In 2009, Jericho Home Improvements operated out of a basement. Just six years later, the Kansas City, Mo., company hit nearly $12 million in sales. How does a company come so far in such a short time? Hard work and careful planning, says CEO John Bartrom. “Our goal when we started was, we wanted to hire great people, people we enjoyed working with and others that excelled in their field,” he says.
With lead generation at the forefront of its growth strategy, the company was able to double its sales between its first and second year in existence. Then, between year two and three, the company doubled in sales again.
This success can partially be attributed to the company’s use of radio and television advertisements. “We got people wanting what they saw on TV,” Bartrom says.
Takeaways
- Hiring great people and treating them like they deserve to be treated. And Bartrom knows from personal experience what it feels like for employees who are mistreated by management. “I was with some companies where I didn’t like how they treated their employees,” he says. “I wanted to make sure our employees knew they were incredibly important to us and to our business.” These days, Jericho offers employees good health benefits, paid vacations, sales contests, and yearly bonuses.
- Going paperless has saved a lot of time. To make the switch from paper to cloud-based communication, the company spent nearly 1,000 hours customizing a software program that tracks each step of the process, from pre-sale to punchlist. “Our program also includes labor, materials, everything to that job, and puts us at the margins we need to be at,” says Bartrom.
- Giving back to the community can be an important step in building a good reputation. “We believe in giving back,” Bartrom says. In 2013, he traveled to Haiti help build orphanages with an organization called the Global Orphan Project. “We’ve been able to build three or four major orphanages and do a lot of awesome things down there with education and education programs,” he says.
