Managing Your Restoration Business

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There is one universal key that, Jennifer Sharpe found, will always lead to an increase of success. That is your own commitment to personal development.

“We are so focused on the physical aspects of everything we do in our business and personal lives, we sometimes forget the importance of the emotional connection, a basic human need. We have become transactional and no longer personal. The most successful companies handle problem resolution with a human voice and a can-do attitude to service, while others deal with problem resolution with software and a list of options,” Barry Costa writes.

In this episode of Ask the Expert, Andrew Zavodney, chairman of the board and CEO, talks about Kustom’s investment in company culture, employee value proposition, corporate governance, M&A due diligence, transparency, accountability and scaling without private equity. 

“We have reached an inflection point,” Andrew Zavodney writes. “We can choose to evolve, carefully striking a balance between innovation and margins, or choose complacency, watching operational costs tick upward and diminish earnings. So for those looking to spark positive change across your organization, here are the headwinds that should be on your radar.”

In part seven of the “7 Lessons Learned from $500 Million in Restoration Transactions” series, Gokul Padmanabhan, CEO of Restoration Brokers of America, discusses the importance of leverage in maximizing the sale of your business. “Once the LOI is done, the leverage transfers over to the buyer and comes away from you,” he says. 

Remote or third-party estimating companies focus only on estimating. Their specialist teams are made up of estimate writing wizards, geniuses of graphical estimating and magicians of macros. These dedicated estimators may have gravitated away from managing trades and keeping up with client communication, while leaning toward the technical aspects and nuts-and-bolts of how each trade handles tasks. Could remote estimating enhance your business?

“By setting and sticking to your core values, the culture you have built and the standards for the quality of work you have established won't be compromised by changes to company size and makeup. These simple ideas have guided us as we've grown from a small operation into a national leader in disaster recovery,” Jeff Moore writes.

On its surface, restoration doesn’t seem synonymous with “soft.” It’s a hard industry that operates in physically and emotionally tough working environments. Restoring a property to pre-loss condition requires a particular set of hard (job-specific) skills and tools. But there is a soft side that, I’d like to argue, carries more weight.

A coach’s immediate strategy is grooming their silver medalists to become the gold standard in future Olympics. The same can be said for finding talent to add to your team. Many times the silver medalists (“B” players) are undervalued and passed over while an organization searches for the gold.