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A RocketLevel guide, backed by decades of experience in the trade. This Hub is large on purpose, but you should not read it front to back. What you tackle depends on where your commercial program actually is today. This roadmap sorts the work into a starting step plus the four levels of commercial health, tells you what to do with commercial at each level, names what to have in place before you advance, and shows how your training should mature alongside the business.
Three different measures run through this Hub, so keep them apart. Your level is scored on The Four Levels of Commercial Health and reads how much of your revenue you control. Your company size is your Growth Band, from Band 1: Launch to $1M through Band 5: $20M and up. The work itself is The 3 Stages of Commercial Growth. A big shop can still sit on Level 1 if one program sends most of its work.
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First step for everyone: take The Commercial Health Scorecard: Where Does Your Business Stand? before anything else. It tells you which level you are on and points you to the few assets that matter for you right now.
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Where you are: almost all residential, little or no commercial, and no one assigned to it. You are deciding whether commercial is worth the effort. The scorecard will still read this as Level 1. This step is the decision you make before you start working it.
What to do with commercial now: measure your concentration risk in real dollars, learn how commercial actually differs from residential (longer cycles, real decision makers, Master Service Agreements (MSAs), time-and-material (T&M) billing, business interruption), and get your basic credentials current. Do not chase a commercial job yet. Get honest about whether your operation could deliver one. And if commercial still feels like an all-or-nothing leap, start with You Don't Have to Go All-In: Most Commercial Isn't a Giant Large Loss; most commercial is ordinary-sized and built up a job at a time, not a giant large loss you bet the company on.
Have in place first: at least one person who can attend a site visit, and basic credentials (Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) water, a current certificate of insurance, or COI).
What to learn next: foundational technical certifications (the IICRC Water Damage Restoration Technician, or WRT, and Applied Structural Drying, or ASD) and a clear read on the commercial decision maker. Training, Standards, and Industry Knowledge shows where to send people.
Where you are: little or no recurring commercial work and no one dedicated to it.
What to do with commercial now: build a focused target list, lead with a pre-loss walkthrough as your wedge, run a real outreach cadence of four to eight touches to earn each first meeting, and aim every meeting at earning the next step (an approval, a Priority Service Agreement), not closing a single job. If you are still in Band 1: Launch to $1M and the owner is also the estimator and the project manager (PM), start smaller: one real relationship with a property manager you already know, and the full cadence once intake and cash can carry it.
Have in place first: one person who can run a site visit, and your basic credentials.
Work through: The Commercial Growth Playbook, The Pre-Loss Plan: Your Easiest Door Into Commercial, The Site Walk Playbook, the Property Manager Outreach and The Facility Director Outreach Playbook outreach playbooks, and the Template: First-Priority Emergency Response Service Agreement (Starter and Checklist).
What to learn next: commercial sales fundamentals. Many restoration owners were never taught to sell commercial work; close that gap on purpose. Read The Sales Training Gap in Restoration and The SaaS Sales Playbook for Restoration, and roleplay your site-walk questions until they are natural.
Where you are: a few commercial accounts, won one at a time and mostly off the owner's relationships, with no repeatable system behind them yet.