From 0 to 30 Million In 5 Years: The Counter-Intuitive, Old School Strategy Used By AVCO To Rapidly Scale Their Roofing Business.

Most of us got into business for one simple reason.

To achieve financial freedom and create an amazing lifestyle for both ourselves and our families.

And the thing that fuels this dream is the thriving revenue of your contracting business.

Which is why I wanted to invite the legendary Heath Hicks to speak for the first episode of “The Growth Minded Contractor” podcast.

And that is because Heath doesn’t just talk the talk, but he has managed to rapidly scale his own roofing business at a blistering pace…

Using some forgotten, old-school strategies that virtually no one is talking about today.

The Strange “Rapid Growth” Strategy That Took AVCO Roofing From 0 to 5 Million In Just 12 Months

When you want to quickly increase your revenue… 

It would seem logical that your primary focus should probably be something like… 

Increasing your margins on each project, picking the right suppliers, or finding the highest earning jobs, right?

Well Heath didn’t make any of these things his main focus.

Of course, he still kept them somewhat in mind…

But Heath’s primary, number one concern had nothing to do with any of this.

In fact, you’ll probably never see this mentioned on any quarterly business report. 

And that’s because it can’t really be measured.

So, what was this strange key to Heath’s fast success?

Creating an amazing experience for AVCO’s customers.

Once they had this dialed in, word quickly spread and AVCO had absolutely no problem getting new clients, securing repeat business or landing referral business. 

And although it might seem counterintuitive not to focus on margins and revenue when you want to make the most money possible… 

It actually makes complete sense.

Just think about it:

If you try to nickel and dime each project… 

Sure you’ll make slightly more money per job.

But you’ll do this at the expense of wowing your customer.

Which means they probably won’t become raving fans of your business…

Who enthusiastically recommend you to their friends, family, or anyone who will listen.

So, by doing this you’ve not only missed out on all of those referral projects, but you’ll probably end up losing their repeat business too.

So, when you take the extra 5-20% you could have squeezed out of that one job…

And then compare that with the revenue that could be made from multiple new incoming projects… 

It’s not hard to see where the big money really lies and how AVCO managed to use this strategy to grow so quickly. 

That being said, you can’t use this strategy forever as it will only get you so far. 

Which is why you need to know about:

The Crucial Shift In Focus Needed To Scale Beyond 5 Million Per Year

In the first year with AVCO, Heath was completely focused on creating an amazing customer experience.

But past a certain point – doing this can actually harm your business and put a glass ceiling on your revenue.

Heath found that once they had gone through this initial growth spurt, AVCO was now at a size where if he was knocking on doors and stepping into customers backyards – he wasn’t helping his company move forward.

So Heath instead shifted his focus to creating an amazing experience for his employees. 

He did this by making AVCO a really fun and enjoyable place to work.

So much so, that suppliers, vendors, and even out-of-town contractors would come by the headquarters just to hang out and have a good time (even outside of work). 

But Heath didn’t stop there…

He also made sure that his employees felt like they were sharing in the progress of the company, and seeing personal growth in themselves and their careers by working for AVCO.

The possibility of where they could get to with a few years of working with AVCO made his employees excited to show up for work each day and give their best.

But the good news didn’t stop there and this also created some incredible but completely unexpected benefits for AVCO. 

The first was that their employees started taking the same care and attention they were being shown at work and bringing it into their interactions with customers.

So, even though Heath was no longer making the customer experience his main focus… 

Thanks to this new strategy he could make sure the business was running smoothly, growing and moving forward…

Without sacrificing the excellent customer experience that drove repeat business and referrals for AVCO.

But this wasn’t even the best part.

Because Heath’s team now started bringing tons of new customers into the business. 

And the influx of new projects and clients far exceeded the numbers Heath could have brought in by himself or with an expensive marketing campaign. 

So, how was this possible?

Well it’s simple.

When you have an army of dedicated sales people, whose infectious enthusiasm rubs off on everyone around them…

You make it incredibly easy for prospects to become intrigued and excited about working with your business, leading to record sales numbers.

In fact, things really started to get out of control for AVCO, and over the next few years they grew their revenue to 10 million…

Then 20 million…

And finally 30 million dollars in sales in their fifth year.

This growth was so rapid that they had to actually start turning away customers so they could manage the sheer volume of new projects.

But this insane rate of growth never would have been sustainable, unless Heath had been growing a team of high quality talent alongside it.

Heath’s Secret Strategy for Hiring RockStar Employees  

Finding the right people to bring into your business can be incredibly difficult.

And Heath had tried using headhunters and several recruitment services like Indeed, Zip Recruiter, and Facebook without seeing much success.

In the end, Heath stumbled upon an unlikely strategy for finding amazing employees, completely by accident…

With almost all of his best hires coming from one unlikely source:

His customers.

Because of Heath’s dedication to providing amazing service for their customers…

AVCO developed many strong relationships within the local community.

And because AVCO had a reputation for being a great place to work…

Anytime they would advertise for a new position within the company, here’s what would happen.

One of their customers would see the ad, tap into their own personal network and recommend the best person they could find for the job. 

So in this way, AVCO was getting hand picked talent from the local community, who were already excited to work there.

And as the team was growing…

So was the business’s ability to generate sales and take on new projects.

In addition to this, because the team was only adding talented and motivated employees…

Each new project they took on was completed to a very high standard…

Creating even more satisfied customers who would be delighted to offer referrals, repeat business, and hiring recommendations for AVCO in the future.

And with an explosive, self-perpetuating growth cycle like this… 

It’s not difficult to see how AVCO managed to grow from 0 to 30 million in just 5 short years. 

One Final Golden Nugget

Before our conversation wrapped up, Heath had one final and brilliant piece of advice for owners and managers:

Although we get into business to create financial freedom for ourselves…

There are exactly zero employees who are going to be excited to work hard to make you rich.

So, the purpose of your business has to be bigger than just your needs. 

For Heath, this purpose is seeing how AVCO’s success allows the 12 families who work there to truly thrive.

He feels a great sense of pride knowing that their growth is allowing these families to buy their first home, or even move into a bigger one.

As Heath brilliantly put it:

“You have to give other people what YOU want”. 

And when you get this right, it makes everyone excited to drive the business forward.

But Heath doesn’t think you should stop just there.

Ideally, you should go one step further and make the purpose of your business even bigger than the needs of your employees.

Because if part of your company’s mission is giving back to charity, or moving the industry forward…

You can make employees feel proud to be a part of your company and that’s a business they will be willing to go to battle for each and every day. 

And for Heath this isn’t just lip-service.

He puts this philosophy into action by getting AVCO behind charitable events like local food drives…

And by constantly testing new approaches to sales, lead generation and business, which when successful, go onto become “done for you” systems that help other contractors quickly reach that next level of success.

This is most notable with Roof Warrior, which was created in partnership with Sales Transformation Group. 

With this project, Heath shares AVCO’s  unique, proven-to-work processes and strategies for door-to door contractors…

Allowing them to generate consistent and predictable flows of leads and sales for their businesses.

So what’s the end result of all this? 

Because Heath’s team knows that if AVCO sees success and increases their revenue, that directly helps their own personal and professional growth…

And that this success also feeds back into local charitable efforts and innovations that help move the industry forward…

They become incredibly motivated to contribute their best efforts and ideas towards helping AVCO succeed.

And it is this very dedicated team effort that truly drives the insanely fast growth of AVCO.