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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Not Playing Games

At 31 years old, weary of working for someone else, and hungry for independence, Agi Dyer left her stock broker years behind and used all her savings to buy a garage door business she knew nothing about. The price: a new Toyota truck and some cash, a total investment of $30,000. “It was the best $30,000 I ever spent,” she laughs, now 50 years old, sitting at the sun-filled living room in her home in Canoga Park from where she runs her business Dyer’s Garage Doors. Eighteen year later, her six-employee venture (including herself and her husband), is grossing close to $1 million. What was previously called Valley Garage Doors was only grossing $120,000 when she purchased it in 1992, she said. Some 20,000 clients have used her doors throughout the years and advertising and word of mouth keep new customers calling for services, she said. But in the middle of her workday, her home is mostly quiet and serene. When the phone rings her husband of nine years answers, tending to the business. Large picture windows behind the piano frame the view of the outside garden and the pool as Dyer points upstairs to the gym where she works out every day at 2 p.m. “It’s nice, I have a nice life,” said Dyer, who was born in Austria. “Now what you see is a very calm environment, but it took me a long time to get here, to really learn my lessons. It’s been a long progression.” Chaotic first year The first year was absolutely chaotic, she remembered. At the suggestion of her brother who was in the construction industry, but who didn’t have money of his own to invest, Dyer purchased the business without knowing anything about it and she made many mistakes. For starters she tried to cover too wide a geographic radius that included Orange County and stretched all the way up to Ventura County. “I had guys driving everywhere, and that’s a lot of mileage, that’s a lot of time.” It wasn’t long before she realized that far travel distances prevented her employees from doing multiple installations in one day, and that the distances, especially when answering a warranty call where no pay is involved, would significantly hinder profits. “Now I serve basically the San Fernando Valley, I take the occasional big job somewhere else, but for the most part I stay in the Valley and it’s really paid off,” she said. “If you stay locally you’re always available for your customers so your level of customer service increases dramatically because you always have someone in the vicinity.” It also took her a couple of years to fully wrap her head around the technical aspect of the business. Realizing her deficiency, she set out to earn the respect of her crew by learning at least as much as they did about installing garage doors. “I had to learn more about the actual installations so I took a truck out myself and I started doing service calls and installations several days a week and I did this for years,” she said. “I’m managing 6 foot high 220 pound guys and you really have to know from a practical standpoint what they are talking about when they are on the job and they run into a problem. You have to be able to help them problem solve.” Despite the initial shock that she said some people feel when they see her pull up in her truck to install a door, it’s not so hard to do, she said. “You drive the truck under the door, you pull out the hardware, the door goes ‘thump’ on top of your rack, you roll it out, you shift it around, tie it down, take the hardware off, and throw it in the back of the truck,” she said as through sharing a family recipe. “The door comes in sections; each section only weighs about 45 pounds, which I can handle. Guys can do two sections but I have to unload each section at a time. Then you stack the sections and put the track in. I do very good installs because I am a perfectionist,” she added. Notwithstanding the mistakes that also included hiring her brother, who she later had to fire, the company has endured and become stronger because of all the things she’s done right. Handling finances Accounting classes at Pierce College, some five years into owning her business, opened her eyes to the value and importance of keeping a good handle on money – lessons that helped her through two recessions and that were critical for reducing waste and improving profitability. “This recession slowed us down for sure, but I’ve been through recessions before and what I know now that I didn’t know in the last big recession in the 90’s is how to manage my money better,” she said. “Now I’m managing my relationships with my vendors and all the people I spend money with, and that is keeping us able to handle a lower volume and still run a profitable company. It’s all in the numbers.” When it comes to customer service, Dyer has structured the company around principles that make her feel comfortable and reflect who she is as a person, she said. For one she hates what she calls “the game” where sales representatives pressure customers into buying more expensive doors using deceptive tactics, an MO common in her very competitive industry, she said. “My sales person gets paid $25 an hour whether she makes a sale or not and that’s because I don’t want you to get pressured, I don’t want the game, I can’t stand that crap. We go honestly representing our garage door and how we do business.” The model has paid off, luring long-time clients like Linda Meyer. “Every time that they’ve come here they’ve done a really great job, we’ve been their clients for ten years,” Meyer said. “They’re dependable; they do what they say they’re going to do, when they say they’re going to do it.” Dyers Garage Doors also has the ratings to prove that their strategy works. The Better Business Bureau gives them an A +. “We’re very fair and it’s reflected in our ratings,” she said. Pricing Her business is priced fairly, but is not the cheapest option out there, and she has no plans to make it that way. “The reason you have to price fairly is so you can be in business for your customers later. If I sell you a door and you have a problem with the door, I want to be able to come out and fix that problem for free. If I come out five years later, even after the warranty has expired, and I see a problem related to the original install, I’ll own it.” Looking back at, Dyer is grateful for the career shift that she embarked on in her youth, which took her away from selling intangibles and into selling very tangible garage doors. “I was broker of the year in 1987, but I hated it. I took it because it was an opportunity and I thought I could make a lot of money, but I hated it,” she said. “I actually like garage doors. I like the fact that you walk away and you’ve permanently changed the look in someone’s house, you’ve make this big difference for a little bit of money. And I love the super expensive doors, it’s like art work, pure art.” Dyer’s Garage Doors Year Purchased: 1992 Revenues 2008: $1 million Revenues 2009: (projected) $900,000 Employees: 6

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