How Custom Businesses Actually Scale

By: Marc Sanderson

 

If I had to describe most woodworking businesses in one sentence, it’s this: custom is core to who we are. We’re fondly called the “junk drawer” of the construction industry. If it’s unique, interesting, aesthetic, or complicated, we’re the ones customers call. Most don’t even ask if we can do it. They assume we’ll figure it out—because we always do.

 

That’s also what creates the tension for any leader who wants to grow: if custom is unavoidable, how do you scale?

Most businesses scale by standardizing the product. Think about GM—or almost any car manufacturer. It’s basically the same vehicle platform with a few choices—color, trim, features. Or Post-it notes. They have the same product in different colors and sizes. Businesses like those can scale because the product is designed to be repeatable.

 

Because our work is custom by nature, we don’t get that choice. We can’t just decide to stop doing custom—or do less of it. It’s the whole reason we exist. So, does that mean scaling isn’t possible? Not at all. It just means we need to scale differently.

 

Where to Standardize: Process Over Project

 

I learned that the hard way. At 28, I bought a small Minnesota woodworking company with big aspirations—but I didn’t understand how custom businesses actually scale. Like many leaders, I assumed great work would drive growth. I was wrong. Then I had an epiphany that changed everything: the project doesn’t matter. The workflow does.

 

We built millwork in all kinds of environments, spanning residential and commercial. Every project was unique in its product attributes, but the steps were the same, whether it was for a medical facility, sports stadium or a high-end home. The product changed every time; the way work moves through company didn’t have to.

 

That’s when it clicked: scaling a custom business isn’t about standardizing the product. It’s about standardizing the process. That insight transformed our company and I’ve seen it transform others—again and again. It became clear: technology is the force multiplier—making consistent workflows possible in an engineer-to-order world. Thus, I built software to run our process, then founded INNERGY to share the technology—and operating system—with others.

 

So, how do you scale a custom business? Here are the key steps:

 

• Build structure around your workflow.
  Most organizations can map their workflow in about 15 steps or less from the moment a job appears. The number isn’t the point. The goal is enough structure to create clarity without bureaucracy. With structure, leaders can manage the business like a system instead of a constant emergency.Don’t chase the “perfect process.” Start small and make it stick. It can be as simple as: drawings start → drawings returned → materials ordered → production started → install/closeout. Clarity creates control, and control creates scale.
• People power results—not process.
  Mapping the workflow is the easy part. Getting people to use it and seek to improve it is the hard part. I’d rather have a simple workflow that people follow than a perfect one that no one does. You can’t start with a complex map on a whiteboard and expect adoption. This is not a light switch, it’s a dimmer. The constraint is buy-in; not the design.

 

Start with a process people can own. The first version will miss things—and that’s the point. Run it and repetition will reveal gaps, uncover patterns, and sharpen the team’s questions—showing what to refine first. In our case, the team flagged tracking when drawings were sent out and returned as critical so we fixed that together first. Clarity comes from execution, and execution turns a simple workflow into a scalable system.

 

• Find the bottlenecks.
  Once the workflow is standardized, real visibility becomes possible—and visibility is where scale begins. In a custom business, you don’t have infinite problems; you have one main problem at a time: the bottleneck.This is where the Theory of Constraints becomes practical as an operating system for the business. There is always one limiting factor that caps how much the system can produce. In other words,  no matter how hard you work everywhere else, your results are constrained by the slowest part. The goal isn’t necessarily to eliminate all bottlenecks forever—it’s to spot them quickly, make them visible, and prevent them from becoming fires.
• Prioritize effort where it pays back.
  The challenge is that the bottleneck in any organization is constantly shifting. One day it’s engineering, the next day it’s procurement, then finishing or install. So, mentally and operationally, leaders need to shift from “optimize everything” to find the key bottleneck and fix it—one at a time.Prioritize based on the bottom-line impact: identify where work piles up and downstream teams are waiting, then focus on the constraint that boosts throughput and protects margin the most. Ask: Which bottleneck maximizes the bottom line? Prioritize throughput dollars—not necessarily the loudest or largest department. This is where leaders shift from managing the variables in their heads to getting ahead of the business.
• Be creative when attacking a bottleneck.
  Most companies jump straight to capacity as the solution—more people, overtime, or outsourcing. Sometimes that’s needed, but it’s rarely the first or most effective move. Often, the best wins come from eliminating waste.It’s one of the biggest mistakes I made early on. We had engineering working on projects before the materials arrived. It looked proactive and productive, but nothing could move downstream. It was the right work at the wrong time. Once we synced engineering to the arrival of materials, throughput jumped without increasing headcount or capacity.I’ve seen the same pattern again and again through our work at INNERGY. One customer realized finishers were spending time moving materials instead of finishing. They redesigned the flow and used a simple signal system to shift handling to others. No overtime or extra headcount, just better bottleneck management.

 

Stability to Forecasting

 

That’s what scaling looks like in the real world. It’s not glamorous. It’s a relentless focus on the constraint, protecting it from waste, and making small changes that compound. Custom businesses do not win by working harder. They win by removing friction, managing time, and maximizing throughput.

Perfection isn’t the goal—progress is. You move from firefighting or triage to stability, from stability to proactive planning, and eventually, to forecasting. You stop managing this month’s fires and start looking three, six and twelve months out.

That’s the better solution: embrace custom—and manage it. Build a disciplined system where custom work can thrive, improving step by step, bottleneck by bottleneck, with visibility and data—not heroics.

 

Marc Sanderson is the CEO of INNERGY and former President/Owner of Wilkie Sanderson. He began in the millwork industry 20 years ago with a small cabinet shop and built it into one of the most profitable operations in the country. A Harvard MBA and 2024 Wood Industry Market Leader, Marc is known for transforming complexity into clarity through data-driven strategy and culture first leadership. Equal parts analytical operator and motivator, he’s just as comfortable refining strategy as he is rallying a room around a shared vision.