I spent about a year working for a national garage door company out of Fort Worth, Texas. I was based in Atlanta, selling their “lifetime warranty” products to homeowners who trusted the name recognition and the promises we made.
It took me six months to get the actual cost breakdown on those products.
When the pricing finally came through, I realized what I was selling. The torsion springs marketed as “galvanized” and “rust-proof” were just painted silver. They were rated for 10,000 cycles, standard industry spec, nothing special. We were charging premium prices for inferior products and calling it a lifetime warranty.
I called dispatch in Dallas and asked what I was supposed to tell customers about these springs. Their answer: “Whatever you can get for them. The higher the ticket, the better.”
That was the moment I knew I couldn’t stay.
What I Found When I Started Digging
I did some research. The company was under investigation nationally for elderly abuse and excessive charging. Then I found a video circulating on YouTube, a sales rally where the entire Dallas team was celebrating these high-ticket upsells. They were laughing about it. Laughing at the customers’ expense.
I was done. No way was I going to be part of that company.
I’d run a small garage door installation and service business before, subcontracting for a company out of Denison, Texas. I knew I could do this on my own. More importantly, I knew I had to.
The company I left was part of a bigger trend. Private equity has been buying up garage door companies aggressively, creating national chains with massive advertising budgets. They can run ads everywhere, get their name on every truck, and hire sales teams whose only job is to close deals.
That business model works because most homeowners don’t know what they’re looking at when a tech shows up. They trust the uniform and the name on the truck.
Building Something Structurally Different
When I started Garage Doors Plus in Blaine, Minnesota in 2013, I already knew what dishonesty looked like at scale. I’d seen what happens when the goal is squeezing the most money out of every visit instead of building trust.
I had faith that doing the right thing would work out. I believed it. The money will come.
So I built the opposite.
Garage Doors Plus handles more than just the door itself. We do the structural work most companies won’t touch: headers, framing, wall replacements. We either do it ourselves or bring in trusted subcontractors. That’s the “Plus” in our name.
Most garage door companies will look at a structural problem and tell you to call a carpenter. Then the carpenter says you need a garage door company. You’re stuck in the middle, getting the runaround. We solve the whole problem with one call. That’s what integrity looks like operationally. No runaround. No passing the buck.
Our tagline is “Our Word is Our Bond.” That’s not marketing. That’s the operating system. Every decision we make (how we train techs, how we log jobs, how we present options, how we handle callbacks) stems from that commitment. When our team presents options to a client, they ask the right questions: Is this your forever home? Are you selling soon? What’s your situation? Then they tell the client, “If this was my parents’ house, here’s what I’d do.” Usually, it’s not the highest-cost option.
We use Jobber to log every detail of every job. When a client calls back a couple weeks later with a follow-up question, we can pull up the exact work we did and often walk them through the fix over the phone. No charge. That builds trust. It also reduces warranty calls, which cost us money and signal that something went wrong the first time.
When someone calls us, it’s an emergency to them. We treat it that way. The goal is to get there fast, fix it right, and make sure they understand what happened so it doesn’t happen again.
Our goal is zero warranty calls. When we do get one, we treat it as a learning lesson. What went wrong? Was it the tech’s work? The training? The parts? We discuss it in our weekly tech meetings so it doesn’t happen again.
That’s the difference. We’re not trying to maximize revenue per visit. We’re trying to build something that lasts.
The Problem I Left Still Exists
A couple years back, I lost a job to a national company. The homeowner got quotes from both of us for a new garage door and opener. When I matched their warranties with upgraded parts, I was still $1,100 less than their price.
The homeowner went back to the national company with my quote. They immediately dropped their price to match mine. But he’d already made a non-refundable deposit with them, so he stayed.
I didn’t get the job. But I got a five-star review for being honest and educating him on what was happening.
That experience taught me what homeowners need to watch for when they’re comparing companies.
Here’s what that story tells you as a homeowner:
If a company’s price drops $1,100 the moment you show them a competitor’s quote, their original price wasn’t based on the work. It was based on what they thought they could get from you.
What Integrity Actually Costs
Thirteen years in, I still think about that phone call to Dallas. “Whatever you can get for them.” Five words that told me everything I needed to know about how that company operated.
I knew I couldn’t be part of it. No way.
So I walked away from a steady paycheck and the backing of a national brand. I started from zero with a small crew and no advertising budget. I’ve built something those companies with bottomless marketing budgets and trained sales teams never could.
And yes, I sleep at night.
I’ve built a team of people who believe what I believe. We’ve served thousands of clients who trust us because we’ve earned it. We’ve proven that doing the right thing isn’t a liability in this business. It’s the foundation. It’s how you build clients for life.
What surprised me wasn’t what I gave up. It was what I gained.
I gained the ability to look clients in the eye and tell them the truth. A reputation built on work, not advertising. I gained a business where I don’t have to lie to make payroll.
I believe in givers gain. You get more from giving than you do from taking. That’s not just a nice idea. It’s how this works.
When that guy in Dallas told me to charge “whatever I could get,” he thought he was teaching me how to sell. What he actually did was show me exactly what kind of company I didn’t want to build.