Glen Bhimani is the CEO and founder of BPS Security, which is one of the fastest-growing security firms in the US. He has decades of experience in security and was discovered by Grow Disrupt as a phenomenal business powerhouse during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic when he navigated the pandemic in such a way that created a 400% growth in his company. Glen’s company utilizes proprietary software and integrates technology in novel ways to protect clients and improve the security industry as a whole.
Global Elite Media group recently caught up with Glen to discuss hia journey in the industry and here’s what went down:
What are you currently doing to maintain/grow your business?
Currently, we are pursuing effective marketing strategies. We’ve got a solid sales system going and we’ve developed some of the leanest operations I’ve ever seen along with proprietary software that allows us to offer better services to our clients. In short, we’ve spent the last few years working on building our company into the best possible option for security and now we’re working on spreading the word through our marketing.
What form of marketing has worked well for your business throughout the years?
Ironically, we didn’t have much marketing when we started. I knew nothing about marketing when we started and didn’t think it was important, so we didn’t have marketing for the first few years. Now we’ve discovered that having our website highly SEO’d have made a huge difference. We went from having maybe one call a week to sometimes five calls a day once we optimized the website, and we’ve begun to see a lot more traction in our credibility since starting our public relations campaign.
What social media platforms do you usually use to increase your brand’s awareness?
We use a variety of platforms, but right now we primarily use LinkedIn, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter. Twitter is where we heavily interact with the public, and our other social media platforms are utilized as information, education, and entertainment disseminators where we can keep in contact with our clients and fans.
What is the toughest decision you had to make in the last few months?
The toughest decision has been turning away poor clients. We have had several potential clients approach us for security services in the last few months who would have been huge revenue generators for the company. But at the same time, they would have been a horrible fit for our company: the way that they run their businesses is completely contrary to the integrity we believe in and act out, and would have required us to compromise our standards. It was a painful decision to watch that potential revenue disappear, but I knew it was the best choice to make; because once you compromise once, it becomes easier and easier until you no longer have a standard you hold to.
How has your business been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?
Because we were extremely prepared for it, the pandemic has actually helped us grow. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was watching the way the virus affected the security industry in other countries and saw how it caused the demand for security to shoot through the roof as valuable buildings were left unattended. I knew it was more than likely that the virus would make its way to the United States, so I prepared us for it by interviewing massive quantities of guards and making huge bulk orders for equipment so that we would be prepared when it hit the United States. Because of that, we had a growth of over 400% in the second quarter of 2020 when we were the only security firm prepared for the massive spike in security demand.
Aside from that, we’ve had to institute some company policies surrounding the handling of the virus’s impact on the world, but otherwise, we haven’t seen any negative effects of the pandemic.
How have you adapted your business operations in response to COVID-19 and its associated impacts?
Our operations have changed very little. We have always worked very heavily via internet and phone communication, and security guards are regularly required to wear facial coverings so switching over completely was a non-issue.
We do believe very strongly in the rights of the individual, so our stance on COVID-19 policies has always been to let our clients govern what the guards have to do on-site. If a client doesn’t care, we leave it up to the guard’s discretion. If the client has rules, our guards are required to follow them. Additionally, we were never interested in forcing anyone’s hands so we never made the vaccines a mandatory requirement. However, we offered bonuses for fully vaccinated guards and have seen a lot of success with that method of risk management/mitigation for COVID-19.
What have been some of the most important lessons you have learned because of this pandemic?
The biggest one is that you can never just sit back and hope people don’t notice your policies. Eventually, you are going to have to make a decision about current events and where you stand, so it is best to immediately consult your core values and make a decision before you’re put in a high-stress situation. I had way too many friends who tried to just ride out the wave of chaos over COVID restrictions and they suffered a lot of backlash for it. Knowing what you stand for and making policies before you ever get into a situation is the best way to have a solid response to chaos.
This one is not so much one that I learned because of the pandemic, but one that was strongly reinforced to me because of it: prepare for the worst, expect the best. If you pay attention to the goings-on in the world and always prepare yourself in case it happens to you, you’ll rarely be taken by surprise and you’ll likely be able to discover opportunities for growth like I was.
What do you hope to see happen in the near future for small businesses all over the world?
I would love to see self-awareness rise in small businesses all over the world. Too many small businesses have an idea in their head of what their business should look like, but it doesn’t match reality and they make poor decisions based on it. Then they end up in a worse place than before. I think if small businesses were all to become far more self-aware, we would see greater growth in small business success. This would be my ideal for the world of small business owners: that all of us find the quickest and most sustainable path to growth through self-awareness.
What advice would you give to a newbie Entrepreneur setting up a new business in this pandemic?
Don’t let the pandemic intimidate you. There are so many opportunities for growth if you will just look for them. Your natural instinct is going to be to shy away from the tough decision that growing a business in a pandemic brings, which is normal: we tend to flee what we fear, and tough decisions are scary. But push through the fear and be courageous, you will find there are so many opportunities in places you never imagined if you just act in spite of your fear.