We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Glen Bhimani. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Glen below.
Glen , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?
our business did not have employees from day one. I was the only employee from day one, I was responsible for getting clients and staffing the locations by myself until I was able to afford employees. my approach was to pay the maximum amount to my new employees up to the breakeven amount my clients were paying me, to allow me to be the highest paid security company in San Antonio. We had an unconventional hiring practice. for example, if we are hiring for a morning shift, we till the applicant to meet us at 5am for the job interview. you will be surprised how many people say that is too early. in our experience if 5am is to early when their shift starts at 6am more than likely they will be late to work, and we move on to the next applicant. We also had applicants bring all their duty gear for inspection if the gear was poorly maintained or was the wrong equipment and they tried to justify using the wrong equipment they would not be hired. with the high rate of pay and our unconventional hiring practices we have managed to have a 6% turnover rate compared to 220% for the industry average.
Glen , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I got into the industry when I finished my tour with the US Army and I was looking for a job while I went to the university. I choose security because it offered a flexible schedule. We solve several issues first being a consistent service where their property does not go unmanned. We kept the same security officers on their property allowing both our security officers and client to get to know each other and learn the issues on their property. Sad to see what also sets us apart is that we answer our phones or return phone calls in a few minutes. the most important things we would like for people or clients know about us is that we are not perfect and there will be some minor issues with our services from time to time, however we always keep our promise to make things right and take care of it right away.
We don’t tolerate bad behavior from employes. We are quick to fire bad employees and do not recycle bad employees like other security companies. by recycle I mean move the bad security officer to another client where they will cause further problems and eventually will be moved to another client. our philosophy at BPS Security is if the employee is bad for one client, they will be bad for all our clients. by following approach all our security officers have high morale that we reward good behavior and allows them to be at peace.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
The initial funding for the business was $5217.00 which I had saved. I used that amount to pay for the general lability insurance for the first year, which was $2900.00 and $517.00 for the States Security Licease. then I used the remaining amount to buy security uniforms and patches and a self-made website that cost $120 for the first year. When I got my first large client, I worked the jobsite by myself at 120 hours a week for two months. At the end of the two months, I had accumulated $24,960 from the client which upon the first payment I used that amount to hire my first 4 full time employees to take over the jobsite and continue the work. I rinsed and repeated this process with the next several clients until I was able to afford support staff. Working 120 hours a week was brutal and tiring that allowed me to have a little less than 6 hours per day of sleep. I usually slept outside my client’s property on the parking lot and took a shower at their onsite facilities to allow me 5 hours or sleep a day.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Our integrity helped built our reputation because we would refuse to take on clients if it was against their best interest or wanted for us to do something questionable. We turn more clients away that we accept to do business with us.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bpssecuritysa.com