Small Texas company makes big strides

CROWLEY, Texas—After hitting the ground running in July 2013, Sentry Security Solutions anticipates big financial gains this year.

Co-founded by Nick McAmis and Joel Clarke, the Dallas-Fort Worth-area company expects to post $500,000 in sales revenue and $75,000 in RMR for 2015.

“We're tracking to that already,” McAmis told Security Systems News.

In its first full year of business, the company of three employees—the two partners and their sole technician—reaped $180,000 in sales revenue and $50,000 in RMR. And, it started out with no financial backing, McAmis noted.

McAmis, the company's president and a former director of operations for Devcon Security Services, attributes his small company's success to a strong worth ethic—“perseverance, many long days and nights.” Customers can call him at any time, he said, and they do.

Networking meetings, referrals and building relationships with property management companies were “our bread and butter,” he said.

Early networking meetings focused on the residential market, which accounts for 40 percent of the company's business. Most of that is post-construction, he said.

Home automation factors in to the company's organic growth; the majority of his up-sells involve cameras or thermostats. He has customers who want “the peek-in feature to see what their kids or animals are up to” or to check and set their thermostats and get alerts when, for example, their children at home over the summer “mess with the thermostat.”

Sentry Security Solutions relies heavily on the 2GIG Go!Control panel for burglar alarms. For larger applications, it will go with Honeywell and for cameras, it typically uses Houston's LTS.

It services and maintains the systems it sells. It contracts with COPS for monitoring.

“We sweep, mop, we install. We're a full-service company,” McAmis said.

Down the road, Sentry Security Solutions plans to pursue the commercial, fire and access control market.

“We're working towards automated gates as well,” McAmis said, noting that a large share of his company's customers are in multi-family, condo and apartment complexes.

“I wish I could tell you that there's some secret formula” to his company's success, but when it comes down to it, it's all about customer service.

“Do what you say you're going to do. That goes a long way. It's about how you present yourself and what you do after the sale is made,” he said.

Sentry Security Solutions has no immediate plans to acquire, “not for three or four years down the line,” McAmis said. “We want to make sure we have a good foundation before we do that.”