One of the challenges in making predictions is being blindsided by items you could never have seen coming. Before last year, imagine someone telling you the country would be shut down for months, you could not go to a restaurant or church service for months, college basketball would stop the week before March Madness, and most schools would be closed for months (or in some cases, a year).

While small businesses are unable to make mistakes or survive failures on the same scale as Apple, it should not be expected that employee performance will always remain flawless.

Over the past 12 years, I managed a restoration company in Mesa, Ariz., before moving on to be the CEO of a Xcelerate Restoration Software, a job management system my partners and I founded. In my role leading a large, full-service restoration company, we serviced a significant volume of commercial and residential jobs. 

As I’m writing this, we are nine weeks into 2021, and I have posted a news item regarding an industry acquisition or merger almost every single week. Some of the deals are with industry suppliers and vendors, but largely it’s restoration companies. In most cases, one company purchases another, but in others, a private equity firm has come in and made an investment.

Mentoring owners of small businesses in the indoor air quality industry (IAQ) is what the National Organization of Remediators and Mold Inspectors (NORMI) has been doing for more than 16 years. It is true, the organization is a training and certifying trade association, but it's not just about getting certified—it's about building a successful business. 

Fire chasing in the restoration industry is a very hot topic, pun not totally intended. Chasing fires presents ethical issues, among other things. In this week’s video, Annissa has tips for how to get literally buried in fire damage restoration work without going on a single chase.

To stand out online disaster restoration companies must take advantage of all that Google My Business has to offer.