Featuring: Aaron Whitaker, Founder & CEO, Preventia Security
By: Kelly Bond, Davis Mergers & Acquisitions
Running a business can be incredibly rewarding, but it also brings unique challenges and stressors that often lead to sleepless nights—especially for security business owners who operate 24/7. Balancing multiple responsibilities, such as managing finances and maintaining customer satisfaction, can create significant pressure and anxiety. In the coming months, I’ll continue featuring various business owners as they share the issues which keep them up at night and how they’re working to address them.
This month I spoke with Aaron Whitaker founder of Preventia Security. Founded in 2010, Preventia has quickly become one of the fastest-growing security companies in the southern region. Their primary mission is offering reliable and affordable security solutions for homes and businesses.
Kelly: Aaron, thank you for spending some time sharing with us. Please tell me what’s one thing that you find keeping you up at night?
Aaron: At the moment, I would say one of the bigger things keeping me up at night is the changing landscape of the alarm monitoring market. The impressive growth of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) and also the direct-to-consumer companies, combined with the shift to video for security is causing quite the disruption for traditional security companies. I have listened to so many fellow dealers who dismissed DIY companies five years ago by rationalizing they weren’t competing for the same customer. Fast forward to today, and I think we can all agree that DIY providers have found a way to serve the same customers as traditional companies. It’s still commonly thought among many traditional dealers that this won’t impact the commercial side of their businesses, but it seems like deja vu to me. The change in consumer behavior and the development of direct-to-consumer solutions will impact that aspect of the market as well.
Honestly a lot of things keep me up at night but one of our main objectives internally is to make sure we’re doing all that we can to keep our business ahead of the curve. I have found that routinely reviewing many of the concerns that keep me up at night with my second in command is the way we best address them.
Kelly: How have you worked to overcome it?
Aaron: We invest a significant amount of time in certain strengths which help define our company. It’s through this self-assessment process that we are able to keep ourselves relevant and compete against these threats. Listening to our customers is a top priority, but more importantly, we have to interpret what they are saying and turn it into tangible actions. I still firmly believe that relationships matter and will continue to do so even as these changes are happening. The better relationships we have with our customers, the better outcomes we will have.
Kelly: Do you believe there is a market that will always want “personal” service?
Aaron: Yes, I believe there will always be a market for personal service. Even in recent conversations with people that have opted for DIY solutions, they have shared with me that they would happily pay for a professional company to manage it for them. They have shared that initially it was fun to research, purchase and set up themselves, but they’ve lost interest in maintaining it. There will always be customers that prefer to have a professional take care of their security needs. A good analogy may be washing your car. Many people are comfortable washing their own car. A segment of people prefers an easy to use, automatic car wash. Others opt for high-end, personal service to make sure they get the very best in car care. We’ll always find the same opportunities in the security industry.
Kelly: What advice do you offer other business owners?
Aaron: I think business owners need to balance their time carefully between external and internal focus. While it’s important to understand what is happening outside of your company, it is far more important to understand what is happening internally with your team and your customers. My recommendation is to invest the requisite time to understand your customer as deeply as possible with a primary focus on how you can bring value to your relationship with them. From my perspective, as long as we bring value to our customers, we will continue to have a profitable business relationship.
That is certainly a true statement. Thank you for sharing with us Aaron and best wishes for your continued success.Stay tuned for next month’s interview.
About Kelly:
Kelly Bond brings over twenty-five years of industry experience to her clients. Newly inducted into the Security Sales and Integration Hall of Fame in 2024 at ISC West, she currently serves as Partner with Davis Mergers and Acquisitions