Briefcase-Small: Inventing a Way to the Top

It’s the classic American fairytale.

Tough economic conditions steal a man’s job. High unemployment rates prevent him from finding another. And just when all hope seems lost, the man’s carefully-invested bottom dollar returns phenomenal riches.

Normally, this would be a great motivational story for any entrepreneur. But not for Ron Franz.

More than 30 years ago, this was his reality.

“My boss said he could give me severance pay for about 30 days or until I found a job,” says Franz, owner of Alabama-based Dothan Irrigation. “But I couldn’t find a thing. So I put a $3 ad in a newspaper that said I ‘cut grass’ and my phone started ringing off the hook.”

However, Franz’s rags-to-riches LCO story doesn’t stop there.

Unlike typical business fairytales, his continues to be one of multiple endings, false starts and new beginnings. But throughout every change, Dothan Irrigation’s ambitious owner adjusted to new challenges and shifting demands. And today, he’s inventing his way to the top.

GROWING WITH OPEN EARS

Since the beginning, Franz has built Dothan Irrigation by listening to customers. In the 1970s, he opened shop as a lawn care provider. Catering to landscaping requests in the ‘80s, Franz purchased $15,000 worth of new construction equipment. Then in the ‘90s, Dothan Landscaping began getting calls for irrigation.

So, Franz modified his business again.

“I changed the name of our company to Dothan Irrigation and dropped landscaping almost completely,” Franz says. “Today we basically install sprinkler systems, French drains and build reusable wet areas.”

But while Franz’s irrigation business garners $200,000 in annual revenue and is held in high regard throughout Dothan, Ala., (Franz says nearly all of his business comes from upper-echelon referrals), his small business still fights to survive.

Southern Alabama’s extreme heat takes its toll on Dothan Irrigation’s small, four-man workforce, and this doesn’t bode well for a company that faces stiff competition.

“It’s fierce down in this area,” Franz says. “Fifteen or 20 years ago, I could name my price. Now, I’m forced to price a job by the head because everybody else prices that way. And I used to get roughly $120 or $130 per worker. Today, I’m lucky to get $80 or $90.”

Franz says another constant hindrance is that the state of Alabama does not require irrigation contractors be licensed.

“To do work, all you need is a $100 permit,” Franz explains. “Contractors jump in, bring prices down, starve to death in about a year or two and then drop out. Most of the systems that they install aren’t good either because they had to cut prices somewhere, usually by adding too many heads onto a small line.”

PROBLEM SOLVING

To separate his company from more than 15 local competitors, Franz only offers thorough, high-quality installations. He says he’s one of the few contractors that calculates water pressure into irrigation layouts, and the only contractor that delivers detailed, as-built irrigation system plans to each homeowner.

But with the economy slowing, Franz can no longer sit and wait for premium business referrals.

These days, you’ll find the progressive irrigation contractor walking into local courthouses, asking to see all housing permits that have been issued in the past 30 days.

“The courthouses give the phone numbers, addresses, the size and the value of a house that is going to be built,” Franz explains. “A lot of times the builder includes the irrigation system with their home, and we can’t touch that. But we track down owners that want to handle landscaping and irrigation themselves.”

While making the legal system work for him is a novel idea, perhaps even more innovative is Franz’s approach to solving Dothan Irrigation’s everyday efficiency problems. For example, if he sees employees wasting time with store-bought tools, Franz will simply make his own.

“I realized that the shovels people buy at retail stores weren’t made to dig narrow trenches,” Franz says. “So I took a torch to my shovels and cut them down narrow.”

Unfortunately, Franz’s unique shovel invention is slightly overshadowed by one mistake – he never patented his idea.

“Of course, patents came out and now (competitors) have great shovels to do the job,” he says with a chuckle.

BUILDING A FUTURE

Never one to stop innovating, Franz remains dedicated to Dothan Irrigation and is already developing another invention to help his crew succeed.

Only this time, he’s working with specialists at Invent Help to patent his new idea – the Franz Filler.

“The hardest part on every irrigation job is not installing the pipe or trenching, it’s covering everything with dirt,” Franz explains. “So I looked on the Internet to see what’s already out there, sat at the drawing board and came up with a machine that will actually fill trenches back up.”

Franz says he spent three days at a metal shop before leaving with his first Franz Filler prototype. Then, he gave the Franz Filler to the men at Dothan Irrigation for field testing.

“They came back and said, ‘Ron, you really need to go out and try this thing for yourself.’”

Franz did just that, hauling his invention to a job with 850 feet of trench work. It took the Dothan Irrigation team nearly seven hours to dig the trench, but only 45 minutes to cover it up using the Franz Filler.

“Normally that would have taken at least a half day with three men,” Franz says. “And we covered it up twice.”

As part of his agreement with Invent Help, Franz can’t reveal many details about his Franz Filler. However, he was informed that his filler invention has “good potential” for mass production. It’s a tool that Invent Help says 3,000 suppliers have the capability of producing, but not one that has Franz scrambling to change his company’s focus yet again.

Unless, of course, customers start making his phone ring off the hook.