In this episode I sit down with JJ and Mark from Choice Garage Doors in Pittsburgh, and this one feels like talking shop with guys who are living the same day to day grind as every garage door owner out there.
JJ grew up in the trade with an uncle who ran a garage door company for forty years, so he brings that old school, hands-on understanding of the industry. Mark comes out of the banking and analytics world with a completely different way of thinking about systems, numbers, and growth. Together, they’ve built a business that is simple, disciplined, and very real.
We talk about the early days, when they were juggling installs, answering phones on ladders, and trying to figure out how to scale without losing their minds. They walk through what changed when they started taking reviews seriously, how Google nuked their map rankings overnight, and why staying focused on garage doors instead of chasing extra services helped them grow faster.
What I loved most about this episode is how honest these guys are. They talk about wrapped vans, branding wins and fails, their repair versus install numbers, commercial work that tested them, and the constant pressure of being the one who has to make everything happen. No excuses. No pretending. Just the truth about running a small service business in a competitive market and trying to get better every year.
If you’re growing a garage door company, or thinking about starting one, this episode gives you a real-world look at what the climb actually feels like. There’s a lot of wisdom tucked inside the stories, and a lot of encouragement for anyone who’s out there building their own version of success.