Dixie HomeCrafters sells 100 and installs 100 jobs a day in a dozen states -- that's 26,000 jobs a year. Their GutterGuard jobs average $2,900, siding and window jobs average $8,000, and they don't collect payment until final walk-through.
After David Parton (left) went broke remodeling, he called up Jim Brewer (right) to tell him he'd saved $10,000 working as a condominium manager. Brewer asked Parton to bring his cash and sell for his company, while Brewer did the installation.
"We built a set of policies that protected the customer because this industry has a terrible reputation," Parton says. "It formed the character and color of our company."
When they were offered a GutterGuard license in 1999, they were installing $20 million in siding and windows each year, helped by the 1995 addition of Hugh Harris (center). With GutterGuard, Parton says, leads "fell from the sky." They've been falling ever since, making production training key to handling intense volume. Their fast path to success hasn't spoiled their sense of humor: A running Web site ticker notes the number of homeowners' lives saved, prevented from falling from ladders during do-it-yourself gutter jobs.
