Potential Customer Becomes Sealcoat Provider

When Jeff Romszewicz was traveling for his former employer in 2015, he was in need of a sealcoating company to maintain a lot at their Charleston location. Romszewicz called over 12 companies and received just one call back for the business.

“It was frustrating,” Romszewicz says. “I needed this work done and the one person that did return my call never even showed up to give me a quote.”

Sensing a need for a reliable business in the market, Romszewicz started Pro-Seal Asphalt Contractors and has never looked back.

“I decided we were going to do things right,” Romszewicz says. “We were going to call customers back, show up on jobsites looking professional and leave them with a quote on the spot. Since then, we can’t even keep up. Every single month we’re doubling in work.”

Pro-Seal has grown from sealcoating and patching mainly in the Charleston area, to handling a 150 mile radius around the area including Savannah, GA, Columbia, SC and even Myrtle Beach where they now have a full time sales representative in that market.

“When we started in Charleston, we had a few apartment complexes around the area and they wanted us to do work at their other locations,” Romszewicz says. “That really helped us grow and expand our business to other markets.”

Marketing Matters

Since the Charleston area is quite high-end, there are very few asphalt driveways to maintain making Pro-Seal’s customers almost 99% commercial. Romszewicz knows that marketing his business to those customers is important.

“Our average parking lot project is 50,000 – 75,000 square feet,” he says “These are big, important jobs and customers.”

For this reason, Romszewicz makes sure their equipment and their employees are always professionally outfitted.

“A lot of companies let their sealcoat rigs drive around plastered with sealer,” Romszewicz says. “We make sure ours are painted, clean and feature our logos. Our entire crew is also in full uniform with safety vests and ID badges on. We look very professional when you drive past a jobsite and people remember that.”

Pro-Seal is also a member of the Charleston Apartment Association and they have been successful in gaining business through the tradeshow the association conducts each year.

“Our marketing dollars are very well spent there,” Romszewicz says. “We want to make sure that the people who attend this show will remember us and we go all out to do so.”

This year, the tradeshow featured a circus theme and Pro-Seal did not disappoint with their contribution. The company purchased over 50 orange barrels to create a full-size elephant to display in their booth.

“The tradeshow is big for growing our business,” Romszewicz says. “The elephant shows that we’re different than our competition and by investing time to differentiate ourselves, people will remember us and that gives us a competitive advantage.”

Additionally, Pro-Seal uses Google AdWords to advertise their business and Romszewicz says the company receives over two phone calls a day through these efforts.

“We ask every customer who calls in how they heard about us and 90% of the time it’s through Google or a referral,” Romszewicz says.

Pro-Seal has also made the Pavement Top Contractor list for the last two years and makes sure to capitalize on this to help them gain a competitive advantage.

“After we made the list, we were sure to add our Top Contractor honors to our marketing materials,” Romszewicz says. “Then when we were going after these larger customers, it added value to our business that our competition didn’t have, it vetted us to them.”

Hassles of Hiring

Like most companies in the business, Pro-Seal has trouble finding good employees to fill their growing business needs. In response to that, Romszewicz has changed his pay structure from an hourly rate to a piece rate.

“Finding help is the hardest thing right now,” he says. “We decided to change all our employees from an hourly to a piece rate system to help make the job more attractive. I think guys who understand this see how much money they could make in a day. Instead of a flat $15/hour, they could potentially make over $25/hour depending on how productive they are.”

The company is also running ads in local Churches and restaurants to help add to their seven employee crew. With the plan to add paving to their business within the next year, they’re going to need the help.

“We currently sub out our paving work, but that’s growing so we’re hoping to bring that in house soon,” Romszewicz says. “When we’re ready to pave, our customers will be ready to hire us. They’ve asked for it so it’s just a matter of investing in the equipment, getting guys the training they need for us to be successful in that realm and telling our customers we’re full service for them now.”