Before 2024, the sales process at Arcem Entry Systems was operating the old-fashioned way. Salespeople waited for the phone to ring, provided quotes with pen and paper, and tracked margins via spreadsheet.
One team member did all estimates for two account managers, and requests for quotes were more often coming from the field than from Arcem driving growth.
The now-former sales team at the commercial door company in Mishawaka, Indiana, was secure in its old ways, and not meeting the margins its new leadership requested.
Mikayla Cleek, Arcem’s Sales Operations Manager, called the old methods “unsustainable.” Rich Love, Arcem’s Chief Revenue Officer, agreed.
“We decided we can’t achieve what we want to achieve if we continue to let that way steer the ship,” Love said.
Arcem undertook a near-complete overhaul of its sales approach. Using the commercial lead generation capabilities of Convex and the operational efficiency of ServiceTitan, Arcem implemented a modern commercial trades prospecting operation that gave it greater control in the quest to drive new business.
“We're able to be one of the pioneers for what the sales department can be and what it looks like,” Cleek said. “It's certainly gratifying when things do start working how we need them to work.
“We're seeing that in real time now.”
Growth, driven by change
Arcem has 20 technicians in the field and 9 to 14 trucks running at any one time (some trucks have one tech, some two). In 2024, business grew to $7.2 million, and in 2025 Love said conservative projections target growth to $8.7 million – an increase of 21% that could go higher.
“We have large growth goals, and we obviously can't achieve them if we're not attaining new-customer business,” Love said.
That, thanks to the changes in process and the addition of Convex, looks a lot different from waiting for the phone to ring.
“Prospecting now should be 20% of a salesperson's week,” Love said. “Before we had any kind of system, prospecting was 0% of the person's week.”
Arcem’s first move was to recruit “hungrier” salespeople, often from outside the industry, who were willing to work in the new system.
“They wanted to learn,” Love said. “And had no bad habits.”
The other key move? Giving those hungrier salespeople the tool they needed to identify companies and find decision makers at the commercial facilities Arcem needs to target.
That’s Convex, which uses Atlas to identify prospects by facility size, ownership, location and more, and providing results in a map or list view.
And Convex Signals can monitor buyer behavior and highlight prospects who are actively searching for the services a contracting business provides, converting buyer research into business results.
A relationship, not just a work order
But it’s never just about software. It’s also about mindset.
Arcem examined and adopted the Sandler Selling System, a seven-step strategy devised by David Sandler that focuses on building a consulting-type relationship with potential customers.
“The salesperson lets the prospect guide them to what the end result needs to be,” Cleek said.
From there, Arcem devised solutions to meet the goal. While it sounds simple, changing the emphasis to Sandler requires adjustments on the part of salespeople – another reason “hungry” hires helped.
“We're trying to lead the prospect into letting us know what they need, letting us know what it is that they're looking for, and we're guiding them along the way to get to that end result,” Cleek said.
“We try to uncover as many points about potential pain from the customer as we can. So we're asking many, many questions and digging deep into the problems.”
Hard questions are asked about budget as well, to find what the prospect is looking to spend and what a good final number might be. The expectation is not to make an immediate sale, but to understand the need and see if more discussions and meetings are needed.
“And we're OK with not making a sale,” Cleek said. “The Sandler process asks those questions to get you to a point where you can decide if this is a qualified sale for you and the prospect. It's mutually agreed upon to move forward with the relationship, or to step away from it.”
To get to those conversations, though, salespeople have to get in front of the right person.
‘Less work, more money’
Convex, which uses artificial intelligence to simplify finding warm leads and the right points of contact for Arcem prospects, has helped with finding the right person.
Convex sales prospecting takes manual labor and drive time out of the equation, and simplifies finding the right contact at commercial facilities. That turns the approach from waiting for the phone to ring into proactively finding new prospects to call today.
In Love’s words, Convex drives outreach to customers.
“It creates some laser focus to our sales team and our sales process, so that we know we're not wasting time,” Love said.
And because the process for finding prospects is tied to Convex software, the same processes can be applied to new growth areas to drive revenue and profit.
“Guys are making more money than they've ever made in their lives,” Cleek said. “They see a path to success, and it's really rewarding to be able to showcase that, ‘if you do XYZ, it will lead to the promised land.’ The process will set you free, the training will set you free.”
An interesting result of the new approach at Arcem? In 2024, quote volume dropped by 20%, but sales were up 16%.
“I don’t know who wouldn’t want that,” Love said. “Less work, more money.”
Another decision Arcem made in 2024 was to add ServiceTitan, the cloud-based all-in-one software for the trades. The benefits quickly became evident, especially with a standardized price book. That, Love said, allows techs to provide good-better-best options in the field, rather than sometimes days later.
“It helps to increase the amount of acceptances, and does it faster,” he said.
Cleek said Love used the analogy of climbing out of the depths of despair, aided by Convex and ServiceTitan.
“Things are getting to a smoother and better environment,” Cleek said. “We spent a lot of time in the depths of despair. Climbing to the top feels really good.”
And there’s plenty of room left to climb, Love said.
“I would love to see Arcem blow up and then be able to say that I was an integral part of taking something from the 1990s and bringing it forward in the trades industry,” he said.
“Especially in garage doors and the commercial space, where nobody's doing what we're doing.”
