If you’re looking down the road, pondering your exit strategy from your snow and ice management company, the future isn’t as far off as it may seem if you hope to transition successfully—and especially if you hope to sell your company.
Mike Rorie, CEO of GIS Dynamics and former owner of Cincinnati-based GroundMasters, spoke to attendees during the recent Snow Strategies Forum and shared how he built his landscape company from a pickup truck in 1979 to a multi-million-dollar operation that he sold to The Brickman Group in 2006.
The key, Rorie says, is to run your business every day so that you could sell it in 90 days.
“Whether you want to sell it is irrelevant. Getting ready to do it and running your business like you’re going to sell it is essential,” he says.
That approach requires implementing good business systems and processes and insisting the owner and key stakeholders take an honest look at every aspect of the business to ensure everything is in order.
While GroundMasters had experienced steady growth, it wasn’t until the 1990s that Rorie realized that the business needed to be structured and standardized.
“The company didn’t have a business operating system, but I knew we needed to standardize estimating, pricing, proposal formats,” he says. “I visited the best operations in the country to get ideas, and created an infinitely scalable structure. It was a natural evolution.”
For Rorie and GroundMasters, that standardization process included:
- Establishing as many replicable processes as possible to streamline costs.
- Staying focused on what the company stood for and what set it apart. “So many people want to keep adding onto their business. But the more you add, the more difficult it is to run. Go get more of what you’re supposed to do and not stuff that doesn’t fit your model. Know what you make money at and stay there.”
- Making sure the company’s systems and processes were airtight. ”If you can circumvent your system, it’s not a good system.”
Those moves made a difference, as GroundMasters went from about $5 million in sales to $29 million in 1998, when large companies began courting Rorie to sell. At that point, he was adding about one branch a year to the operations.
“We weren’t planning to sell but were ready to sell because of how we ran it. I was having fun because of the success and reward we were seeing after a 20-year investment in the business.”
Rorie initially resisted the overtures; but in the end, he made the move for his family.
“I miss it and I sure didn’t need to sell it. I had great people and a great brand,” Rorie says. “It was not a financial decision. My success gave me the opportunity to be home with my wife and my family.”
Rorie cautions that while money didn’t drive his decision to sell, it is a key factor in the decision-making process. He suggests that you need to have enough money to maintain your current lifestyle two to three times over before selling. If you can’t, you need to slow down and take a step back.
Rorie didn’t stray far from the industry after selling. GIS Dynamics brings technology and efficiency to the bidding process. The company’s Go iSnow online measuring system was released in June 2010. A proposal builder was recently added to the lineup. Letting go of GroundMasters was difficult, but opened the doors to new opportunities: “Selling forced me to be more than what I had to be if I had stayed,” Rorie explains.
Read how Rorie transformed himself from a worker in the business to a leader working on the business in Business evolution.
Check out the video below of Mike speaking with Brian Birch about how he built his business at the recent Snow & Ice Symposium!
