A New Jersey security company charged $15 an hour but paid guards $12, barely breaking even. They dressed one guard, Frank, in a suit and sunglasses. Tenant perception shifted so dramatically that occupancy rose from 50% to 80% and they raised rates to $25 an hour. Different beats better.
There is a saying that you have to be the best to win at whatever you do. Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals and he's absolutely the best, but there was a lot of people during the Olympics that won gold medals. But their names are forgotten. They were the better folks. They were better than everybody else, yet their names are forgotten. I'm here to tell you that better is not better. Different is better. I got a call, this is about 3 years ago, from a security company. You know the security guards when you go to New York City or any major metropolitan area, they sit there in their blue uniforms, they're against the wall and they just sit there. And quite frankly, they're relatively unnoticeable. They're doing their job, but we walk in and maybe give a nod, or usually just walk by, get to the elevator, go up to the place we're going to. Well, I got a call from this security company, a small one, actually based right out here of New Jersey, and they said, we are having a real difficult time because in the security industry we can only charge $15 an hour. That's the going billing rate. And the people that are security guards are getting about $12 an hour for their services, and then the margin between $12 and $15 is very tight because There's insurance costs. There's marketing fees. There's administrative costs. These places net generally 50 cents an hour. So the only way to win in the security industry is if you have a lot of security guards, a lot of security guards. And this was a small security company, so we just can't make it. And we're thinking, you know, better is not better. Different is better. So I went in, my company and myself, we went in and we went to this one building to observe how they were rendering their service. And the guy, I'll never forget his name, his name is Frank. He was a security guard standing there, and I was very serious. I was very incognito, hiding behind a bush, just watching people come in, watching, watching people come in. And I actually had this microphone on, so it was very awkward, you know, very loud. So people would come in, and there was one guy come in, and he'd always be on the phone so loud talking about the night before. Oh my God, it was like partying last night. Yo, what's up, Frank? And he'd walk upstairs. And there was this elderly woman who always had the daily injury because she'd be talking about something she pulled, yanked, slipped, cracked, and, "Oh my God, it was horrible." And she'd be kind of walking in and not notice Frank and not notice me hiding behind the bush. Then we said, "Let's be different." So what we did for the security company is we purchased Frank a suit, you know, basic suit, and sunglasses, and a briefcase. And one of those little ear doohickey things, you know. And we told Frank, I told Frank, I said, "The only thing you have to do every like 2 minutes or so when you see someone coming in, just push the button and look down and go, 'Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.'" Well, the reaction of these people were amazing. First, the loudmouth guy comes in. He looks and he's like, "Oh, this weekend was great." And he looks at Frank and he's like, "I got to go. I got to." I never heard the guy whisper before. He's like, "I got to go. I got to go now." And he runs up to the elevator. The elderly woman who has a tremendous amount of injuries all of a sudden becomes an Olympian of the pummel horse. She takes her— the walker, jumps over, and she sprints upstairs. And I know and you know the conversation that was going on upstairs at the water cooler. The CIA is covering this place. I knew Obama was coming. You know, all the stories upstairs that were going on about the security change. Well, this building had about 50% occupancy rate. Only half the building had people in it. And that's, it's really tough times, obviously, to market space if you're in Manhattan, and this building was particularly hard hit. Well, 2 months later, we get a call, and we did this for about 2 months, we get a call from the building management saying, hey, we know what you guys are doing, and we wanna tell you something. Our occupancy rate is going up. People are moving into this building because of the word of mouth going around and people saying, you don't even need a security system. You can save thousands if you move into this building. They got FBI's here. And sure enough, the occupancy went from 50 to 60 to 80%. When the building management called us, they said, we know what you guys are doing. We know you're $15 an hour. We're ready to pay $25 an hour because you're our best marketing piece. And this little security company went from barely competing, about to close doors, to now a marketing division that happens to provide security, $25 an hour. Many businesses I work with, regardless of their size, are trying to be better. I am here to tell you better is not better. Different is better. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
