Growing a fire protection and life safety business is hard. It takes considerable effort and time. In the beginning, it means wearing different hats, doing all the small things. Handling service calls, sales, marketing, HR, and IT. Meeting with customers. You must understand taxes and corporate compliance. It’s a lot!
Building and maintaining your fire and life safety business and legacy is no simple task. Which is why we wanted to provide some guidance on things you should consider when trying to grow your business to where you want it to be for you, your employees, and your customers.
Invest in Employees
You want to give your customers the best of the best. That’s why it’s important to not only hire top-level industry talent, but to also cultivate this talent through continued training. Building an effective team is the key to ensuring your business grows.
In addition to benefiting your customers, making these investments also benefits your employees and raises morale. Employees are key members of the team. They need to be supported with learning and development programs to enable professional growth. This will take their skills and career to the next level and they will feel a sense of devotion from the company.
One of the best ways to have motivated employees who work hard is to give them a sense of purpose. They should not just feel like they have to work for the sake of working. Employees want to belong to something bigger than themselves. They want to make an impact.
Your employees should also feel that they are heard. Always be open to hearing you’re your employees. They should have a voice, too, and be able to ask questions.
Technology Improvements
Today, if you’re not using the best technology out there, your customers will notice. They want a convenient and easy experience, and they expect you to invest in technology to provide this experience to them. Investing in technology improvements can go a long way for your business, employees, and customers.
A preferred fire protection and life safety company will bring significant technology improvements to both internal operations and customer experience. These aren’t cheap and is why many fire and life safety companies struggle to keep up with new technology options and upgrades.
Utilize a Customer Management System
Manually tracking customer invoices and accounts is hard. No one wants to do that. It gets too cumbersome as the business grows. If you want to grow quickly, use a customer management system. There are plenty to choose from.
A preferred fire protection and life safety company uses a few different tools, including a platform for its customers to use themselves. All management is done online for the company and its customers. It makes things simple for both the customer and employee. Everything is in one place and can easily be tracked and maintained. Simplifying things for both you, the employees and customers will go a long way. Find what works for you and utilize it.
Utilize Marketing
Marketing and branding are everything when it comes to people knowing who your company is and what you do. We’ve seen owners accomplish incredible growth by pounding the pavement and with word-of-mouth, but those who add marketing to the mix see exponential growth beyond what they previously accomplished.
Today it’s harder than ever because there are so many fire protection and life safety companies out there. To stand out from the rest, marketing and branding should be utilized to show brand awareness, distinguish you from the rest of the competition.
Through community involvement and strategic marketing initiatives, a preferred fire protection and life safety company will build brand awareness to increase market share.
Expand Service Offerings
Look into expanding your products and services. Are you only offering fire safety system repairs? Or does your fire and life safety company only specialize in hood suppression? In order to grow, you need to think about expansion. Identify new opportunities within the fire and life safety industry. Uncover the pain points. What else can you offer to your customers?
Consider Selling
As a fire protection company owner, you know how important planning is to the long-term security of a property. The same applies to businesses. So, as you consider the next phase of your life and career, ask yourself: “What’s my plan to secure the future of my business, my employees, and my customers?”
Only you know when it’s the right time to sell your business. If you consider selling to another fire and life safety company, your employees should have a future, and your customers should come first. All while the new company safeguards your legacy.
The new company should make you a commitment, not just an offer.
Growing a business can take many directions. Whether an owner decides to grow on his or her own or grow by selling. It’s a decision that takes a considerable amount of thought. Only you, as the owner, knows what’s right for their customers, employees, and legacy.
CertaSite already has acquired 12 fire protection and life safety companies and is actively engaged in bringing new businesses under the CertaSite umbrella. To date, the CertaSite family includes: ABC Fire Extinguisher Co. (Ohio); Advanced Fire, a CertaSite Company (Pennsylvania); Approved Protection Systems (Michigan); Approved Safety and Security (Indiana); Company One Suppression (Illinois and Iowa); County Fire Protection (Ohio); Erlich Fire Protection (Michigan); Field’s Fire Protection (Michigan); Great Lakes Fire & Safety Equipment (Michigan); Spears Fire & Safety (Michigan); Starfire Systems and Starfire Suppression Equipment (Wisconsin); and Marine Fire Sales & Service (Ohio).
