Podcast: How Scott Whitaker Became Restoration One’s Largest Franchisee With 5 Locations and 165 Employees
Scott Whitaker started cleaning carpets in Las Vegas casinos in high school. He worked in the auto industry. He became a firefighter. He opened a carpet cleaning company in Spokane to keep his wife at home with their kids. And somewhere in the middle of all that, he kept giving away work without understanding what it was worth.
Every time a water extraction call came in, he extracted the water and handed the job back. The mitigation work, the drying, the documentation, the reconstruction: all of that was going somewhere else. He did not fully understand what he was leaving on the table until he started looking into the restoration side of the business.
In September 2017, Scott opened Restoration One of Spokane. Within twelve months, the new operation generated $1.07 million in revenue. By 2026, he has five locations, 165 employees, and is the largest franchisee in Restoration One’s network. On a recent episode of Everyday Excellence, Todd Baldwin sat down with Scott for a conversation covering the restoration industry’s insurance payment problem, what it actually takes to scale a service franchise, and the private equity partnership that changed how Scott thinks about capital and growth.
Five Locations, 165 People, and One Industry Most People Misunderstand
Restoration One is America’s largest independent restoration company. Scott’s five locations span four markets in Washington state, Spokane (which also covers the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho market), Wenatchee, Yakima, and the Tri-Cities, plus the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Each market is distinct in its operational setup, and not all of them perform the same range of restoration services.
This is one of the things Scott says most people get wrong about restoration: it is not a single service delivered start to finish by one company. There is mitigation (water extraction, fire cleanup, mold remediation), contents work (removing and cleaning personal property), and reconstruction (rebuilding what was damaged). Some companies do all three in-house. Some specialize in one or two. Some subcontract portions of the work. Scott’s own locations operate differently from each other depending on market and capacity.
The common denominator across all of it: documentation. Everything at Lemus Construction is documented in writing, communicated in emails, and tied to the IICRC standard, the only recognized professional standard in the restoration industry. That documentation discipline is not optional in a business where the difference between a paid claim and a denied one often comes down to what is in the paper trail.
Year One’s Biggest Surprise: Getting Paid Is Harder Than Getting the Work
When Todd Baldwin asked Scott what surprised him most in year one, the answer came quickly.
“Probably how hard it is to get paid.”
In restoration, the majority of revenue runs through insurance claims. A homeowner has a pipe burst, calls for help, and the restoration company does the work while the insurance claim is processed in parallel. The problem: there are 40 to 60 different insurance carriers, each with different field adjuster models, desk adjusters, and documentation requirements. Navigating the system requires knowing each carrier’s specific process.
Even with full IICRC-standard documentation, photographs, dry logs, and a complete paper trail, insurance carriers regularly push back. They use language like “not reasonable,” “not standard,”” or “not customary,” to dispute line items, particularly when the restoration company is not a program vendor. Program vendors are contractors under contract with specific insurance carriers, obligated to accept rate caps in exchange for preferred referral status. Scott made a deliberate choice not to become one.
The conflict that creates: the insurance carrier points to program vendor pricing as the market rate, then tells the client the restoration company is charging too much. The adjuster, paid by the insurance company, tells the homeowner that the contractor’s scope is wrong. And the homeowner, who reasonably believes the insurance company has their best interests in mind, is caught in the middle of a dispute they do not have the expertise to evaluate.
Scott’s response to this is documentation and email. Every communication, every scope of work, every dispute, goes in writing. Not to create a paper trail for litigation, though that is useful too. But because the record keeps the conversation honest and protects the homeowner and the contractor both.
What’s Working Now: Replacing Yourself, Boots on the Ground, and the PE Partnership
The scaling insight Scott returns to most consistently is the one he learned from his very first hire. He did not know the mitigation side of restoration when he opened. He knew carpet cleaning and water extraction extremely well. The rest, he asked his first technician to teach him.
That technician, now an estimator, has been with Scott for the entire run. And the lesson that first conversation produced has been the operating principle for every subsequent hire: “You have to replace yourself with somebody you think is going to do a better job than you.” From technicians to sales to management, the goal is not to find someone who can execute what the owner already knows. It is to find someone who can do what the owner cannot.
Capital is the second piece of the scaling equation and the one Scott believes most early-stage businesses get wrong. Most new restoration operators shoestring their capital, afraid to lose money in the early months. But the first year in restoration is a spending year: trucks, equipment, staffing, licensing, and the revenue lag of working through insurance claims. Without enough capital to ride out that first year properly, businesses fail before they ever see the returns.
