Guy Pearson : A well-oiled machine in Atlanta An accountant achieves Archadeck success by working on his business rather than in his business.

Find out what it's like to spend a day as a successful Archadeck Franchisee! An accountant achieves Archadeck success by working on his business rather than in his business.

“I grew up in a family-owned business,” says Guy Pearson, “and I think as a result, I always wanted to own my own business.”

It took him a little while to get there. Trained as a management accountant, Guy joined a petrochemical company in the Atlanta area and rose to the position of vice president and chief financial officer. Then, one day his brother told him about a deck-franchise company operating in middle Georgia—and soon Guy was in Richmond, Virginia, becoming an Archadeck franchisee! That was 1988 and he’s been running his own Archadeck franchise ever since.

Guy’s territory is north and northwest Atlanta. His business office is in a commercial building in north Atlanta, and he employs “nine to ten people”: including a vice president/construction manager, four design consultants, three part-time office staff, plus drivers and material-handling people at the lumber yard which he acquired in the mid-1990s.

One person conspicuously absent from the Archadeck office in Atlanta is its president—Guy Pearson.

Why? Because Guy’s house is in south Atlanta! “The commute to my office in the mornings was an hour to an hour-and-twenty-minutes,” he says. “In the afternoons, a minimum of an hour and a half, sometimes three or four. On the way into the office one morning I thought, I’m not going to do this anymore.”

Guy turned around, went home, and phoned his employees to say he wasn’t coming in—ever again. He would work out of his home office. He told them: “If y’all need me, call me.”

What happened? First, according to Guy, “all the little stuff that I did when I got into the office, everybody else picked up and started doing—in many cases better than I did. I realized that I had not been delegating very well, probably had not been managing very well. Now I could work more on my business than in my business, and be a better manager.”

That was a few years ago. Now Guy goes in to his main office about once a month.

Has it hurt his business? On the contrary, the business continues to grow. Like John Barrett, Guy has found that the scope of the average project has increased over the years. In the beginning he was building almost nothing but decks, using pressure-treated wood. Now, with more experienced crews, he builds mainly screened porches in combination with decks, using exotic hardwoods and composite materials, adding value to each sale. Plus, he now usually has six to eight projects going at any one time, and his business fields between 850 and 1,100 inquiries a year. The result is that in 2005, his office was the second-largest in the Archadeck system.

But isn’t running a larger operation more stressful than running a smaller one? Guy says that many people assume it will be, but “I do less work now and have less emotional stress than our first few years in the business. Then I was answering the phones, driving the truck—I was doing all that stuff. When we increased our volume, it allowed me to hire people to do that.”
In Guy’s opinion, one of the greatest advantages of Archadeck is its scalability. The franchisee can choose his or her level of participation. “If you want to keep your business at the level of being primarily a one-man show, then with Archadeck you’ve always got that opportunity. If you want to build an organization around it, and increase your sales to a million dollars a year or more, you have that ability.”

In fact, that was Guy’s goal right from the start. When he first did the Archadeck franchisee training, we asked him whether he would prefer selling decks, or building them. Guy’s response surprised us: “I’m not going to do either. I’m not going to sell anything and I’m not going to build anything. My plan is to build an organization that does that stuff.”

And that’s what he’s done—he runs an organization, which is what he likes to do. “I’m an accountant,” he jokes, “nobody wants to buy a deck from me! But I can find somebody to sell one to you. And I can find somebody to build it for you. I’ve been very successful doing that.”

Since an Archadeck Franchisee gets to be his own boss, he has the freedom to make his own schedule however he pleases.

So what’s it like to be Guy? Let’s take a look:

Atlanta: Monday, June 19, 2006

8:35 a.m. Guy gets down to his home office, having had his morning coffee over the news and stock-market reports. He checks his e-mail and downloads the corporate bank transactions from the previous business day to review. Since his salespeople make deposits at different bank branches throughout north Atlanta as they pick up checks, and his office manager makes a deposit every day, and checks are also written each day, Guy likes to track the activity in the account to keep on top of the cash flow.

9:10 a.m. Everything looks good at the bank. Guy moves on to the strategic tasks he’s currently working on. At the top of the list is moving his business office to a new location down the street from the current location. He reviews his notes for negotiating the terms of the lease and rechecks his calculations for how much space they will need.

9:50 a.m. Guy calls a telephone-equipment supplier. He plans to change the telephone system at the same time as his office move, upgrading to a new voice-over-Internet-protocol system. Guy asks some questions about the equipment, trying to ensure the system will perform as he wants, and he will achieve the savings he expects.

10:15 a.m. Guy calls an assistant manager of the bank. He has recently switched banks, and wants to clarify certain details about services and charges. There are also details to finish up in the transfer of accounts. Overall he’s happy with the new bank. He’s getting a better fit with his business needs.

10:40 a.m. Next up: the new lumber-yard lease. After 9/11, when markets were rattled, Guy found himself in need of extra working capital. He decided to sell the land his lumber yard was on and lease it back. This solved his capital problem, but now the lease term is expiring and land prices in Atlanta are climbing. Guy is looking into buying land again. One problem is that affordable land is now so far outside the city. Therefore, Guy is negotiating with his current landlord to try to keep his options open. The landlord wants him to lock in for three years; Guy wants to commit for only twelve months. He makes notes for suggestions to amend the offer at their next meeting.

11:20 a.m. Guy’s advertising agency calls. They have some proposed ad placements they’d like him to approve. Guy spends about $100,000 a year on advertising. Rather than do the ad work himself, he has retained an agency, who find and buy ad space in various outlets. The discount they’re able to negotiate with the outlets translates into their fee—it works out to about 15%, which Guy pays in equal monthly installments. It sounds good to Guy over the phone; they’ll send him the particulars to see for himself.

11:25 a.m. Back to the lumber-yard issue. Guy checks some real-estate listings for commercial property to see the latest prices.

11:55 a.m. Break for lunch.

1:00 p.m. Guy is on the road in his pickup truck—not to a job-site, but to a gym for his twice-weekly workout. He’s free to schedule these for days when there’s enough time, like today. Over the years, while his kids were growing up, he’s been glad that his work has allowed him to create time for them when he needed it. Now he can use that time for himself.

2:05 p.m. Guy starts his weight-training routine. Fitness is good!

3:40 p.m. On the road back home.

4:35 p.m. Guy returns to his home office to check e-mail and deal with any outstanding issues. A voicemail from his office manager informs him that she’s found a new part-time office assistant that she’d like to hire, and she’s seeking Guy’s approval. He’ll talk to her tomorrow. He expects that he’ll be fine with it—his office manager knows what she’s doing.

5:00 p.m. Guy shuts down his office. Another enjoyable day as president of an Archadeck franchise.

How about you?

Many people have found they could make an Archadeck franchise work for them. Could this be you too? It’s easy to find out more. Just fill out our Request for Information form. Or learn more about how to become a franchisee with Archadeck.



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