Systems save you time energy and money. They are also the key to making any business successful.

- Brad Sugars -

The Business

Name: The CHAD Group, Inc.

Address: PO Box 224 Lititz, PA 17543, USA

Owner: Chad Longenecker

Business Sector: Construction

Coach: Eric Dombach

The Challenge

The range of challenges faced by small business owners is as diverse as there are businesses, and we’ve looked at quite a few in this blog already. Most have certain external factors hindering their progress, and this, as we’ve seen, is fairly typical.

But how about the case where the problem lies internally, so to speak?

I’m thinking here about cases where the external factors are all favorable, yet the business still seems to be struggling.

Here’s a great example from the U.S.

Let me explain …

The CHAD Group of Lancaster, PA had been in existence for 2 years when they realized they weren’t making any progress at all towards achieving their business goal of being one of the best, and most profitable, builders and remodelers in their area.

In fact, even though their local area was fairly affluent, and the local economy was in great shape, they were finding it hard to make headway. The business environment was more than favorable, too – it was ideally suited to a business such as theirs. The population consisted of a good mix of people who had grown up there and those who had moved in due to the area’s growth and good economy.

They were predominantly upper-middle class folk who had a good outlook on life and lived in pockets of tightly-knit communities throughout the county.

Furthermore, Chad says his business was well accepted by the community, even though there was lots of competition in the marketplace. In fact, he says there was more than enough business for everyone.

So, what was the problem?

OK, I have to be honest; things aren’t always so straightforward in business.

There were a few external negative factors they were up against, but viewed against the good economy and favourable local situation, they weren’t major inhibiting factors.

I’m talking here about the almost universal stereotype of the construction industry — you know, always being over budget, not keeping the site clean and never being on time. But this was a level playing field – these external factors affected all the players equally.

“Being a new business, we had a lot of debt,” explains Chad. “We desperately needed to develop cashflow, as we were losing money every day. We also needed to increase our number of leads and I needed to improve my ability to close deals. And I also needed a system to regulate my customer service and quality.”

Chad shared some challenges with his competitors, like finding reliable workers with a good work ethic and who truly cared about the customer. But this alone wouldn’t have accounted for his poor business performance.

In a nutshell, the business was heading towards certain failure …