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Since 1980, windstorms have caused almost $1 trillion in damage in the United States with 85 percent of that amount since 2000, according to Climate.gov. Increased population in coastal areas, such as Florida, combined with the effects of global warming indicate that damages exceeding that number will occur during the next 40 years.
Since 2007, the state of Florida has one of the strictest building codes in the United States as a result of the devastation caused by eight major hurricanes that hit Florida in 2004 and 2005. The state revised its code requirements for all residential construction and remodeling. “What’s important to know about Florida is we have issues with storms that other parts of the country don’t have to deal with,” Home Performance Alliance (HPA) President Gary Delia says. “In our state, it’s required to use high-impact glass or code compliant shields on any window replaced in designated wind-borne debris zones. However, homes are not always reinforced properly, and we saw evidence of this last year with Hurricane Michael when it devastated Mexico City Beach in the Panhandle of Florida.”
Communities in the Florida Panhandle were exempt to the impact protection provisions for homes built beyond one mile off the coast. The idea was that the Panhandle wouldn’t experience violent hurricanes like the hurricanes that hit the rest of Florida in 2007 and 2008. But then in 2018, Hurricane Michael happened, which was the first Category 5 hurricane on record to impact the Panhandle.“To see the destruction left after Hurricane Michael was gut-wrenching because the destruction was in fact preventable. Some homeowners tried to use shutters or competitor’s ‘impact windows’ and those failed. There is a home left standing that was seen on almost every news channel after the storm, which was dubbed by some news outlets as ‘The Miracle Home,’” Delia says….
Top 500 Profile: All Coached Up
By the time Gary Delia launched Home Performance Alliance in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2011, he had already achieved a lot in the business. Mainly, he had risen through the ranks of one of the most respected companies in home improvement over the last 40 years, Pennsylvania-based Appleby Systems, a company built by the legendary Nourham Kalian. In its heyday, it had 10 offices and two divisions in seven states. Delia came to the company with a background that involved telemarketing management, but in a completely different industry.He started as a branch manager in Allentown and finished his tenure as president of the company. Then, after 14 years with the firm, he and his family had had enough of cold winters and were ready for Florida. Once there, Delia worked on a consulting basis with various firms around the country: Ohio, Arkansas, California and Georgia.
His company, Home Performance Alliance, came to life because of myriad code changes enacted in Florida in the wake several bad Hurricane seasons in the state, Delia says. Windows were rightly seen by insurers and code authorities as the weak point in a home’s defense against big storms.
The new codes mandated much higher design pressure (DP) ratings. And coming during the depth of the Great Recession, they were accompanied by a raft of federal and state rebates and tax credits that sparked a massive retrofit movement in the Sunshine State. Florida was suddenly a big new opportunity for window sales, and Delia was ready to capitalize on that opportunity with Home Performance Alliance….
Gary A. Delia, Home Performance Alliance, St. Petersburg, FL
Six years ago, Gary Delia discovered the ideal conditions to grow a business in Florida. Homes in this fast-growing state are bombarded with violent storms but often lack windows that meet code. Insurance companies offer rebates up to 50% for those who upgrade. But many window companies don’t cater to this audience because of the stringent requirements to be storm-safe. “So we have a great market potential with a limited playing field,” says Delia, the company’s president and CEO.Using insurance rebates and government upgrade incentive programs such as PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) to help close deals, Delia has parlayed that potential into one of the largest window and door retrofitting companies in Florida. He has even secured an exclusive manufacturer product that has earned awards from the Energy Department and the National Crime Prevention Council. “Those are two credentials you just can’t pay for,” Delia says.
But the real secret to his success is the massive number of inquiries and leads the company generates. Delia uses the old-fashioned technique of door-to-door canvassing with a modern spin that relies on an app called SalesRabbit. Developed for political campaigns, the app uses geo-location, demographics, and analytics to amp up face-to-face sales. Incentivized customer referrals keep lead generation localized and further save on marketing costs
“Instead of going for a lead in the next town, we’re going on an appointment in the same area,” Delia says. “We’re getting jobs on the same block, which was really never done before.”
But getting the leads wouldn’t matter unless Delia “trained the heck” out of his salespeople to convert them into customers….
Shielding from the storm, HPA
Specialising in energy efficient, hurricane/impact windows and doors, Home Performance Alliance stands solidly behind its superior products, installation capabilities and its unrivalled service excellence
Headquartered in the picturesque city of St. Petersburg, on Florida’s gulf coast, Home Performance Alliance (HPA) has been providing impact, energy efficient windows and doors since September 2011. Things were somewhat different back then, however, with CEO and President Gary Delia conducting operations from a one room office with a small personal investment to cover all expenses and fund his own ‘American Dream’.
Applying all of his 30 years’ experience of working within the industry, Gary threw himself into creating a best-in-class service for residential homeowners who desperately needed HPA’s exclusive product line in order to keep their homes and families safe. Within one year, sales had reached the $1 million mark, money that was used to invest in personnel, technology and other resources, with this figure rising to $20 million by 2016. Today, the company operates from a 25,000 square foot facility, has two other locations one in Ft Myers and the other in Jacksonville, and revenues should hit $35 million this year.
“HPA’s customers run a broad spectrum of socio-economic categories, however it is the housing market in Florida that makes all the difference,” Gary begins. “A large percentage of Florida’s homes are in urgent need of upgrades and remodelling to get up to scratch with the state’s stringent building codes, which themselves are in place because our peninsular is notoriously susceptible to some of the worst storms and hurricanes in the world. Additionally, our temperatures during the summer months can average around 95 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity. This puts pressure on air conditioning systems and causes high electricity bills. Our windows and doors are made for us by an award-winning manufacturer called Custom Windows Systems, A Pella Company Windows and have been shown to actually reduce energy bills by up to 40 per cent…..
Home Performance Alliance – The right combination
Business View Magazine interviews Gary Delia, President of Home Performance Alliance, as part of our focus on best practices – American business.
Gary Delia created Home Performance Alliance, a Florida-based, specialty remodeling company in 2011, after spending thirty years in the home improvement industry. He started his career working for a well-known remodeling company in the northeast, going from a young general manager to the company’s president fourteen years later. “I had some great mentors who taught me a lot,” Delia says. “I worked as a company executive and president and also as a consultant, over the years. I specialized in helping large home improvement organizations generate more profits. I was kind of a turnaround specialist that would correct deficiencies and stimulate profits in organizations, both on the manufacturing side and the retail home improvement side.” Today, after only five years, Home Performance Alliance has become a $20 million dollar company, ranked 32nd in Remodeling Magazine’s top 550, nationwide. That growth has been due, not only to Delia’s hard work and innovative ideas, but also as a result of being in the right place, at the right time, with the right product, and with a unique way to market it. All of these have contributed to the company’s success.Delia talks first about the selling: “This industry (Home Improvement) has metamorphasized over the past 10 years; some strategies that worked before became ineffective and cost prohibitive, such as telemarketing. So, if you were going to stay in this business and be successful, you definitely needed to be a change agent. One of the components of how our company has changed the most is in the area of marketing…..
The original ranking of the nation’s largest remodeling firms based on annual revenue.
Remodelers on the Top 500 list are involved in the following types of projects: kitchen and bathroom remodels, room additions, whole-house remodels, insurance restoration, design-build services and light commercial projects….