Coffee Break with Jake

This week Jake Voll brings three lenders and one operating dealer together on the money side of mobile surveillance trailers. Marvin Fuller of M&S Security Services Inc has gone from two rusty prototypes to seven trailers in about a year. Jim Wooster of Alarm Financial Services lends against RMR, Jennifer Holloway of CIBC Bank leads the specialty security group there, and Peter McCoy of NewLane Finance writes the fast equipment paper. Nobody spends a minute on camera specs. The whole hour is how you pay for the first trailer, and then how you pay for the fleet.In this episode, we talk about...✅ Marvin's path from two prototypes in the yard to seven units, including why he bought a couple of used ones✅ Selling a $2,000 a month trailer when your sales team is used to $40 a month alarms✅ Who actually buys these, from contractors and municipalities to solar fields, and who to stop chasing✅ Short term versus long term contracts, whether they are on wheels or not, and why the advance rate differs✅ Utilization rate instead of attrition as the number that matters, and how two dormant months eat your margin✅ The three financing routes: an RMR based facility, a traditional bank line, and one page equipment paper✅ CIBC's three by three by three timeline, and why the banking relationship has to exist before it starts✅ NewLane's four hour credit approval, and financing your customer instead of guaranteeing the note yourself✅ Four week billing and the thirteen month year, which Jake had not heard before this call✅ Cash flow versus crash flow, and the concentration risk hiding inside a 150 trailer dealCoffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

This week Jake Voll talks with Jack Doyle, President and CEO of Doyle Security Systems, a company founded on St. Patrick's Day in 1919 and now in its fifth generation of family ownership. Doyle runs roughly 60,000 customers and $2.3 million in recurring monthly revenue across upstate New York and Erie, Pennsylvania, which puts it 19th largest in the country by RMR, and Jack stepped into the CEO seat in 2023 after a deliberate three year succession plan. What makes the story worth an hour is not the longevity itself but what the company was willing to give up to get here, starting with a guard division that once employed 3,200 people.In this episode, we talk about...✅ The family business constitution, including the rule that you work somewhere else before you work at Doyle✅ Why the family holds annual retreats and conflict resolution sessions, after an earlier generation's split broke the company in two✅ Selling a 3,200 employee guard division to reinvest in the alarm business, and dropping to 80 employees✅ Exiting locksmithing, and the phrases that tell you a division has outlived its usefulness✅ Deciding where to play and, just as deliberately, where not to✅ Keeping a UL listed central station when almost everyone offloaded theirs, and how video monitoring made it a differentiator again✅ An acquired customer base whose RMR grew 10% over four years while the unit count shrank✅ What a trusted security advisor does differently from an integrator chasing projects✅ Why you cannot automate the ambiguity out of a central station seat✅ Jack's closing advice on contracts, and why you cannot cede ground on the customer relationshipCoffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

This week Jake Voll brings the topic of wireless jammers to the room, and the room has stories to tell. A few years ago this sounded like a movie plot or a theoretical problem. Now police and federal prosecutors are describing it in burglary investigations, and the dealers on this call have lived it.The uncomfortable part is that nothing on the shelf today would have stopped either one. Encryption stops spoofing, not jamming. Frequency hopping and hardwired sensors buy you a local alarm at best, because the same device that jams RF also jams the cellular path carrying the signal out of the building. In this episode, we talk about...✅ Two dealer incidents in detail, including the cut network cable with video proving the alarm sounded locally, and the 90 second smash and grab where the sensors fired but nothing reached the panel✅ Why a redundant communication path is thinner comfort than it sounds✅ What encryption actually protects against, and why frequency hopping and hardwired devices still leave you with a local alarm at best✅ The hardwire everything standard one dealer landed on after a takeover job, and how he rebuilt that customer's confidence without giving the work away✅ Four documented cases from Jake's research, from nine residential burglaries in Edina, Minnesota to a federal conspiracy that hit 29 financial institutions for more than $4 million✅ How cheap and available these devices have become online, and the reminder that buying one is a federal offense with no professional exception✅ RF jam detection on every wireless panel, why almost every dealer enables it at install and disables it before leaving, and how that decision reads in a lawsuit when the customer finds the feature later✅ Local and edge storage as the hedge for when the connection drops, from a dealer who puts that recommendation in writing every single time✅ What a central station does with a failure to communicate today versus what it should do with a jamming alert, including the question nobody has answered about dispatch✅ Security beyond the panel, from the burglar's eye view walkthrough to resistance, deterrence, and displacement, and using CPTED to make a house the one they skipCoffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak!

This week, Jake Voll sits down with Robert Few of The Connection Xchange and Greg Sariti of In Charge Electric to talk about company vehicles, the part of your business that is the most visible, the most expensive, and the easiest to ignore until it bites you.Robert runs TCX, a consulting and coaching company that works with integrators, electrical contractors, and distributors on building a foundation and getting to scale. Greg is the home technology director at In Charge Electric, which runs over 380 trucks across four Texas metroplexes and ten branches. He has lived the whole curve, from three or four trucks of his own in the early 2000s to a fleet with a full-time manager.In this episode, we talk about...✅ What GPS and telematics are really solving for, and why that conversation is easier today than it was ten years ago✅ What the systems track beyond location, including AI that flags eyes off the road, plus the insurance discounts and the carriers that now require cameras✅ Why the rolling billboard cuts both ways, because anyone with a phone can put your truck on Facebook✅ Writing the fleet use policy before you need it: take-home rules, the geofencing questions nobody documents, and who eats the deductible when a distracted tech causes the accident✅ On-call policy for techs with trucks at home, including zero tolerance on alcohol from both guests✅ Fuel cards in practice at In Charge, from driver numbers and mileage at every fill-up to why Robert says fuel only and means it✅ Maintenance that actually happens: shops next to every branch, monthly manager walkarounds, and Greg's 30-day truck party✅ Buy versus lease, the repair-or-replace math that sneaks up on you, and two ways dealers turn an old truck into a retention perk✅ Coaching, write-ups, and when a bad driver has to go, plus the scorecard that makes that call defensible instead of personalCoffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak

This week, Jake Voll pulls together a three-person panel to walk through what an acquisition in the security industry actually looks like from the broker's chair, the banker's chair, and the operator's chair. Colby Monachino of Monachino Partners handles the brokerage side, Jennifer Holloway of CIBC US handles the debt side, and Sean Forrest of Alarm Detection Systems, Inc. handles the buyer side. Between the three of them, they cover the arc from "should I even be looking at this" through LOI, due diligence, close, and the first ninety days after the wire clears.In this episode, we talk about...✅ Three reasons Sean pursues acquisitions at Alarm Detection Systems✅ The "get your own house in order" test before you even start looking✅ Colby's read on today's market✅ Jennifer's warning about strategy discipline: have a checkbox on every target✅ Why RMR lending is a specialty product and your local bank probably can't do it✅ Margin benchmarks Jennifer looks for✅ Cash versus bank versus seller financing✅ Colby's tale of caution on seller financing from the buy side✅ Why two nearly identical RMR books can get wildly different valuations✅ Sean's red-flag checklist✅ The deferred revenue conversation ✅ Sean's integration advice, from a guy who has made the mistake more than once✅ Loan covenants after close✅ Colby's first-90-days trap✅ Mike Tyson's rule applied to M&A: everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face, so plan on getting punched in the faceCoffee Break With Jake is recorded live every Friday at 11am ET. Join us live or register to attend at https://go.ssandsi.com/coffeebreak