Brown’s Custom Fence
David R. Tussing is the General Manager of Brown's Custom Fence. PerformanceEdge is the majority owner of the business. We sat down with David to discuss the last year of transition.
Tell me about your business?
We're a commercial industrial fence and access control provider in Arizona. Our customers include many local and national general contractors, commercial/industrial sites, state and county government entities including the Arizona Department of Transportation, school districts and parks. Our claim to fame is really in our ability to deliver a high quality physical security system.
How did you handle the key transition points in the last year?
We were acquired in June of 2008 right before the market nose dived in the fall. So, we had two big transitions to work through. The first was the normal alignment with new ownership management styles and priorities. That turned out to be not nearly as challenging as the second. Since we were really a high-end provider (like the Mercedes of our sector), when the market went south, we had to retool quickly. And we did. We developed a strategy to bring our full service offering down market and aligned it to pursue some new opportunities being opened up by the government stimulus packages.
What specific strategies did you use to adapt and how did you prepare the company?
One of the things we recognized was the every job we bid on was different. So, a one size fits all approach wasn't going to work anyway. Once we started to focus on how to optimize each project, the strategy adjustments became clear. We adjusted our price structure to value price the engagement. We adjusted our expense structure and processes to make ourselves more efficient and profitable. And, we also adjusted some 3rd party service relationships and brought more things in-house. The net effect is that we kept our staff, avoided layoffs and even increased our sales staff while dramtically lowering our cost of goods and service. Probably the biggest part of making it work though was retraining the people we had to align to the new model of being more of a quality volume provider.
Are you in a better or worse position today?
Better. When I look at the business today, I see a stronger company. We're aggressive in the market and our competitors are getting squeezed by our ability to provide higher quality at the same or lower price. Our pipelines are full of new types of projects that we never would have even bid on before. We're making money and our staff is energized by the potential for growth. When I talk to most of my peers in the industry or other markets, I realize how lucky we are to be in the position we're in. We're a healthy business who is not thinking about how to survive but how to grow.
Describe the experience with PerformanceEdge?
There were a lot of changes for the better since PerformanceEdge took over management of the business. The business is healthier but the real impact is that the culture of the company is too. We're more of a transparent company with employees. Our team is empowered to run the business and management is more servant-based to ensure that we have what we need. From a decision-making point of view, we're much more strategic. We look at each decision as an opportunity to figure out what the right thing to do is and how to maximize value for our customers and employees. At the end of the day, we have a business with more staying power now.
Anything else?
Yes. The learning emphasis is really important as you go through these transitions. We've been very good about trying to determine what is really going on in our business and making sure we have good motives behind each action we take. PerformanceEdge has really helped us with that.
