Russ: This is the BusinessMakers show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. It's guest time on the show and I have with me now Phil Miner, founder and chairman of Miner Holding Companies. Phil, welcome to the BusinessMakers show.

Phil: Thank you for having me, Russ.

Russ: You bet. Well tell us about Miner Holding Company.

Phil: Well Miner is a company that has a single point of contact for round the clock repair service and planned maintenance support for what we refer to as docks, doors, and more. We do work for over 250 of the Fortune 500 throughout North America, basically providing again that repair service and plan maintenance support for warehousing and related equipment.

Russ: Okay, so you say docks, doors, and more. So we're either talking about the back end of a business that delivers out of that business or perhaps even it's their warehouse where they deliver a lot of things from. So by doors I assume you mean the giant roll -

Phil: Roll-up doors, dock doors.

Russ: Right, that are all automatic now. I mean I don't think guys are out there lifting them up, are they?

Phil: No. They're primarily automatic, but if you can envision going to the back of a building where there would be a warehouse or distribution center, a manufacturing plant, or even a retail store, there's a myriad of equipment that's at the back of that building that kind of facilitates the flow of materials in the building and out the front door if you will.

Russ: So does that mean that you also might sell forklifts?

Phil: Forklifts, palette jacks, loading dock equipment, of course the doors as you mentioned as well as recycling and waste handling equipment.

Russ: Okay. Approximately how many products do you sell?

Phil: Well that's primarily four trade groups and within each of those trade groups there's quite a number of different products and different models and that sort of thing.

Russ: Okay, but you don't manufacture any of them. You're actually reselling other people's manufactured products. You're a dealer for them, right?

Phil: That's right. The way we add value is we provide that installation service when they're maybe constructing a new building or remodeling or expanding an existing building and then more importantly provide that emergency repair service that's so integral to businesses today.

Russ: Sure. I mean I guess back there if something breaks down and they can't take a new shipment the products dry up pretty fast, right?

Phil: Well one of our national customers as an example is Toys R Us and you think about the buying season, the holiday season. They operate three shifts 24 hours a day at the store level, and if their material handling or loading dock equipment goes down in the middle of the night and that one truck is coming in with that very toy that those moms want, that by the way are already lined up out the door, we've got to get out of bed and we've got to go and we've got to take care of it.

Russ: Wow. That's interesting. I never thought of it that way for sure. When you get a new customer are you usually working with the general contractor that built the facility or are you working with the owner of the store or both?

Phil: Really both. We work with certainly the architects, the developers, the contractors, but our primary relationship day-to-day is with the owner and the end users of this equipment. We'll serve about 30,000 customers this year throughout North America.

Russ: And that would mean 30,000 probably separate sites where you're doing business, separate geographical sites. How many employees do you have today?

Phil: Well we have 170 employees and we have another 150 subcontracted employees that work for us around the country.

Russ: Okay, and you're headquartered in San Antonio, Texas?

Phil: San Antonio, Texas.

Russ: Okay. Do you do business mainly in the South or all over the country?

Phil: All 50 states including Hawaii and Alaska, the provinces of Canada, Caribbean basin, and Mexico.

Russ: Wow. Did you look at expanding to Europe and that sort of thing too?

Phil: We've actually had customers approach us about that. It's a little early yet. There's a lot of opportunity right here at home and near home, so we're focused on North America for the time being.

Russ: Now you know I mean hear on the BusinessMakers show we've interviewed 600 plus entrepreneurs and businesspeople now and we cover all aspects of business. We're always surprised when there's kind of a new space that we didn't know about. I mean I think I kind of knew about it, but I didn't realize that there were companies that specialize in it. So do you have direct competitors that carry all the products that you do as well?

Phil: Not really. We're in a sense a one-stop shop again when you get to that back of that building, but there are a lot of competitors. It's a highly fragmented business, but yet when you think about it that therein lies the opportunity to essentially consolidate that market.

Russ: Sure. Well I'm curious what sort of sales and marketing do you do.

Phil: Well we have a variety of methods we use. We of course have web tools that we use including search engines and that sort of thing. We also are very active with certain trade shows and other groups that help us do targeted marketing towards specific vertical markets that we're after.

Russ: And do you have a direct sales organization?

Phil: We do.

Russ: How many are in that?

Phil: 35.

Russ: Okay. Take me back, Phil, to that first big sale. I've thought of that in my businesses and most everybody on the show can really remember it well. How did that go and how did it happen?

Phil: Well in the early days most of our orders were very small and we worked to celebrate those small orders, understanding that they were all part of a process that would ultimately yield a desired result for the company, but let me tell you about one order in particular, a large order that we received.

