Why Clients Still Rely on Reliable Fire & Security 60 Years On
Reliable Fire & Security’s Debra Horvath, Vicki Caniecki and Tina Studzinski discuss the company’s operations and the challenges and opportunities inherent within today’s fire/life-safety industry.
Debra Horvath has led Reliable Fire since 1998. As company president she has guided the firm to $11.5 million in revenues in 2014, and has her sights set on 20% growth this year.
Horvath: We have a large number of employees who are second-generation family members working for Reliable. One of the fun things is our summertime internship program where we bring in our employees’ kids, nieces, nephews. There’s always something to be done that gives them the experience of what the working world is like.
Debbie, what are the unique challenges or aspects in Reliable being a woman-run business in a male-dominated industry? Any advice you can offer women looking to succeed in this industry?
Horvath: Being a woman in this industry has had no negative repercussions. It’s been a very positive experience for me. Because of it being so male dominant, I learned very early to surround myself with very good people. By opening my mind and my thoughts to what experiences and knowledge they have, they in turn respect me for the position I’m in. I have never felt discriminated against. Male dominancy has never affected me, Reliable or my ability to grow the business.
I am excited to see more women entering the industry. It was a humbling experience when I became the first woman president of NAFED [National Association of Fire Equipment Distributors] and had women just getting into the fire industry with their husbands calling and saying, “Gee, how’d you do this, how’d you do that?” It was enjoyable to know there were other women entering the industry.
What does it take for women to succeed? They need to get involved in associations, peer groups, meet with manufacturers, attend training programs, volunteer for committees, meet with customers. When they meet you, they’re like, “Wow, you’re a woman running the company.” That’s happened numerous times to me. Jump into riding around with a technician or riding around with your salespeople. It’s a rewarding experience.
Let’s talk more specifics about the business. How is 2015 shaping up against your objectives and projections?
Horvath: This year we’re going to see an increase in revenue and profitability that will be well over the past few years. One of the things this company was founded on was service. The security industry calls it RMR, but at the end of the day it’s recurring services for us. We always look to grow. Our vision is to grow the fire service as well as our involvement in the security systems side.
We’re going to be focusing on hiring more salespeople solely dedicated to selling services. They will sell service for fire extinguishers, emergency lights, restaurant systems, fire alarm systems, suppression systems, cameras, card access and so on. We feel there is a lot of growth to gain from our business through our existing customer base. We have 17,000 locations and a lot of them require all those types of services. Our impact this year is going to be with growing the service.
This year we trademarked the “One Call Does It All” slogan and we’re rebranding from Reliable Fire Equipment to Reliable Fire & Security. We believe the enhancement to our name/rebranding will bring us additional revenues once our fire customers know we also do security. It’s amazing when we’re meeting with a customer and they say, “I didn’t know you did that.” The name change is going to be very important.
Why did
it take the company so long to add security offerings, what has changed?
Horvath: Security is the next form of integration to us. We look at it as an opportunity to secure our customers from a fire as well as a security standpoint. We do fire suppression systems and fire alarm panels in which you’ve got a panel and devices at the end of the panel. Cameras and card access technology have panels, programming and devices at the end of it. The world of fire alarm and security is finally integrating. We want to provide that integration to our customers.
Studzinski: Going into the security aspect of the business has been a natural progression for us. We started in extinguishers and then suppression, and then before fire alarm was a major player we were into fire alarm. Now we’re into security so it allows us to grow our business and handle total life safety for our customers.
What is Reliable’s philosophy and strategy regarding organic vs. acquisitive growth?
Horvath: Mergers and acquisitions have always played a predominant role in growing the revenue and profitability of the company. The benefits of a lot of those have been good technicians and sales-people that further help you enhance the growth of your organization. I send out two to three letters a year to two different lists: fire and security competitors in the area. If nothing else it’s to stimulate conversation like, “When you’re ready, give me a call” or “Are you ready now? Let’s meet and have lunch.” That strategy has been very successful for Reliable.
One of my other strategies is running ads for technicians 365 days a year. We always interview technicians, whether or not we need them. We may not have the backlog to support a security technician; however, I have the ability to get them trained in fire alarm or suppression so that I make them more marketable at the end of the day. At the same time, it creates flexibility for my technicians so that when a customer needs service we can get to them, we can respond to the service they need either the same day or the next morning.
What channels bring in the majority of your business? Is it mostly referral? Do you do bid work?
Horvath: We do a lot of combined marketing efforts. We have lead programs, new business development that will generate leads for our sales staff. We have 24 technicians that service our customers every day and bring leads back to the office for other services that we may not be doing for our existing customer base. The authorities having jurisdiction are very helpful. They cannot specifically say, “Call Reliable,” but they will say, “We know of a reliable company you should call.” It’s kind of a play on words, but we in fact do get a nice amount of business from the AHJs. Word-of-mouth is essential.
Caniecki: Because of the business relationship we have with other vendors, even though we use many types of services, there are still relationships we have in the industry that we work back and forth. If it’s something in their arena we will send it to them. They will then send us referrals back, maybe one of their customers wants to know who to go through. Those relationships have proven well over the years for getting additional services also.
Horvath: As for the bid market, we played a pretty significant role in it during the 1980s and 1990s. Through the course of years we found a lot of the electrical and mechanical contractors would get prices on systems from three or four different fire equipment distributors. They were looking for the lowest price. Quite frankly, I didn’t think my business had the opportunity to grow with those types of decisions being made by mechanical and electrical contractors. We’re still working with and have great relationships with a lot of them; however, we find we can develop relationships with our end users and have higher margins on negotiated work.
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About the Author
Scott Goldfine
Scott Goldfine is the marketing director for Elite Interactive Solutions. He is the former editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Security Sales & Integration. He can be reached at [email protected].
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