SCORE Business Client of the Year 2009
AGC Gutter recognized as the SCORE Business Client of the Year for 2009.
Steve Arnot, the owner of AGC Gutter, was presented an award at a dinner
hosted by SCORE at the Country Club of Hilton Head in December, 2009.
In receiving the award, Steve said, "I moved to Hilton Head after 9
years of gutter installation in Colorado's high country with the dream
of owning my own business. After interviewing with some local gutter
contractors for a sales position, I decided to make a leap of faith and
not work for the competition; but start my own business and compete
against them. "
I was confident in my technical knowledge in terms of gutter
installation but I was lacking in experience on the business side of
starting your own business. Before making this leap, I had many
questions about how to start a business, and whether ownership would
really be worth the risk. That's when I came in contact with Jay Issod
from SCORE.
Jay and I met several times at the local SCORE office and at Barnes &
Noble. He advised me of many items to research and consider before going
into business for ourselves. After expensive research and counsel from
Jay, we decided to step out on our own.
As we all know, the first and most important step in starting up a small
business is locating and securing financial backing. We decided to
partner with my in-laws, as well as my parents. My in-laws acted as
active partners, where my parents were silent partners. My father-in-law
ran a successful real-estate development company in California for
years, so he had tons of knowledge and advice on getting the business up
and going. My mother in law's background was in sales and marketing and
she was able to assist in this side of the start up. Without all of this
help and support from both sides of the family, we would not have been
able to realize our dream of being business owners.
After several years in business, we realized we needed to advertise and
tell people how we can help all homeowners, rather than just telling
them what we do. I met with Stu Brown from SCORE to help us realize what
business we were really in. We worked on headlines, bullet points,
offers, and deals until we came up with things that worked.
As our business grew, we realized we needed to learn more about what our
financial numbers really meant. We met with Pete Seery from SCORE to
look at break-evens, job costing, expenses, labor revenues, product
costs, and more. Mr. Seery helped us dissect and comprehend what all our
financial numbers meant and how we could make changes based on them.
It has been 5 years since we started AGC Gutter Company, we currently
have 3500 satisfied customers, we offer 2 product lines, and are in the
process of implementing a third product line.
- Seamless Gutters
- Clog Free Gutter Guards
- Green Energy Barrier
AGC Gutter Company specializes in helping homeowners protect their home
from the costly effects of water damage and clogged gutters. We are now
helping homeowners insulate their homes by exceeding the Energy
Department's recommendation for optimal energy and money savings.
We are so appreciative of all of SCORE�s assistance over the past 5
years. Without these SCORE services, we would not have been able to
achieve all that we have in starting and operating AGC Gutter Company.
SCORE offers very valuable knowledge to a small business owner. Thank
you to SCORE for all of your time and expertise.