On lead generation, Scott keeps his strategy close. Only 10 to 12 people across the entire organization understand the full lead generation model. What he will say publicly: most of the leads come from boots-on-the-ground activity, not digital. He tried pay-per-click aggressively, spending $40,000 per month at one point, and shut it down when the cost per water lead reached $700 to $800 for leads that frequently did not convert. The company has maintained its organic search presence throughout.
In 2023, Scott sold 85 percent of his operation to Traction Capital Partners, a private equity group, while staying on as CEO and retaining 15 percent ownership. The partnership unlocked something he describes as transformative: post-sale, he has green-fielded two new locations and acquired the Dallas operation without injecting any personal capital. The equity partnership is funding the growth he previously had to self-finance.
The Lesson: Replace Yourself Before You Need To, and Understand What You Are Getting Into
The franchise selection process Scott went through before opening is worth noting for anyone considering a similar path. He looked at four different models over approximately a year before choosing Restoration One. The deciding factor was not brand recognition or support infrastructure. It was operational freedom: Restoration One does not require its franchisees to operate as program vendors for insurance carriers.
That single decision, made before he opened, determined his entire insurance billing strategy. “I wanted to run my own business. I wanted my business to be my way.” Franchisees who chose models requiring program vendor relationships operate under contract-mandated rate caps that directly affect what they can charge. Scott chose freedom over the referral pipeline that program vendor status provides, and built his own pipeline instead.
The advice he gives any prospective franchisee is simple: do a lot of homework. Talk to franchisees already operating in the system. Understand your own goals before evaluating any model. The question is not which franchise is the best franchise. It is which franchise is the best match for what you are trying to build.
For homeowners who interact with restoration companies after a claim event, the insurance insight Scott shares matters directly. Your insurance adjuster is paid by the insurance company that employs or contracts them. Their financial interest is in managing the claim cost. The restoration contractor who is fighting to have the full scope of work approved is doing so on the homeowner’s behalf, even when the insurance company frames it otherwise.
At Everyday Media Group, Todd Baldwin and the team work with restoration and home service companies to build the organic SEO and local digital presence that reduces dependence on expensive paid channels. Scott’s experience spending $40,000 per month on PPC before abandoning it is a common story among service businesses in high-intent emergency categories. The organic foundation, which Scott says Restoration One has maintained throughout, is the lead source that compounds without the per-click cost.
Key Takeaways
- Replace yourself with someone better before you think you need to. Scott did not wait until the business outgrew him to start delegating. He hired his first technician and immediately asked the new hire to teach him the parts of the work he did not know. Eight-plus years later, that person is still with the company. The businesses that scale fastest are the ones where the owner is actively looking to make themselves redundant in every operational role, starting on day one.
- Capital is not optional. The first year in restoration is a spending year. Revenue comes in behind the work, often significantly behind in insurance claim cycles. Businesses that shoestring their initial capital run out before the revenue can catch up. This is the primary reason early-stage restoration businesses fail. The right amount of capital is not the comfortable amount. It is the amount needed to sustain the operation through a full year of building.
- Your insurance adjuster is not working for you. The adjuster is paid by the insurance company. Their incentive is claim cost management, not full claim restoration. When an adjuster tells a homeowner that the restoration contractor is overcharging or the scope is incorrect, that is not an objective assessment. It is a negotiating position. A restoration company working to the IICRC standard, with full documentation, is advocating for the homeowner. Not against them.
About Scott Whitaker
Scott Whitaker is the owner and CEO of Restoration One’s largest franchise operation, with five locations across Washington state (Spokane, Wenatchee, Yakima, Tri-Cities, and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho) and the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. He opened his first Restoration One location in Spokane in September 2017 after careers in carpet cleaning, the automotive industry, and firefighting. In 2023, he sold 85 percent of the business to Traction Capital Partners while retaining 15 percent and staying on as CEO. The post-sale period has produced two additional green-fielded locations and one acquisition, all without personal capital injection. Restoration One is America’s largest independent restoration company.
Find Restoration One of Spokane at https://restoration1.com/.
Is Your Restoration Company Getting the Organic Leads It Deserves?
Scott Whitaker spent $40,000 per month on PPC before shutting it down when the cost per water lead hit $700 to $800. The organic SEO presence his company maintained through all of that has been more durable. Everyday Media Group works with restoration and home service businesses to build the organic search foundation that generates high-intent leads without paying per click. Schedule a conversation with Todd Baldwin and the team.
