To keep revenues up and to keep a hold on company policy, A-1 Security COO and General Manager Larry Folsom says he focuses on discipline in his company's operations. It's an important management style for company that brings in $8.3 million annually, with services split between the alarm division, the commercial locksmithing division, tract home work, apartment security, custom homes and commercial security systems.

That discipline pervades Folsom's approach to estimating. The company, especially because of its size, has to follow very strict estimating procedures so that profits and losses are easily tracked directly to a job and to the managers who signed off on a job. But good estimating doesn't stop with a contract signed by a customer, says Folsom. It continues as that job is followed-through upon, and is closely watched so that mutating jobs, whether caused by a customer who wants changes or by an estimation that didn't account for an important aspect, don't get out of hand without being corrected in the company's purchase order and margin sheets.

While this may sound like unnecessary paperwork to smaller dealer companies working in a tight-nit operation in just one market, these procedures are useful whether you're doing $50,000 in revenues per year, or $10 million. In this Q&A with SecurityInfoWatch.com, Folsom gives his thoughts on aligning sales and operations staff during estimates, working with tract home developments, and "knowing when to say when."

SIW: How important is real-time analysis to your management system?

Folsom: Companies I've worked for in the past were making decisions based on what they thought was happening, rather that what was happening, and that's a scary position.

Previously, P&L (profit and loss) statements were coming in too late; they were really just obituaries. We decided we had to make every margin sheet accurate. We have to live and die by these.

Every Thursday at 4:30 we have a divisional briefing. We talk revenue, budget, returns, labor. It's a benefit because if one of our divisions is having problems, we can look at it and solve it. Our divisions can only be as good as our estimates -- I really believe that is true.

SIW: What's the best attribute someone can have for the estimation and sales process?

Folsom: It's all about discipline. You have to have discipline to be able to pass on a job; I think you have to be brave enough to walk away. That never gets easy. If a job is wrong in terms of the estimate, we know we didn't do a god estimate; we know we missed something. A lot of the excellence in good estimating is having foresight. Estimating is still about leadership and excellence and discipline.