Be the Best

Focusing on your core business can lead to new opportunities.

In an industry with so many distinct components, it can be easy to feel obligated to offer as many services as possible. Sometimes that can work well and help a business grow a large and diverse customer base, but often it leads businesses toward becoming real-life incarnates of the old saying, "Jack of all trades and master of none."

Before a company can legitimately offer a full menu of services, it needs to establish a core business and the reputation – and real-life knowledge – for performing their services to a very high standard. Jim Aanderud's "Tech Perspective" column in this issue of Cleaner sheds some light on the importance of being the best at what you do.

Specialization can help a business, especially a young company, establish a firm foothold in the industry and create its own niche. That's exactly how LiquiForce of Kingsville, Ontario, grew into being a leading provider of lining services. While there were many sewer and drain cleaning businesses around at the time, few were focused on trenchless pipe rehabilitation.

When a local municipality expressed a need for sewer flushing services, LiquiForce CEO Kim K. Lewis recognized the opportunity, invested in a sewer cleaning unit and brought on experienced crew members. Video pipeline inspection followed soon after.

By 1990, LiquiForce was providing its cleaning and inspection services to municipalities, industries and utility companies as well as oil and gas producers throughout the region. The natural progression led these clients to ask Lewis and his team about rehabilitating infrastructure with methods other than traditional dig and replace.

Lateral rehabilitation is a large component of LiquiForce's business, and Lewis noticed growth in the scope of work surrounding this particular aspect of wastewater collection systems. As municipalities began taking on responsibility or offering property owners assistance with lateral repairs, Lewis started thinking about a totally trenchless method for lateral lining – no cleanout, no disruption of a property, everything handled completely from the mainline.

In 2009, Lewis approached the Ontario Provincial government for financial support to build and test a system prototype. He gained the government's support, and after a year of research and development, he had a working prototype. From the mainline, LiquiForce has been able to reline 4- to 6-inch laterals up to 150 feet in length. The system is capable of handling the multiple bends and transitions that are common to most laterals.

Now, not only has LiquiForce become established as a premier provider of trenchless lining services, it has a commercially viable – and totally trenchless – solution for lining laterals from the mainline. Without a clear focus on trenchless technology, the development of this system and the evolution of the business would have never been possible.

Next month's issue will feature another company specializing in pipelining. The folks at Lanzo Lining Services of Deerfield Beach, Fla., know their trade well. They have become one of the largest independent CIPP lining
companies in the United States, and have developed a reputation for accomplishing the impossible.

The company's success has helped it expand operations in Florida, Michigan, Georgia, Ohio and throughout the East Coast. Along the way, Lanzo set a record for the largest non-circular CIPP in the world, and won the Dow Chemical Fabricator Award of Excellence for advancing the field of composite resin technology.

Both of these companies are excellent examples of the success specialization can bring. If you specialize in a given service and establish a reputation as the go-to person for that service, opportunities for expansion will develop.

Even if your focus includes a wider range of services, the lesson to be learned from these companies is that knowing every aspect of the services you provide, inside and out, will lead to success. And that's what we're all after.

Enjoy this month's issue.



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