Russ: Okay.

Phil: Our first big sale was with a large retailer here in the state that was building a new distribution warehouse. It was a company that we had known for many years but had not been able to effectively penetrate but had just kind of stayed after it and remained diligent and ultimately were successful in penetrating that account and bringing it our way. One of the turning points was we were unable to get a phone call, we were unable to get an appointment. Literally I got out of bed one morning early, early in the morning, called this executive's phone number. He answered the phone. He knew I'd been trying to reach him and told him essentially that I wanted ten minutes of his time and after ten minutes if I didn't have anything remarkable to say he could wish me a fond farewell. He said, "Well how about Monday morning at 8:00?" I said, "Well that's Memorial Day." He said, "Well we'll be working." So I show up and as we're walking into his office he turns around, looks at me and he says, "Phil, you've got ten minutes." So I pitched the company and I pitched what I thought our compelling offer was and were fortunate to get the business.

Russ: Wow. That's so cool. I mean getting an appointment, getting that phone call returned sometimes is so important and it takes creativity. I just assume since you called him at 8:00 in the morning you thought well nobody's tried him at this time of the day. Maybe he answers his own phone. I've done that several times and the fact that he held you to ten minutes, that's pretty cool too. Do you still do business with those people today?

Phil: We do. As you know, 90 percent of the battle is gaining the audience and being able to tell your story.

Russ: Absolutely. Sometimes being able to tell it in ten minutes can be pretty hard when important I bet too.

Phil: Absolutely.

Russ: Well I find your business interesting, but I got to understand, what triggered the idea to be focused on the back end of the business, dock, doors, and more? Help our audience understand the history of how that evolved.

Phil: Well I grew up in the home of an entrepreneur. My father was an entrepreneur, business owner, very similar business, a little bit different than what we have today but I had watched the benefits of business ownership and what it had brought to him. My father-in-law is a serial entrepreneur and he had always encouraged me to take risk and start my own deal. As I was working for other people I really kind of realized I did have that entrepreneurial bug ingrained in me. At the time I was in a job that required that I travel four days a week and I pulled into my driveway one beautiful spring day in the Texas hill country and had this revelation that I needed to do something else. Walked in the house, told my lovely wife Sue Ellen that I was going to be leaving the company and she was quite shocked and asked me if I had gotten fired. I said, "No, everything's good. I'm fine. Didn't do anything wrong, it's just I need to do something different. I don't know what that's gonna be, but if necessary we can sell the house and sell the cars and you can go back to teaching school and we'll figure it out", and we found great peace in that. Essentially started our lives over and that led to the launch of this company.

Russ: How long between that day when the company was really incorporated and in business was it?

Phil: Well that was April timeframe and the first day of the company was September 1 of 1994.

Russ: All right. Wow. 19 when?

Phil: '94.

Russ: Okay. Wow, so it's 17 years old now.

Phil: 17 years old, just shy of that. I'm proud to announce that during that time we've never lost money in a quarter. We've been profitable every year and every quarter and that's now 66 consecutive quarters, which honestly in a service business is attributable to the people because if the culture is right in a service business you make money. If it's not, you don't. It's just that simple.

Russ: Yeah. That's impressive. So there have not even really been tough periods of time?

Phil: Mostly the early days. You just go hard and you run until you bleed as I like to say. There have been some times when 9/11, that time period when there was a lot of uncertainty, a tremendous slowdown, a _____ slowdown in the market. Of course more recently 2009, but I find that those are true opportunities and opportunities for the strong to get stronger.

Russ: Right. That is so cool. Well Phil, before I let you go let's imagine that we have a young aspiring entrepreneur that's tuned in watching you right now. What sort of general advice would you give him or her?

Phil: You know I've thought about this before and there's really several things. Number one, dream big. Do not cut yourself short. There's tremendous opportunity out there and have a big dream. It may be ten years down the road. That dream may be a longer-term goal, but dream big. Number two, prior to starting a business build trust with a banker, not a bank but a banker who believes in you. Very important, and that was really a key factor for me in financing the business early on, and then thirdly, hire and team build around certain core values in particular the golden rule. Hire people that are already living the golden rule and they'll pass that love on to your customers and the customers in turn will return the favor in the way of long-term loyalty.

Russ: That is so cool. Phil, I really appreciate you telling us your story.

Phil: Thank you, Russ.

Russ: You bet. That's Phil Miner, founder and chairman of the Miner Companies. This is the BusinessMakers show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com.