WHO’S RUNNING LEADS? That’s not to say relinquishing control came easily. Actually, Hardy confesses, it made him nervous to think about it. To allay his anxiety, he reached out to friends and former co-workers. “We had leads coming in, but we needed someone to sell them,” Hardy says. His first hire was Gary Prahl, a former co-worker with no sales experience. He hired Prahl as a salesman.
“I used to install side jobs for and with him,” Prahl recalls. “And when the accident happened, I offered my help doing paperwork and making sales calls.” Prahl says that Hardy has learned to let go of the reins, whereas in the past, he was doing everything; it was taking up all his time and was very stressful.
A bit later, Hardy hired Gary’s brother as an installer. Today, virtually all the key positions in the company are filled by people recruited through personal connections.
Hardy also realized early on that even strong sales from new leads could take the company only so far. “This whole business is referral-based,” he points out. “If you don’t have good referrals, you won’t have good business.”
Much of the company culture at Hardy Window Co. flows from those key ideas. For instance, like Prahl, who is now sales manager and co-owner, or Hardy himself, all five of Hardy Window’s salesmen at one time worked as installers. “We want to hire people who know the business,” Prahl says, “so that when a customer asks us how we install or what our procedures are, we can explain it, upfront and honestly. They’ll see that we know what we’re talking about and that what we say will happen is really going to happen.”
Hardy’s salesmen put everything in layman’s terms for the homeowner, he says. They don’t try to upsell the homeowner to more window than he or she needs, instead offering a panoply of 14 brands so customers can choose. There is no pitch book. Reps “give an honest quote right off the bat,” with little discounting, and supply plenty of references, Hardy says. “And all my salesmen know my numbers,” he adds. “They don’t have to call me. If they need to get the job, they can get the job.”
MARKETING HOME RUN The 14 brands that Hardy Window Co. carries position the company for the broad middle of the market and allow it to compete with just about anyone. “Our bread and butter is the regular people who make $65,000 to $100,000 a year and who don’t have the Corvette and the big house on the hill,” he says.
From the company’s earliest days, Hardy has had great success with the same 15-word ad in the local “penny saver,” a free weekly “mailed to just about every homeowner in Southern California,” he says. The ad contains the company name, a promise that Hardy Window Co. will beat any competitor’s price on vinyl windows and doors, and a toll-free number. “We’ve run that ad for nine years, and probably 65% of the leads we get are from that publication,” he says.
As the company grew, Hardy advertised more widely, using TV, radio, and slick magazines with varying success. Because of low returns, he has backed off on TV and radio advertising in favor of more direct mail and proximity marketing. And he hit a home run with advertising on an electronic sign during Angels baseball games at Anaheim Stadium that he feels provided the company a quantum leap in market visibility and credibility. (See “Big League Advertising,” page 69.)
PERSONAL TOUCH With customer satisfaction and referrals (now generating around 25% of his business, and growing) in mind, Hardy fields a full-time service crew to provide an unusually high level of service — even for problems unrelated to his own company’s work and even though it may not immediately be profitable. Rather than wait for a manufacturer to service a product, for example, he absorbs the labor cost in order to get the job done more quickly.