How to Scale Without Compromising Your Company’s Core Values

I’ve written for this publication before about how Roof Maxx started as a family business, when my brother Todd and I set out to offer a unique restoration solution for asphalt shingle roofs. But as our business has grown, so has the number of people involved. This presents a completely different set of challenges from working with your relatives.

Our dealer network now extends to all 50 U.S. states. That means we work with hundreds of roofing contractors across the country, each of whom runs their own business and has their own unique goals.

When you run a business with people you know well, a lot of your challenges stem from the fact that you know people too well. But when your company becomes more distributed and relies on a broader spectrum of personalities, it’s the opposite: Suddenly, you need a way to accommodate a wide range of perspectives from people whose life experience is very different from your own. And you have to do that without compromising your brand’s identity in the process.

You can’t keep a business in the family forever, though. Here’s how I learned to adapt our company culture to accommodate the needs of our diverse talent pool without giving up the core of what we are.

Accept that success looks different to everyone

Here’s the single most important piece of advice I have to give on this topic: What success looks like to you isn’t necessarily what it looks like to other people. In fact, the chances that you define success exactly the same way as another person are slim.

But this doesn’t mean you can only work with people who define success the same way — or very close to it — as you do. It just means that when you’re planning to work with someone, you need to know whether their definition of success is compatible with yours. There are many situations where people who define success differently can still enjoy productive working relationships and each achieve their unique goals.

One Roof Maxx dealer might want to build a $10 million company, while another might be fine with growing their business to $500K. It doesn’t really make one better than the other. The first dealer might buy more of our product from us, but I’m more than happy to work with both as long as they’ll take care of their customers and meet their obligations to our partnership. I just need to know whether that’s likely before we sign an agreement with them.

Assess compatible vs. divergent goals

Every symbiotic relationship in nature exists between entities with different but compatible goals. I happen to be an avid scuba diver, and I’ve seen some interesting examples of this in the wild.

For example, clownfish feed on leftover food inside sea anemones because they’re immune to the venom in the anemone’s tentacles. In return, they also protect the anemone from polyp-eating fish. One animal gets food while the other gets protection. Each of their goals is different, but their relationship serves both.

But in a parasitic relationship, one entity’s goals are served at the expense of the other. Marine leeches attach themselves to octopi or sharks and drain their blood for sustenance. It’s good for the leech, but not so good for their host, which becomes weaker and more vulnerable.

The right business relationships are symbiotic, even when you have different goals. The wrong ones become parasitic. If a dealer’s definition of success is to sell our product consistently and responsibly while applying it properly to each customer’s roof, I’m usually happy to work with them. Conversely, if I get a sense that they only want to include the Roof Maxx branding on their website to boost their own profile and aren’t interested in meeting a high standard of service, I’m much less likely to move forward with them.

Remember, the dealer-customer relationship needs to be symbiotic as well. If a customer has no good reason to trust a dealer, how can we trust them to carry our product?

Look for ways to support potential partners instead of looking for reasons not to

Caution can help you avoid unhealthy partnerships, but cynicism is not a good way to grow a business. Before you write someone off, it’s in your best interest to look as hard as you can for ways that the relationship can work. This is true whether you’re growing a dealer network like Roof Maxx, taking on a franchisee, hiring a contractor or taking on a full-time employee.

The more you get to know someone at the start of your relationship, the better you’ll be able to understand why they make the choices they make. Try to meet every potential new addition to the business personally before bringing them on board. Listen more than you talk in interviews. Ask people to tell you what success looks like to them and why.

Maybe one prospective dealer wants to work fewer hours each week because they need time to coach their kid’s soccer team. That isn’t going to make me respect them less or decide I can’t work with them. In fact, it could speak to other values they have, like leadership and integrity, which could make them immensely valuable additions to our network as long as they can still meet the requirements of our agreement. But I won’t know unless I ask the question and really pay attention to the answer.

You don’t need everyone you work with to think the same way you do. You just need to know why they think differently. If you’re genuinely curious about that, it becomes easy to spot the people you can bring on board while maintaining the values that underpin your success.

I’ve written for this publication before about how Roof Maxx started as a family business, when my brother Todd and I set out to offer a unique restoration solution for asphalt shingle roofs. But as our business has grown, so has the number of people involved. This presents a completely different set of challenges from working with your relatives.

Our dealer network now extends to all 50 U.S. states. That means we work with hundreds of roofing contractors across the country, each of whom runs their own business and has their own unique goals.

When you run a business with people you know well, a lot of your challenges stem from the fact that you know people too well. But when your company becomes more distributed and relies on a broader spectrum of personalities, it’s the opposite: Suddenly, you need a way to accommodate a wide range of perspectives from people whose life experience is very different from your own. And you have to do that without compromising your brand’s identity in the process.