International Door & Operator Industry

MAY-JUN 2013

Garage door industry magazine for garage door dealers, garage door manufacturers, garage door distributors, garage door installers, loading docks, garage door operators and openers, gates, and tools for the door industry.

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DoorDealerDialog The family-oriented business that began in Carl and Mary Whitacre's home is no longer managed from a rotary phone on the kitchen wall, but many of the same people are involved, although they are a generation removed from those formative years of the business. But, they haven't changed a thing when it comes to the most critical building block on which Carl's Door Service was founded: Customers are priceless and should be treated like it. The rolling hills and farmland in which the business is centered belies the relative proximity to the urban sprawl of Baltimore, yet Carl's Door Service caters to the needs of the locals more than the inner city. What that means is they have to get most of that business, because there isn't that much of it they can lose and continue to succeed. Yet, their fundamental philosophy of taking care of customers as if they were the only one in town has yielded a remarkable result, as explained by Christine: "We get 60 to 70 percent of our business from referrals," she said, as if that were normal for any door company. "The rest comes from advertising and some bid work, but we have always relied on our customers as our primary source of new business." Carl's Door Service relied from the beginning on Carl Carl Whitacre set forth on his own after working for Crawford Door in Baltimore. Nearly a half century ago, the area was one in which everybody knew everybody else. In 1965, the local residents did business with people they knew, personally, and that meant an unhappy customer could be disastrous for a new business venture. Even though his son, Michael, was just a kid, the father and son were inseparable, and if didn't have to be in school, Michael was out with his dad. By the time he was 12 years old, Michael Whitacre was installing residential garage doors on his own. But, he learned more than the technical side of the business. "I went everywhere with my dad," Michael recalls. "I was riding with him back before he started the business, and was helping him by the time I was 8-years-old. I learned a lot about garage doors, springs and track and how to make things work by helping my dad, but, the one thing I learned just by watching him was how he treated his customers. In his book, every job was important, and to him, there was never a question about whether or not the customer was going to be happy. He wasn't done with the job until he knew the customer was absolutely ecstatic." Christine echoed her brother's evaluation of the man whose namesake remains on the company masthead. "All the way up until 1979, when I got into the business, our dad was the only door guy in the area, and he had built a very strong reputation," Christine recalled. "We've kept that philosophy intact ever since, because even though the area has grown and changed a lot, Continued on page 18 V o l u m e 4 6 i s s u e 3 2 0 1 3 17

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