Raymond Baer started in the overhead door and dock equipment industry as a young man working as a shop boy back in 1985, when Starship, aka Jefferson Starship was climbing the Billboard music charts with their hit song "We Built this City (on rock & roll)", eventually making it all the way to #1 on the charts.
Ray's duties at the time included tending to the warehouse, picking up material from vendors and delivering material to service technicians on jobs when needed. A short time later Ray became a helper on an installation truck and a couple short years later, moved into his own service & installation truck where he continued to sharpen his skills and to train other service technicians over the next 15 plus years, while doing what he loved to do which was to fix things and to make the customers happy.
As yet another opportunity presented itself to Ray, he moved out of the service truck and began working as a service manager affording the opportunity to interact with the customers in a new and interesting way. It was as much a challenge for Ray as it was a much needed change of pace as the years spent installing and servicing large industrial and commercial doors took a toll on his body. Service manager then led to part time sales and finally it became a full time sales and account management position- again, affording Ray the opportunity to meet and begin relationships with a wider variety of decision makers and to make more lifelong relationships. Although Ray had absolutely zero experience as a salesperson, he thrived in the position due to his many years of experience learning the dock & door industry from the ground up.
Sales and account management was good to Ray over the years. It was an exciting new challenge. But over time Ray started to notice that the customers were being neglected. Promises that were made in order to land the customers in the first place were not being kept and although Ray did all he could to bring about change, customers began to voice their displeasure, and some began to leave. Even some who still wanted to continue their relationship with Ray. So after nearly 30 years of working as an employee in the dock and doors business, learning the trade from the ground up, Ray decided that it was time to start his own business.
It was time for Ray to become the decision maker so that he could decide how the customers would get treated. And that there was more to the customer relationship than simply making money.
- It is about the connection. The friendships that are made.
- It is about listening to your customers. About whatever they want to talk about. To this day, Ray still has customers, that have since retired, that he still keeps contact with.
- Ray also believes that it is about hiring teammates, (employees) that share in his vision. Teammates that display character. Teammates that want to challenge themselves to be all that they can be and that understand that the customer is the very lifeline of our business. That understand that customers are very hard to acquire and very easy to lose.
- Ray believes that it is about treating his teammates with the respect and the kindness that he wanted to be treated with when he was a service technician, and a service manager and a sales and account manager.
- It is about saying thank you and good job and "I appreciate all your hard work" and not just handing them a paycheck and thinking that should be enough.
- It is about rewarding your teammates and allowing them to share financially when the business does well.
- It is about creating a pleasant atmosphere for our teammates to work and thrive in. Because a happy employee is going to treat our customers with respect and be sure that the customer is happy at all times.
So give us a chance. Let us show you what we can do. Although Door Keepers, Inc. may be a new name to you, I can assure you that we have a whole lot of experience and that we truly do care about what we do! So give us a call, give us a chance. Climb aboard and climb the charts with us as we Build this City on Rock & Roll!
