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

Ben, appreciate you joining us today. Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

I purchased an already established business. The founder was getting ready to retire after 30 years and didn’t have a family member who would or could take over the business. He wanted to leave it and his loyal customers in good hands, so he reached out to a select few people he knew might potentially be interested in purchasing the business.

I already was working a small franchise in the home service industry. I was frustrated with the franchise model and was looking for a change, so this opportunity came a great time. After some talks about what we were both looking for, we decided to move forward with my taking over the company, the founder planning to work for a couple years until he hit 65 years and fully retired. This would allow time for me to get to know the ins & outs of the industry and for him to be certain he was leaving his business in good hands.

I have been fully operating the business for over 6 years (the business has been serving our area for over 35 years!) and I had plans from the beginning to expand it. For the majority of the business’s tenure, it had been a one-man show with an additional employee only occasionally. I wanted to grow the business to allow it to run several technicians (and not have to perform the physical labor myself, but become more administrative/operational). My goal was to grow the business, but still supply the quality individual service that our customers had come to expect. This is always a tricky endeavor. We did not want to become a corporate entity that cared more about numbers than people. Our motto has become, “Big enough to get the job done, but small enough to treat you like family!”

We focused a lot on marketing to new customers. We did that by utilizing Google Ads, NextDoor, Yelp!, and other online marketing tools. We tried other systems such as Angi and HomeAdviser, with limited lead success. We have found one of our best marketing tools is to see our Google Review base increase. We have over 1,200 5-star Google reviews and we respond to each of those reviews personally to show that we are constantly monitoring feedback to improve our service and care of our customers. We also try to post on Facebook and Instagram regularly with images of jobs we have personally performed, not just stock images.

A second avenue of growth we pursued was gaining some client contracts with home builders. We hoped that by installing garage doors and openers and getting our sticker up in more houses, we would create some life-long customers as well. This has had some mixed results. We have definitely increased the volume of our jobs and revenue, but the housing industry has seen some major setbacks with inflation and increased interest rates. There are also some home builders that are much easier and more rewarding to work with because they offer the same quality of workmanship and service that we strive for, while some home builders seem more concerned about the bottom line and cost-cutting. We have learned we will be more selective about which corporate accounts we take on in the future.

A third area of growth that we are now trying to pursue is through property management and referral business. We have joined some associations for managing rentals and multi-unit communities that we hope will pan out for future jobs, but we are still waiting to see how this develops. This year, we are also focusing on trade partner referrals. such as other construction and home repair businesses that could have overlap with our own. We are reaching out to these businesses to set up breakfast and lunch meetings to meet their teams and hope to develop some mutually beneficial and symbiotic relationships. This will also include us adding some of our most trusted Trade Partners onto our webpage with their logo and link to their website. These are both exciting new possibilities that we will watch over the coming months and year.

Trying to maintain a balance between growth and quality of service is always tricky, and you are bound to make some mistakes, but we are hopeful of some of our efforts.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We are a family-owned organization that has provided residential garage door service, repair, and installation in the Denver Metro Area for over 35 years. We specialize in residential garages. Services include regular tune ups and maintenance, spring replacement and conversions, custom spring installation, garage door repair, garage door opener repair, new garage door installations, new garage door opener installations, and other services related to garage doors.

We are NOT a corporate-owned entity. Our owner and employees live in the Denver Area and care about the communities that we serve. We stand behind all our work and offer warranties and guarantees. This allows us to cultivate a very loyal customer base, who know we will be there to help them now and in the future.

We pride ourselves on having highly trained and competent technicians that are also hard-working, courteous, reliable, and honest. We have up-front, honest pricing. We perform a full inspection of the entire garage door system with each service call appointment. We have a maintenance checklist we provide to the customer to show them what is good with the system and what requires more immediate attention versus what they can be monitoring and planning for. We discuss all recommended work with the customer prior to starting to allow the customer to accept or decline services without any hidden fees. We don’t “nickel and dime” our customers, but provide honest assessments and recommendations. This allows our customers to know exactly what they are getting at the time of service and also allows them to plan and budget for future repairs to keep their system running smoothly. We also pride ourselves on using quality materials and products.

The over 1,200 5-star reviews on Google attest to the quality craftmanship and workmanship that we provide to all our customers. So many of our new customers are referred from a family member, friend, or neighbor and you know you don’t refer a company if you don’t use them yourself! A large number of our new customers also find us on Google. We are often told that they search for “garage door repair” or some similar phrase and then they look specifically for companies that have good reviews. We are often told how they were impressed by not only the number of 5-star reviews, but by our personal comments to our customers. It shows that we care about feedback and are constantly alert to ways we can improve our standard of care.

We offer a Customer Loyalty Plan. One of the main differences of our plan is it is a one-time fee, no need for monthly or annual renewals. It is affordable and transferrable to an address with our service area. That means the plan is attached to the customer and not the property. This plan offers discounts on service calls, repairs, and new installations. It also provides automated reminders every 2 years to schedule a preventative maintenance on your garage door system. This helps our customers stay up-to-date on servicing the garage door system which can reduce emergency and more expensive repairs.

All in all, we really do try to stand by our motto: Big enough to get the job done, small enough to treat you like family.” You know you are doing something right, when you have been able to stay in business for over 30 years and still have customers telling their friends and family about you!

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

We are one of the businesses that stayed very steady during the pandemic. People were home and had time to focus on home maintenance and improvement projects that had been putting off. However, we have seen some slowing down in the last couple years with inflation, increased costs and increased interest rates. People are watching their pennies more these days. Sometimes you don’t have a choice when your garage door spring breaks and your car is stuck in the garage; you have to get a repair done. But other items, especially the more expensive items like a new door or opener, can be put off. We have had to let a technician go, which is always a difficult decision. No employer likes to lay-off a good employee, but a business has to find a way to reduce costs when calls and appointments are down. We have also had some times with our home builder accounts that have resulted in our severing ties occasionally. That can have a very dramatic effect on revenue producing jobs, but again, you have to make those decisions that are best for the business and the morale of your employees. It can’t only be about money, but credit card limits and expenses, payroll and other overhead increases, are stressful and can’t be ignored either. It’s always a balance between quality and keeping your doors open and the lights on.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

This is an avenue we are starting to explore more. The original owner mostly focused on repeat customers and word of mouth. Keep in mind that he started the business in 1989, when advertising resources were limited to only a few sources. We have been trying to focus more on online and social media advertising. Google has of course been a great asset to us, as I discussed previously. The more good reviews you have, the higher prospective customers will rate you when they are searching for a provider.

Now we are trying to build up our social media presence on both Facebook and Instagram, Nextdoor and other neighborhood and online apps. This is not so easily done without spending inordinate amounts on direct advertising on these platforms. Right now, we are focusing more on organic build-up of followers through regular postings and requests for Facebook and Instagram reviews from our customers. But it has been a slow process. We may end up allocating more of our advertising budget to social media this year, but are still researching the best way to go about this process.

We are also trying to sell more Customer Loyalty Plans. This allows us to easily contact these loyalty members with 2-year maintenance appointment reminders and keep our company in their minds more regularly, trying to get them to focus on prevention and not just call us when something breaks.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://advanceddoorworks.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/advanced_door_works/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/advanceddoorworks1
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/advanced-door-works-highlands-ranch-4