We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Anthony Yares a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Anthony, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Many times we come into someone’s life right as they are experiencing a very traumatic event. Since we focus on insurance restoration of all kinds, we meet our customers at their home after just experiencing sever damage, and loss of so much. Not just damage to the construction components of the home, which is still very sad, but they sometimes loose memories, sentimental items, or even pets / family members. The last thing on their minds is fixing the home in that case. We truly aim to serve, and to help people. It takes a delicate approach to repair or rebuild someone’s home, and work through design choices, fixture selections, timelines, claim documentation, permit & inspections, etc all while this person or family is grieving. I am extremely proud of team – each person at YRS is genuinely compassionate, and cares about the people we are working for. We obviously need to make a profit to stay in business, but we have always found a way to put the people in front of the profit. If we take good care of them, do quality work on their property in a timely manner, write fair estimates, and work closely with the insurance company, we can truly take a terrible experience and lessen that burden to a certain extent so they can focus on what is important to them. This is what keeps us going.

Anthony, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I touched on this already quite a bit in the last question. But I think what sets us apart is our Integrity, and our mission to serve. We empathize with our customers and do everything we can to help them get back on their feet. We have gained a reputation in the industry almost as a fixer, problem solver, go to helper. When claims get complicated, when customers get poor service from another GC, when the property policy hits a limit, etc – we get called often to come in, come up with a plan, and execute – to get the home fixed in the best possible and most efficient manner. There are multiple occasions we have saved people from homelessness, from large out of pocket expenses, or from total loss. I don’t want to sound braggadocios, but I am very proud of what we have been able to accomplish in terms of truly helping people.

I stumbled into this industry honestly. I worked different trades in construction my whole life, and after seeing how some companies were operating, I wanted to see if I could do it in a different way. We really try hard to be honest and do great work. Even the company itself, we do everything we can to make it a great place for our employees to work. To me being a leader is about so much more than scaling, growth and profit. Its leading with values, walking the talk, and caring for people in all aspects of the business.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Similar backstory to the previous questions. To me its very simple. Know your stuff, be on time, be kind, charge fairly for your service, deliver what you promise, help people, stand behind your work. We have made it our standard to hold that line, and we continue to grow with word of mouth and referrals as our main source of business. It can be surprising how many times I hear from customers they couldn’t get that with other outfits. I won’t say it easy by any means, but its important to us. To me.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I have had to self educate and learn so much myself. There were many years we operated in the red, unknowingly for some of it. I had a serious moment a few years in where I had to decide to fold everything and be saddled with debt, or double down and bet on myself. I chose the latter. I had to bootstrap and figure things out. I had (and still have) many late nights, sleepless nights, stressful calls / meetings etc. I spent years slowly digging my way out of that trough. Working way harder than what I was bringing home. Still am in many ways.
I had no formal education, no mentor for a long time, just myself and books, and some random internal drive that I couldn’t quiet. There were some really hard years getting through that. And just when I thought I was getting my feet under me, COVID hit – and we all had so much uncertainty. I had my newborn daughter at that time also. My wife is convinced that’s when my hair went gray – at 31 years old.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yaresservices.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yaresservices/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-yares/

Image Credits

YRS