We started in January with 6 franchises doing $5M/year in revenue
Then, we went on a buying spree:
- 7 unit acquisition
- 6 unit acquisition
- 1 unit acquisition
- 1 new store
We ended the year with 21 stores doing $22M/year (run-rate)
The biggest lesson learned?
Our back office was the biggest bottleneck.
Many of our systems that worked at 6 stores completely broke at 21.
Until then, all of our stores were in the Philadelphia area. It was roughly a 15-minute drive from one to the next.
This expansion brought us into a new market, Northern New Jersey, ~100 miles away.
We got multiple shut-off notices because utility bills weren’t making their way to the office
Thousands in penalties & fines from local townships because we didn’t file business licenses.
A notice from the Sheriff said they were going to auction off our shop equipment to settle a $2,000 claim against us!
Rushing to submit payroll at the last hour.
We played whack-a-mole to solve these problems.
Today, our back office is a well-running machine:
- Shops scan mail and flag important docs
- Spreadsheets to auto-calculate payroll
- ACH as many vendors as possible
- Checks & balances systems
- License tracking system
90% of our team is in the Philippines, providing huge cost savings compared to US staff.
Our current system could handle up to $100M/year before breaking again.
Many business owners are afraid to grow saying: “I’m not ready yet.”
The truth is no one is ever 100% ready.
It’s not about having the perfect system — it’s about trusting that you’ll figure it out.
If I can do it, so can you.
Cheers!
Brian
P.S. What is the biggest thing holding you back from growing your business?
Reply here. I read every email.
