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Robust financial occasions are scary for companies and customers, however the resolution is not to take your foot off the fuel. I opened the primary Roof Maxx dealership in 2019, only one 12 months earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic. As we speak, it is a nationally acknowledged residential roof restoration model with an annual income of practically $200 million in 2025.
Listed here are 5 key ideas I used to information my enterprise choices throughout these tough years.
Associated: How Nice Entrepreneurs Discover Methods to Win Throughout Financial Downturns
1. Important issues are extra necessary than aspirational ones
A variety of founders concentrate on flashy, dramatic options that dominate headlines, like getting humanity to Mars or being the primary to create AGI. However typically, these are options to issues that do not actually exist — or no less than, that do not exist urgently for on a regular basis folks.
Most individuals aren’t apprehensive about whether or not they’ll ever set foot on the floor of the purple planet. They’re apprehensive about what is going to occur to this planet of their lifetimes, as a result of they’re apprehensive about their properties.
So when my brother Todd and I began our enterprise, we did not shoot for the moon — or Mars. We centered on serving to folks lengthen the lifespan of their asphalt shingle rooftops and keep away from the waste created by changing them prematurely. It was a easy drawback, however one we noticed impacting owners throughout America. That meant we had a nation filled with goal prospects from the beginning.
2. Inexpensive alternate options to big-ticket objects can create new markets
One of many greatest challenges we confronted throughout these early years was that no market existed for our product. Roof restoration already existed in industrial roofing, however it was for metallic and flat roofs solely. Everybody within the residential house was promoting replacements on the time, and there was no different for asphalt shingles till we invented one.
Even in one of the best of occasions, making a model new area of interest is a tall order. However the financial uncertainty of the pandemic truly turned out to be a blessing in disguise. When owners heard that our remedies price as much as 80% lower than the price of absolutely changing their shingles, it now not mattered that we had been doing one thing beforehand unparalleled within the residential house. The fee financial savings alone had been sufficient to persuade many individuals to decide in.
Associated: 5 Tricks to Create Inexpensive Merchandise With out Compromising on High quality
3. Controlling your working prices reduces your danger
Scaling any enterprise comes with a specific amount of unavoidable danger, which is why many firms are typically extra cautious about pursuing progress throughout occasions of financial upheaval. However stagnation is an excellent larger danger.
Consider it this manner: If you happen to’re climbing a volcano and it erupts, your first intuition is likely to be to freeze. However in case you keep in your present ledge, you are most likely not going to make it. As scary as it’s, you must transfer.
The hot button is to remain agile. If you happen to had been the climber, you’d most likely ditch your backpack and any non-essential objects in order that they would not sluggish you down. As a enterprise in an unsure financial system, the identical precept applies: You need to change into financially lean so you possibly can scale with much less danger.
For us, that meant establishing a nationwide community of sellers as an alternative of opening and managing new places ourselves. It did not simply assist us increase into new markets with much less overhead; it additionally allowed us to take a position extra closely in offering every vendor with the coaching assets and supplies they wanted to succeed. At a time when many Individuals had been searching for new methods to earn however had been nervous about beginning their very own companies, this gave everybody a leg up.
We could not afford to tackle that type of danger throughout a pandemic, however by offering complete coaching assets and distant assist to our companions, we gave them all the things they wanted to carry the model throughout North America.
4. Growing old techniques and infrastructure are an missed however important market
Time impacts everybody and all the things. Even when budgets are tight, issues nonetheless get outdated and wish upkeep to remain useful.
For a few of these issues — like rooftops — laying aside the work is not an possibility. 29% of asphalt shingle roofs have lower than 4 years of usable life left, and that clock retains ticking no matter market circumstances.
If you happen to can construct your corporation round servicing belongings which are each crucial and depreciating, you possibly can all the time depend on a gentle stream of consumers. We knew folks may defer their landscaping plans throughout a pandemic, however they would not let the roofs over their heads degrade to the purpose the place they put their properties in danger.
5. Inexperienced options could be worthwhile in addition to planet-saving
Final however not least, we have now to speak in regards to the worth of providing eco-friendly services and products. It is a mistake to view inexperienced options as luxuries that individuals will solely need to buy throughout occasions of monetary consolation.
Throughout rocky financial intervals, the very last thing folks need to do is waste assets. If they will lower your expenses by sustaining one thing as an alternative of throwing it away, they’ll. And since many inexperienced options concentrate on decreasing waste, these companies have extra attraction when the financial system suffers, not much less.
With Roof Maxx, we provided owners a solution to preserve their present asphalt shingles in good situation as an alternative of getting to pay for a full roof alternative. Not solely did it save a median of three.8 tons of landfill waste per house, however it additionally price as much as 80% much less. The truth that we had been eco-friendly wasn’t a bonus; it was a key a part of the worth we had been providing at a time when each saved shingle (and greenback) mattered.
Associated: Construct a Enterprise That Helps Folks Really feel Good About Doing the Proper Factor
Make your corporation recession-resistant
The ideas that helped my enterprise develop throughout one of many worst recessions in our lifetimes weren’t rocket science. They had been easy:
Concentrate on a vital drawback
Provide an reasonably priced different to one thing costly
Hold working prices in examine
Concentrate on growing older techniques or infrastructure
Assist prospects keep lean and inexperienced
You need to use these to insulate your corporation as effectively. This is to sustainable progress, it doesn’t matter what the longer term holds.
Robust financial occasions are scary for companies and customers, however the resolution is not to take your foot off the fuel. I opened the primary Roof Maxx dealership in 2019, only one 12 months earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic. As we speak, it is a nationally acknowledged residential roof restoration model with an annual income of practically $200 million in 2025.
Listed here are 5 key ideas I used to information my enterprise choices throughout these tough years.
Associated: How Nice Entrepreneurs Discover Methods to Win Throughout Financial Downturns
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