ASG plans to 'hit the gas pedal' with new hire

BELTSVILLE, Md.—ASG Security has hired a former top Protection One sales executive to fill a new position ASG has created—VP of residential sales and marketing.

Hiring Jim Boots, formerly VP of residential sales for Protection One, is an integral part of ASG's new strategy to “hit the gas pedal on residential,” said Bob Ryan, ASG senior VP, sales and marketing.

He said the company is planning a big push into residential in two new markets this spring, San Antonio, Texas and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., and needed “a real residential sales pro.”

ASG selected Boots, an industry sales veteran with about 25 years of experience, who will start his new job Jan. 31, Ryan said.

“We began a search and once I met Jim Boots it was game over,” Ryan told Security Systems News. “We love his leadership and his confidence and his experience.”

Ryan said Boots will oversee residential sales productivity in all 15 branch offices of ASG, which is headquartered here.

The company has a total of 15 branches in Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas. ASG just recently moved into Oklahoma with its acquisition of resi-focused TnT Security, which ASG announced in December.

Ryan said ASG already has branches in San Antonio and Raleigh, but sales in those communities have been “hybrid residential-small business.”

Now, he said, ASG will be sending into those areas “a very large, very aggressive sales force (15 to 20 sales people) dedicated to residential-only business that will do a combination of door-knocking and running company-generated leads.”

He said ASG plans to “shake and wake the San Antonio and Raleigh markets.”

Joe Nuccio, ASG president and CEO, explained ASG's strategy to SSN. He described the company's large commercial and government entities sales channel as “really robust.”

Nuccio said ASG also has “a good residential program,” but said the company is “ready right now to take it to the next level.”

“We're really going into residential in a big way and having the opportunity to have Jim Boots on board is huge for us,” he said.

Boots, who spent a total of 12 years with Protection One, told SSN that he saw working for ASG as “a great opportunity to join a dynamic company in an industry that I love.”

He said, “The timing was right” because ASG now is very focused on the residential sales channel, and “the residential side of the business is something I'm passionate about.”

ASG was established in 2002, and now has 145,000 customers, 850 employees and RMR of $6 million, Ryan said.

He said about 50 percent of the company's business is already residential. However, he said, “Typically, residential and small business is a hybrid channel in most of our branches.”

The exceptions are the Houston and Dallas branches, where ASG has “high volume residential sales channels” with 40 to 50 people, Ryan said. Its new Oklahoma branches, in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, also are residentially focused, he said.

The company found that during the recession, “when commercial was really inconsistent and very difficult, residential continued to surge,” despite such issues as home foreclosures, Ryan said.

He said that is why ASG has made the strategic decision to launch a resi initiative.

ASG chose to begin in its San Antonio and Raleigh branches because those markets have good growth and demographics, he said.

Ryan declined to specify how many accounts the company hopes to add, saying only: “We have lofty goals.”

He said that after this launch in the two markets, “I think eventually this model will be replicated in all our branches.”

Boots said he is “really looking forward” to working with Ryan and the rest of the management team.

Ryan noted that Boots will be the first new addition to ASG's small top management team, which hasn't changed since it was formed in 2003.

“It's pretty significant when we add somebody to that small tight-knit circle to really be a member of that team,” Ryan said.