nick and I have been diving pretty deeply into this, this topic of scaling, and trying to understand what smart scaling looks like. How do you grow your business without adding chaos, without just increasing your overhead, unnecessary risk? Sometimes growth requires those things, but it doesn't always require those things, and not all scaling has to be done at lightning speed, right? You don't have to go from $500,000
to a million dollars in one year. Often, that actually costs us money, because we are not equipped to go to 2x in sales. We haven't developed the system. We haven't invested in the systems. We have not grown to support the additional revenue. So for this particular consulting client, I saw the opportunity to scale his business differently. So he was
at this crossroads, right? And it's, it's, do I tackle a project or market myself towards a client that wants a bigger project that's going to consume my time for a year, I'll be able to hire somebody full time, maybe bring somebody else on. I'll keep those guys busy. I'll make money on them, and that'll be all I need for the next year. Or do I have a dozen other projects? Or do I do I market and sign a dozen other projects, which are smaller projects. Maybe they don't excite me quite
as much. Some of the things aren't what I want to be doing every day, but I know how to do them. You know, I'm set up to do them. I have the systems to do them. I don't have to, I don't have to reinvent the wheel. But again, it's a lot of staging, it's a lot of setup, it's a lot of coordination. So do I go the path of, hey, I want to do one to two projects a year? Do I say I want to do 12 to two dozen projects a year? And what does
that look like on paper? We, we we often think that signing the job that's going to we'll be able to plan ourselves there for a year. That's that's the easiest solution. Excuse me, we don't have to entertain a bunch more clients. We can focus on one project. The numbers look big, so it seems really appetizing. Um. But you have to remember, when determining which path that you're going to go that it's not just about that number. It based
on where he was at this point. Whether he at this fork in the road, he goes left or he goes right, he's going to have to scale his business. Scaling is not necessarily again, adding six trucks, adding a dozen employees, 2x ing, your bottom line revenue. Scaling, at its core, is about building systems that allow you to handle more output or workload efficiently. And more is a relative turn, but basically, I can scale my business and I could do 10% more work but create systems, or I
could do 0% more work, right? Say I sell a million dollars in work this year, and that's been what I've sold the past 10 years. I could scale my business to put the same million dollars of work in place with 50% less effort going into it, and that would still be considered scaling my business. I've created systems, I've created efficiencies that allow me to produce a million dollars worth of work at 50% less effort, so
my margins go way up, right? So there's options for that. At the end of the day, scaling is about handling your workload efficiently, and yes, typically by definition, scaling means more output or an increased workload. But at the end of the day, like it's really the heart of it is about the systems that
you're creating and creating those efficiencies. So say I do less work now, if I've created systems that make me more efficient, the choice to do less work at a higher margin, and I'm making more money, like I scaled my business, even though I didn't necessarily take on more work. If I want to put more work in place. I have the system to generate those margins, but it comes down to a personal and a financial decision at that
point. So scaling does mean something different to every person, but this client, believed that scaling meant going after bigger, more complex projects, larger budgets, assuming that they lead to a higher profit, and there that is absolutely scaling by definition. And there's a lot of people that do that. I'm just telling you that that's not the only way, and often, at least in my experience, and a lot of people that I speak with that does not actually make them more
money. It consumes more of their time. It costs them more money. It increases their headache, it increases their liability, it increases their risk, and then also, from a marketing and a testimonial and a referral respect perspective, you're putting all of your eggs in one basket, rather than a 1212, baskets rather than two dozen baskets. The jobs are more
complex. They consume more of your time. The margins, a lot of times come down because you're expected to perform at an economy of scale and make less money, because you're the setup and the breakdown, and you're doing you're doing more work. You're putting more work in place, you can leverage the economy of scale. So I've been there. I've done that. I've chased the big jobs. A lot of times, they just didn't lead to the margins that I want. Typically, the bigger their job,
the smaller the margin. So for me, if I'm going to put a million dollars worth of work in place, why wouldn't I focus on putting a million dollars worth of work in place with a higher
profit margin? Than a million dollars worth of work in place with a lower profit margin, I would be making more money putting the same amount of work in place, if you were looking at it from an hourly perspective, and with what I want from a lifestyle perspective, to be able to spend time with my family, to be able to save some money, to be able to create a future, a lifestyle, ride my dirt bike, be at all of my kids sporting events, I would rather create a business that makes a
higher margin on the same amount of work that I'm putting in place on my Bottom line revenue. So I also realized that within my market, it's easier to do that it's suited for these smaller jobs. There's not as many people going after them. I can sell more of them. I can complete them faster. If I have systems and scheduling processes in place, there's actually less downtime. You think that there's not a lot of dying time with
these big jobs. But when you're an owner operator, and you're staging the job, you're estimating the job, you're managing the project, you're managing the subs, what ends up happening is you start to close a job out. You didn't have time to line up the next project or get the permit submitted, get the design cooked, market more work, Chase more work, so you finish. This job out because you're stressed and pressured, because you don't have the systems in place to execute it
efficiently. And then you're anticipating starting a next job, but you're actually not ready. That job's not in order, so now you have to step back and you have to get the next job going. So maybe it's a week, maybe it's two weeks, maybe it's six weeks to get the next job going. You actually just lost a
ton of time and a ton of potential revenue. Where, if you had smaller jobs, where you could put the pieces in place, you had a little bit of downtime, maybe a day of week in between, a day per week in between these projects, you can get the next job up and going. You can hire more easily. You can train more easily. If it's a less complex job, maybe the barrier to entry is a little bit less. The clients really, if there's a potentially a bad project or a bad client, you're
