Is the day coming when having equipment on the job is “the cost of doing business”? Is the day coming where you can’t charge for equipment?

We had quite a discussion in the Restoration Advisers Official Group on Facebook. If you aren’t in the group we highly encourage you to jump in there for some zero BS discussion. No outside advertising. No belittling. Just real, raw, and professional discussion. Join here.

The insurance company is always evolving in their arguments and creativity to drive their costs down so they can reinvest the premiums. In the book Delay Deny Defend, the author describes insurance companies as investment companies. They invest the premiums and drive down costs by negotiating claims. *

They are claiming that more and more standard practices are part of “the cost of doing business”. Supervisor hours, etc. So why wouldn’t they say that equipment is part of the cost of doing business?*

Those who believe the notion that...

We often hear of insurance companies and third party adjusters claiming that restorers overcharged them for work. The claim is usually that the “restoration industry standard” is “10/10”, or that overhead and profit (O&P) cannot be included in the invoice.

Let’s be clear here, there is no such industry standard. There never has been and there never will be (unless you are on a program, then you have to play by the rules that you agreed to). If you have read the book that we talk about in Disaster Podcaster EP 22 Restoration Markup and Margin, you know that few restorers can run a business and breakeven at 10/10, let alone make a profit. The idea that a restoration company can survive at a low markup defies the mathematics of basic business and common sense.

Our experience in the industry tells us that “industry standard” of 10/10 is a old benchmark that has been propagated by insurance companies and TPAs that are trying to keep their...

The Great Resignation is upon us. We can worry about the future, or we can figure out how to turn the resignation from other companies into opportunities to hire incredible talent.

After talking about the what and the why of the situation we find ourselves in, we will dig into the how. We have a tool to help you maximize your opportunity and streamline your hiring and onboarding process. A good process can help you make better decisions, and hopefully make better decisions on the people you hire!

Lets dig in.

Arguably politics may or may not play a role in this. We digress. 

 We need to figure out why so we can address the problem and become an attractive company and bring in some incredible people. 

Forbes put out an article for leaders to consider.

Here are some takeaways:

• Forty percent of employees cited burnout as a top reason for leaving. 
• Employees were so dissatisfied with their situation that more than one-quarter (28%) of all respondents left their...

I'm not a sales guru. But I have had my own business... a couple of them. I've been a corporate sales manager. If I could summarize all of my experience in to only ONE tactic, I'd hang my hat on this one.

When I was getting started in the small business ownership life, I was HUNGRY (for work). I started from absolutely nothing. I didn't purchase a business. I didn't get a franchise. I literally built from the ground up.
I was excited to get every single phone call. 

As my journey progressed, I got busy. My phone was ringing a lot more frequently. The challenge was that I was in the field doing the work. It was easy to keep focused on the job, and not the future. I started living the roller coaster business. Slow week, busy week. Slow week, busy week. You get the picture. I'm sure you've been there on some level. 

In the restoration industry, we have to respond in the middle of the night. On a weekend. Hell... many of us have answered calls on important family holidays. The...

Staffing is an incredible burden to the restoration industry as a whole. But we can take solace in the fact that it's an epidemic and it is not sparing anyone, especially blue collar industries.

We actually did a podcast on this subject. It is definitely one of the most popular episodes to date. It is titled “I got 99 problems, and staffing is one”. 

We have also created a template for a recruiting and hiring process that you will be able to download for FREE at the end of this post. 

We talk with restoration companies every single day, and we hear the same thing from everyone in every corner of the country:

We can’t find help.

No one even applies.

If they apply, they are no call no show to the interview.
 

Its the same story!

What do we do?

Everyone is tired of hearing culture and money is the solution. 

But the truth is, these are big factors. The companies that we see thriving in this tumultuous time are companies that are paying well, and...

As a corporate employee that started at the bottom so to speak and earned my stripes to get into management, I was able to bounce around and see different types of leadership in action. I was the recipient of different types of leadership. 

As kids we dream of "one thing we would do if we were president". Normally it is no homework for all school aged kids. 

As I experienced various types of leadership, I quickly decided that micromanagement would not be my leadership style. It was the "one thing I would do as a manager."

As defined in the Trainual Blog post "4 Signs of Micromanagement":
Micromanagement is a leadership style where managers excessively supervise their direct reports. So, rather than delegating a task and trusting it will get done, a micromanager will hover over each step as it is performed, insert themselves into the process, or take over completely. If they do delegate, micromanagers want the task done exactly how they would do it...

Sitting up late this weekend and writing out some foundational pieces to a larger program we been building. Wanted to share a few that we just don't feel anyone should have to wait for.

First, let's set the stage for the audience and the reason for the program. It's a blueprint of sorts.

The intended audience is geared for the restoration/ remediation contractor. But the principles certainly lend direction to any business.

This will act as a blueprint for the dozens of requests we get per month from clients and not clients alike.
We feel that having an easy to read and follow system would help the entrepreneurial business owner manage a small to medium firm and not get into the hampster wheel of being forever IN the business.

This is a shorter version

1. Start with a plan.

This may seem "obvious" but I can promise it's far too often overlooked or even generally overlooked.

What is your service? Will you be multi service? You need to understand the myth of multi-tasking and avoid the...

The great Steve Jobs was quoted as saying, “Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.”

Business owners that are hyper-focused on surviving get caught up in managing. There is a sense of security when they are involved in the day to day operations. They feel connected to the business, but they are living the E-Myth (as described by the book written by Michael Gerber). Arguably they have a vision and mission that prompted them to start the business, but they aren’t sure how to accomplish their dreams. Leadership is a struggle for most small to mid sized businesses.

Good leaders know that they are the best when they help others reach their goals. Leaders create more leaders because they are really good at educating, delegating, and course correcting when things don’t go as planned.

Lo Kidd, the Content Manager at Trainual wrote an excellent...

September 28, 2021: carriers and TPA's WILL NOT STOP sending you silly review emails.

Here is the absolute BEST PART.

You don't have to read or even reply to them.

Now, I know many of you like to "fight" and claim there is a satisfaction to "winning". But stealing our time, as industry professionals, to squabble in the mud with these amateurs is not a good use of our time. 

SO STOP.

Tell your client on day one that they are your most important client during the period of remediation and recon (if you do it). But by no means will you engage with some under prepared desk person that is paid to take money from all parties and give to the carrier. You are above that and your customer will appreciate it.

What if we said we had a free template that you can use to craft communication with your client when a carrier or TPA contacts you without the insured included on the communication? (Hint: WE DO. KEEP READING!)

Your job is to properly perform the...

The restoration industry is plagued with a legacy philosophy that somehow insurance is in control of what you can and cannot charge, and how contractors must perform work to get paid. The thought process is that while you as the contractor have a contract with the mutual client (insured) that the insured is left out of the conversation and the contractor is obligated to work out the details with the insurance companies. 

This notion couldn’t be further from the truth. 

It should be noted that there are some cases where contractors have signed up for “program work”. As such, this conversation doesn’t apply. 

Here at Restoration Advisers, we urge contractors to keep program work to an absolute minimum. There are times when it makes sense to take this work to keep crews busy. It is generally low margin work. A good distribution of work from organic work vs program work is 90/10.

Xactware is a software company that collects data from multiple...