Guardian Protection secures another Brink's/Broadview dealer

PITTSBURGH—Guardian Protection Services announced this week it has added a second top former Brink's/Broadview dealer to its roster of authorized Guardian dealers. Signing on the new dealer is a part of a plan by Guardian, which is based here, to grow its national footprint.

SafeTec Security, the second-largest Brinks/Broadview dealer, is now part of Guardian's Authorized Dealer Program, said Hank Groff, national director of the program for Guardian, on Jan. 19.

SafeTec is headquartered in Columbus, Ga. Last year it generated an average of about 200 accounts per month, and it has about 40 employees.

Just five months ago, Guardian also announced that the third-largest Brink's/Broadview dealer had become a Guardian dealer. The announcement about Southern Alarm, based in Richmond Hills, Ga., which has about 35 employees and does about 180 installations per month, was made Aug. 26.

Groff told Security Systems News that Guardian is very pleased to be able to partner with two of the top five dealers that Brink's/Broadview had. Broadview Security, formerly Brink's, was acquired by ADT last year. Dealers can choose to leave ADT when their contracts expire.

Southern Alarm has offices in Georgia and South Carolina and SafeTec's offices are located in Georgia and Alabama. Groff said that having those two companies as authorized dealers allows Guardian to expand its dealer program and residential business into those states, where it had not been previously.

Guardian already is well established in the Mid-Atlantic States, the Chicago area, Florida and Texas.

He said partnering with Southern Alarm and SafeTec is “part of Guardian's goal to expand its national footprint.”

SafeTec, founded in 2002, formerly was a Brink's/Broadview dealer for most of its existence, according to David Broxton, chairman of SafeTec. He said he had nothing negative to say about Brink's/Broadview.

But he said SafeTec's contract expired last year and the company began looking around.

Broxton told SSN in an email interview: “When it came time for us to choose a new dealer program we spoke with just about everyone. In the end we just felt comfortable with the complete package that was offered by Guardian. The support personnel, the monitoring facility, the customer support, it was all factored into the decision.”

Broxton added: “Another big one for us was being able to do our own service. We pride ourselves on giving the best possible local service, and we were pleased we could continue to do that with Guardian.”

Groff said that a major reason that Guardian chose to partner with SafeTec “is that they just have a quality-based model.”

Guardian seeks out companies like SafeTec that are loyal, he said.

“They were loyal to the (Brink's/Broadview) brand and they were looking for another company that they felt they could have a long-term relationship with,” Groff said. “The reason we chose them is the same loyalty we saw in Southern Alarm. They had that same value-based loyalty.”

He said that quality is why Guardian has put out the welcome mat for former Brink's/Broadview dealers.

“Our major focus was to look at the top Brink's dealers/Broadview dealers and see about partnering with them because of their values and the quality of their business,” Groff said.

He said dealers also are attracted to Guardian because the company “is really going into what I would say is the digital age.”

For example, he said, next year Guardian “is going to go primarily digital on their contracts, meaning dealers will be able to sell to a homeowner electronically and get funded electronically” and in most cases not have to submit paperwork.

Guardian also is creating a web-based management tool that will enable dealers to run their businesses off the web, he said.