not stuck with them for a year. You know, if I can do a dozen jobs a year, I can do two dozen jobs a year from a business perspective, and I have the system to support that, and there's smaller jobs, I can create so much more of a greater demand. I have more content, I can produce, I can market myself better. I can get more referrals, more testimonials, if I take two jobs a year, or, even worse, one job a year, and that project doesn't go according to plan, or expectations aren't
met, or it's a bad experience for you or the client. Where are your referrals coming from? From the next project? Right? You have all your eggs in one basket. What if you're six months into an eight month job and you're like this? This type of work doesn't make me money, and all of your marketing has been based on landing more of these types of jobs. Now what
are you going to do? Doing these smaller projects that I can turn over faster, I can put people in place I have higher margins on is a way of scaling my business that creates more profitability and less stress. Yes, there's a little bit more coordination, getting people in and out, starting the job, meeting with clients on the back end, but I'm getting paid for all of that
regardless. So for me, I'd rather do a job that was four weeks long, six weeks long, than do a job that's six months long, because at the end of the day, I'm going to get in and out, I'm going to make my money. I can bring whoever I need in place. If the job goes south, I'm not tied to that job for six months. If it's not as profitable as I intended, or the client becomes more challenging than I anticipated, I'm not locked into
this job forever. So this, this is really that crossroads where you consider, Hey, what is scaling my business look like, do you do what I did? Do you do what everyone wants to do, where they want to compete or allow their ego to convince them that? Hey, I need to be doing fully custom work. I need to be selling to the top tier client, those the type of jobs that are going to make me money. I need to be doing full house remodels, additions, new home builds. Typically, the margins are going
to go down on them. Typically, it's, it's, it's going to be less money based on revenue. So you're going to have to put more work in place to make the same amount. So I, I'm not here, and this podcast is not here to convince you that my way is the best way. It's about offering some perspective to challenge the idea, challenge the notion that scaling only looks one way
too often we chase all the same projects. Again, it's driven by ego industry expectations what you see online, and we lose sight of what we actually want or need from our business and our life. Bigger budgets don't always mean more profits. Typically, they do not. Typically the custom work where you are laying the golden egg, you're creating processes and systems that are one off, they they are not as profitable as having systems that are tried
and true, that you can carry from one job to another. And to me, that is the secret to scaling more complexity does not mean more success. You know, a higher budget does not mean more profit. You can grow your business in a way that is wise. It's intentional, and it's tailored to your needs and your
lifestyle. And at the end of the day, if your business isn't providing you the lifestyle that you want, the income that you need, then it's it's not a successful business no matter what size the projects, no matter how happy your clients are, it's not serving you correctly, and maybe it serves somebody else correctly, but it's not serving you correctly. So I would, I would consider challenging the typical notion
of scaling and what that looks like. So. So again, Nick and I have been digging into this a ton, and the way that Nick scales and the way that I scale are two different things, but
the goal is the same. And I think that when you understand that scaling is about creating systems, checks and balances, processes and having all of these things in order creating the infrastructure to support your type of business, to be able to maximize your profitability and maximize your efficiency with everything that you do, I think that you'll understand how scaling works for you and your business, because it's not the same for everyone. But most of us think that, yes,
scaling is just I made a million dollars this year. I'm gonna go to 3 million. And they think that that's gonna make them more money. But the problem is, at a million dollars worth of work, you're still working 70 hours a week. If you think that putting $3 million worth of work in place with a model that you currently are working 70 hours a week, if you think that you're going to be working less, you're absolutely wrong. You cannot scale your business until you are able to run your business
efficiently at your current scale. When you have that figured out, it's then time to say, hey, what happens if I increase my top line revenue? What happens if I put another 50% of work in place? If I put an additional job in place per year? What happens if I do less work? Right? What happens if I just focus on the systems and the processes that create efficiencies, and I didn't actually increase my revenue at
all? Where do my margins go? And does that then afford me to be able to put 20% more work in place with the same amount of effort as I was before, and now my scaling is actually profitable. Now my scaling makes sense. It's not just scaling for scaling sake. So again, this this conversation with this consultant client, really got me thinking about how there's so many pros and cons to scaling, and there's so many there's so many different options for scaling, and there's so many
avenues in which you can take your business. But it's not one
size fits all. It's not so clear cut. And I think that most of us, when we hear scaling, just think we're going to 2x what we're doing now, or we're going to 3x or the five year plan is 6x where I think we need to focus on the systems, the processes, the infrastructure, the framework that creates efficiencies for your business, the way that it is now and then, growing your business based on those efficiencies and that framework to make sure that you can put more work in place and
either increase your margins, or at least maintain your margins, and not just put more work in place to feed a machine or create a machine, or buy a new truck or hire a new employee, to take a new job, to land job with an architect, because That's what your ego wants. Because from a business perspective, that makes no sense at all. So that's it for this week's podcast. Hope it made sense. Open your eyes. If you want to hop on a consulting call, shoot me an email. Tyler at TRG, home
concepts.com, first come first serve. I'm doing one or two per week. That's it. And I do have some regulars that I'm doing once a month, so first come first serve, Tyler at TRG, home concepts.com, also don't forget next Friday, May 9, 3pm Eastern, Standard Time. Nick and I are going to be welcome to our business vision and scaling plan worksheet that we shared with you on our newsletter. If you don't have it, sign up for the newsletter. You can get it. You can also find it on our
Instagram profile, modern craftsman pod. Click on the story highlights free for the worksheet and then workshops to get a zoom link for the webinar next Friday, May 9, 3pm Eastern, Standard Time, free, but you do have to pre register. Catch you guys next week. Hope to see you all on The workshop. All right, see ya