Scaleup Q&A: Scott Chapman, Scope Fire & Security

Scott Chapman is managing director at Scope Fire & Security, a fire and security installation, maintenance and repair business based in Burnley.

The company won The BIBAS Service Business of the Year 2023 and has received support through the Two Zero's Scaleup Leaders Network and Your Sales Director programmes.

Here, Scott shares his top tips for scaling businesses.

What is the most important quality of a scaleup business leader and why?

I think it’s vital to always be learning and trying to improve both personally and as a business.

I look at the business like a jigsaw or building blocks. You are always adding to it and trying to develop and progress the puzzle. As the business grows the puzzle gets bigger and more complex but you are always working towards piecing the different elements together to complete the puzzle.

How have you grown and developed as a scaleup leader?

As the business has scaled, I have taken more of a step back from day-to-day activity and let our own skilled staff handle the different aspects between them.

This wasn’t easy or natural to me, but it has worked really well. I am now able to focus on improvements in the business, plug skills and knowledge gaps, and continue to build on the solid foundation of operations we have developed.

How do you inspire and empower your people?

By letting them do their job. They can come to me for reassurance, help or frustrations, but in the main they take ownership of their role.

I constantly talk about our values and how communication and customer service is vital. The team have bought into that and continue to demonstrate it every day.

What is the best piece of business advice you have received and why?

That people’s experiences are specific to them. Although it is vital to try to listen and learn from others, they are not plug and play solutions. You must take the bits that you like and that relate to you but mould them to fit into your own ethos and beliefs to make them effective.

Obviously, it keeps your business developing and improving but also means it continues to relate to its original foundations, culture and mission.

What is the biggest lesson you have learned on your business journey, and how has this impacted you?

Keep it simple, keep it effective. We just try and do the basics really well, and most of that revolves around communication with our customers.

As technology develops and people become busier what tends to suffer the most is customer communication. We make this the number one priority in our business – if we can keep the customers trust and faith and deliver what we promise then we know we have done the job they require.

What scaleup business do you admire the most and why?

There are so many different levels of businesses out there, that there isn’t really one business that I would focus on or strive to be like.

I just try to acknowledge those I come across, follow their progress and take inspiration from them which I can adapt and use to help with our own bespoke journey.

What key metrics do you look at everyday in your business?

Cashflow is extremely important for us as we continue to invest to keep the business developing. We obviously must keep an eye on expenditure and revenue to do this as well.

As the team grows, especially the field-based staff, we must keep an eye on productivity in terms of time revenue generating time against non-productive time such as driving/travelling to and from jobs.