Running a residential roofing business can leave you little time for anything else. Especially during your busiest seasons, you’re often focused on keeping your head above water and reacting to challenges as they come. Strategizing for the future has to be put off until later.
But what if your roofing business could do more than just roll with the punches? What if you could make preparations now that not only solved current problems, but also set you up for long-term success and helped to reduce issues down the line? Here are a few ways you can future-proof your residential roofing business and be more ready for whatever comes next.
Identify Your Pain Points Now
In many residential roofing businesses, the same challenges recur every year. From leads falling through the cracks during busy times to communication issues between the office and the field, many of the pain points roofers experience are ongoing difficulties rather than one-time problems. Because of this, taking the time to identify them and put solutions in place now can make the work you do much easier in the future.
Look at every step of your business process, from how leads enter the pipeline to how you close out completed jobs. Even if things are mostly working well, when you take this closer look, you’ll likely find areas that could use improvement to make your business even better. Once you’ve identified the major pain points that your residential roofing business experiences, you can move forward with finding solutions. As an additional resource, we created a short ebook to help you further: 6 Easy Tips For Growing Your Roofing Company.
This can seem incredibly time-consuming and even distracting from your more important work. But the time you spend now to solve these problems is time you’ll save in the future. Instead of having to deal with these recurring challenges on a yearly or monthly basis, you’ll be able to work more smoothly and focus on growing your business. Taking extra time now means less time spent worrying about these issues and scrambling to solve them down the line.
Find Agile Solutions
The type of solution you find for your biggest challenges is as important as identifying the challenges themselves. Some roofers get stuck in a cycle of implementing temporary solutions or quick fixes because they don’t have the time to make lasting changes. Other roofers add more and more tools to improve their processes, only to find that managing those tools is equally difficult and time-consuming. In order to see improvements both now and in the future, you’ll need to find long-lasting, streamlined solutions that you can adapt to a variety of situations.
When looking for these agile, comprehensive solutions, there are a couple things it’s important to keep in mind. First of all, any tool for improving your business only works if your employees are able to use it and effectively incorporate it into their processes. Tools with an overly steep learning curve or ones that never get used will not keep your pain points from recurring. Second, look for new solutions that address underlying issues, not just surface-level concerns. In many cases, everyday issues like missed paperwork or spending too much time on a job can be traced back to an overarching problem, like lack of communication between your teams. The best tools and technology to improve the way you work can be applied to multiple areas of your business and deal with these larger structural difficulties as well as more minor issues.
Read More: A Roofer’s Guide to Remote Work
AccuLynx roofing software was designed to be a comprehensive solution for contractors. Instead of relying on several different tools to manage your business and improve your processes, you can trust the AccuLynx system for everything from monitoring your sales teams to evaluating business performance. AccuLynx streamlines your roofing business by cutting down the time it takes to perform routine tasks and keeping all your information in one place. And our software is easy to use and learn, so your teams can quickly get up to speed on it and incorporate it into their everyday tasks. AccuLynx is a truly agile solution to help your business succeed and tackle every challenge that comes your way.
Focus on Digital
Many contractors started their residential roofing businesses with an old-fashioned, pen and paper management method. They have filing cabinets of old customer documents or a whiteboard with everyone’s schedule on it. Changing their business model to incorporate digital solutions doesn’t seem worth it when they know older methods have worked in the past. Why wouldn’t those same methods work in the future?
However, trends in the roofing industry indicate that the future of roofing is digital. Since the world as a whole is becoming more digitized, customers increasingly expect their contractors to utilize digital tools—and in some cases are much more comfortable with these tools than with paper and pen. Digital technology offers an unmatched level of safety, security and convenience that can protect your roofing business as well as help you provide better customer service. Most of the new innovations in roofing are in the digital space, such as aerial measurement reports, roofing apps, and automated customer communications. And most of all, digital tools provide the flexibility and adaptability your roofing business needs as you grow.
It may seem like a daunting task to digitize your business. But roofing software like AccuLynx makes the process easier by providing everything you need in a single, intuitive system. While there may be an initial learning curve as you get started using digital tools, in the long run your business will be more flexible, better prepared for a variety of situations, and on the cutting edge of the roofing industry.
Plan for Change
If there’s one thing that you can guarantee about the future, it’s that your residential roofing business will change. Current employees will leave, and new employees will take their place. There will be new innovations in roofing technology and new trends in the industry. The customers you serve will have new expectations, and may even change demographically as your location changes. While the residential roofing industry will always be about helping customers improve and repair their homes, if your business is around for any amount of time, you’ll see many other changes.
Resource: How to Run Your Roofing Business Digitally
Truly future-proofing your roofing business requires planning for this kind of change. One way to plan for change is to always keep learning. Roofing businesses with an eye towards the future stay up to date on current trends and technology, educate themselves on the direction of the industry, attend webinars and other events, and listen to customers about their needs and plans. By always keeping an ear to the ground and continuing to learn, roofers can be ready for new developments in the industry and understand where their business is heading.
In addition, future-proofing your roofing business in the face of constant change means relying on business management tools that can adapt to this change. If your business management strategy relies on technology that only one person knows how to use, an organizational system that’s becoming outdated, or the same person being in charge, it’s vulnerable to change and may break down at some point in the future. Finding ways to manage your business that can survive changes to your personnel and to customer expectations is essential.
Roofing software like AccuLynx can help your business face change more effectively. AccuLynx is intuitive to use, so as new people join your team, they can easily learn AccuLynx and incorporate the software into their processes. Since our software is cloud-based, it can be accessed from anywhere and updated seamlessly in real-time, ensuring a secure, consistent record of your work that doesn’t depend on a specific person or organizational system. And AccuLynx is committed to always innovating our software, adding new features to keep up with industry trends and customer demands. We provide a stable, consistent platform for managing your roofing company that can be trusted today and in the years to come.
You may not be able to predict the future. But with the right technology, an understanding of your biggest challenges, and the determination to stay current on the industry, your residential roofing business can be prepared for whatever the future might bring.
