Garage Doors, 29-Year Tennessee Residential & Commercial Installer

$3.6M

Revenue

$819K

SDE

Subscribe Free

Read the full deal writeup

Get Free Access

Already a member? Sign in

Full Editorial Writeup

This is a 29-year-old garage door business in Tennessee that installs and services both residential and commercial overhead doors across a cluster of 4 to 5 cities within an hour of its base. Founded in 1995 by the current owner, it has built a reputation for prompt, reliable service and after-sale support, which is the whole game in garage doors: the install gets you in the door, the repair and replacement work keeps the phone ringing. The company runs with 13 employees (5 full-time, 8 part-time) and recently moved into a new office that the seller describes as a positive move for operations.

What stands out is the customer base. Alongside residential homeowners, the business counts municipal and emergency accounts: EMS, fire departments, and city governments. Those are sticky, credit-worthy, non-discretionary buyers who need working bay doors regardless of the economy, and winning that kind of institutional trust over three decades is a real moat in a fragmented, mom-and-pop trade.

The numbers are solid for the category: roughly $3.63M in revenue converting to $819K in cash flow, a healthy 22.6% owner-earnings margin. The owner sits primarily in sales and management and wants to retire, which signals the real work (field crews, service techs) is already being handled by the team. A buyer with construction, mechanical, and business acumen could step into the sales/management seat and inherit a profitable, referral-driven franchise in an essential trade.

Why we like it

Earnings quality is strong for the trade: $819K of cash flow on $3.63M of revenue is a 22.6% margin, and the EBITDA and SDE figures are stated nearly identical, suggesting the owner's compensation is modest relative to true business profit. That is the profile of a well-run shop rather than one propped up by a single owner's sweat equity.
The moat is reputation plus institutional accounts. Twenty-nine years of prompt, reliable service has produced a book that includes EMS, fire departments, and city governments, which are credit-worthy, repeat buyers that newcomers cannot easily poach. In a trade dominated by small undifferentiated operators, that municipal trust is durable.
Garage doors are genuinely recession-resistant: a broken bay door, a snapped spring, or a failed opener gets fixed regardless of the economy, and commercial and municipal customers treat it as non-discretionary maintenance. Service and repair revenue cushions any slowdown in new residential construction installs.
The operator advantage is clean: the owner works primarily in sales and management, meaning the field operation runs on a 13-person team. A buyer with construction, mechanical, and business knowledge can step into the top seat without rebuilding the labor base, and the up-to-1-year transition de-risks the handoff.

How to improve it

Stand up a formal service and maintenance program for commercial and municipal accounts. Garage door businesses that convert one-time installs into recurring annual inspection and preventive-maintenance contracts smooth revenue and lift valuation; the EMS, fire, and city relationships are the ideal first targets for a contract pitch.
Build a database-driven replacement and reactivation engine. Twenty-nine years of installs is a goldmine of doors nearing end of life; a simple CRM campaign to past residential customers for spring, opener, and full-door replacement can lift high-margin service revenue without new customer acquisition cost.
Audit and modernize lead generation. The business runs on word of mouth, so a modest investment in Google Local Service Ads, a conversion-focused website, and review generation could materially expand the residential funnel across the 4 to 5 cities it already serves.
Formalize pricing and job costing. Many legacy trade shops under-price service calls and leave margin on the table; implementing dispatch software with per-truck and per-tech profitability tracking will surface where margin leaks and support a price increase on service work.
Convert part-time labor into a stable, cross-trained full-time core. With 8 of 13 employees part-time, scheduling reliability and capacity for larger commercial jobs may be constrained; a retention and training plan reduces execution risk and supports growth into bigger contracts.
Expand the commercial and industrial segment deliberately. Loading docks, rolling steel doors, and high-cycle commercial openers carry better margins and stickier maintenance tails than residential; a dedicated commercial salesperson could meaningfully shift the revenue mix upward.
Document the owner's sales relationships before the transition ends. The seller sits in sales and management, so use the up-to-one-year handover to systematize customer contacts, bid processes, and municipal procurement knowledge into playbooks the new team can run without him.

Diligence notes

Verify the revenue mix between residential installs, commercial installs, and after-sale service. The durability of this business depends heavily on the service and replacement tail versus new-construction-linked installs; a book weighted toward new residential construction is more cyclical than the listing implies.
Pressure-test the cash flow figure and the near-identical EBITDA. Confirm whether $819K is true SDE with the owner's salary added back, and reconcile the recent office move: ask whether new rent, lease terms, or buildout costs are fully reflected in trailing earnings or will raise go-forward expense.
Quantify the municipal and institutional accounts. EMS, fire, and city contracts are a selling point, but confirm they are under formal agreements versus informal relationships, whether they go out to competitive bid, and what share of revenue and margin they represent so you can gauge concentration and renewal risk.
Scrutinize owner dependence in sales. The seller is primarily in sales and management, so determine how much revenue flows through his personal relationships and reputation; this is the single biggest transition risk and should shape both the earnout structure and the length of the handover.
Review the labor model and wage exposure. With 5 full-time and 8 part-time employees, confirm tenure, key technician dependence, licensing, and whether the part-time structure reflects seasonality or chronic understaffing that could cap the new owner's capacity to take on work.

Source

Originally listed on BizBuySell. View original listing →