If you’re building a security business, the biggest mistake isn’t picking the wrong tools—it’s building a stack that doesn’t scale.
In this episode of Entry & Exit, Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble break down the ultimate “god mode” security stack—and how your tech choices impact growth, operations, and enterprise value. From RMR to vendor selection, they share what actually works (and what doesn’t) when building a modern security business.
They cover:
- Why every sale should include recurring monthly revenue (RMR)
- The tradeoff between upfront cash and long-term value
- Why too many vendors create operational drag
- The importance of unified platforms across security systems
- Why cybersecurity and reliability matter more than features
- The exact stack they use (Brivo, Eagle Eye, DMP) and why
If you run a security or life safety business, this episode will help you build a scalable, high-value operation.
More Entry & Exit — https://www.entryandexit.co/
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If you're getting into the industry, I would definitely consider those three brands. Can we have another pause, a moment of silence for security solutions not being secure? And just the deep, deep irony of that.
That's not really scalable. What actually gives your customer confidence is you picking the solution that is best for them because you think about security every single day and they don't. There are a lot of platforms out there that have a lot of sexy features, but they don't spend a lot of time and focus on their actual cybersecurity guardrails, like making sure that the infrastructure is really tight. We are not sponsored by we sure aren't. And if they want a sponsor, please let us know. Send us an email.
Welcome to entry and exit. Today we're talking about the ultimate security stack. Whatever superlative you could possibly the the bestest. The bestest. And um you you may or may not be surprised that what we will position as what what we believe that best stack is what we use at Alarm Masters. Right. Shocking. Yeah. Um, but we're gonna we're gonna sell you on it.
Yep, we are. I'm I'm concerned about why I'm sitting so low on this camera, but we're just gonna it makes me look shorter than you. We'll see how it comes out in post-production. Um I'm very tall, so that makes it well. Yeah, and I've got a lot of hair, you know?
So it's it's so much, it's so much hair.
I didn't say on top of my head.
Yeah, no, but the beard is is full.
Um, all right. So here's the thing. Um, you're bit we talk about business valuations all the time. Like you you're trying to build the best, the most enterprise value in your business, right? Regardless if you're selling or you're gonna cash flow, you want to build the highest enterprise value, aka EV in your business. So, what you don't want is to just cobble together a bunch of random solutions that you're just familiar with, or this is what you've always done. I think there's this like habit in the industry of, well, this is what my technicians are used to, and so this is what we sell, and I don't want to disrupt it, and they don't want to do it. And it's like, hey, you can't let you gotta listen to feedback from your text, but you can't let the tail wag the dog. Like you've gotta, you've gotta be able to pick what is most strategic for your business. And um, I think building a tech stack that is going to improve your EV is paramount. And the first thing we've said, and we'll say it again and again and again, is you've got to pick a tech stack that has RMR on every sale. Amen. Get RMR involved in every sale. It's not, it doesn't even matter if you never want to sell. We don't have plans to sell, and like we're like, it's you gotta have the RMR. So, and and everybody, it's like this has been the industry thing. Like, if you went to ISUS six years ago, it was like all cloud, all RMR. It's like everyone's been talking about RMR forever, but for some reason, um, folks are still not taking it as serious as they need to.
So cause. Okay. Why aren't they taking it as serious? Or what's the I like I I think it genuinely a lot of times comes down to what they've always done or just simply cat cash. Yeah. Like, and so if you are optimizing for upfront cash, then you're not getting sweet, sweet RMR that helps smooth revenue out throughout the year, you know, as your business has, you know, peaks and valleys. And so it's kind of that it's that near-term, long-term trade. And you know, so like what's the most wise thing to do more times than not sell something recurring and not just take all the cash you can get up front.
Also, one little quick side note we've said this on other, you know, podcasts in the past. I think it's important don't just let the customer dictate you know what you use, and you end up with like 28 different manufacturers, and then and then you like put them all on your website and you're so proud that you have a million different people you that's that's not really scalable. And it might feel cool, it's not cool from an operational perspective. And your texts are gonna be like, I don't even know half the stuff, I don't even know how to install it, I don't know it, and you're asking me to do this stuff, and I'm just burned out from having a million different solutions.
Yeah, I think that that's like that's been a lot of alarm companies' value proposition, which has been we have the most knowledge on every solution. And so they put all the solutions online, they're trying to give their customers confidence, but I think what actually gives your customer confidence is you picking the solution that is best for them because you think about security every single day and they don't. And so you should pick the solution that's tailor-made for them and not let them pick something. Um, hey, by the way, can I give a pause, a tactical pause? Oh, sure. Because if I I'd like to use this pause to say if you like our content, like if you like this stuff, um we would love it if you'd engage with it. If you could like it, subscribe it or leave us a comment. Um that would be great. That'd be awesome. There's not a tremendous amount of security, physical security, life safety content out there. And so we're trying to do that and put this stuff out there, and so it's super helpful when you engage. And if you if you're like me and you hear this on the podcast, and you're like, oh, that's cool. Yeah, I for sure won't do that. Um, maybe consider doing something different today.
Yeah, maybe actually follow through for once. Yeah, you know, yeah, come on.
Five star. Five star. Um,
okay, so I want to jump in, but before into like I'm I think I want to go into sort of the I'm really focused mostly on security here. Um I'm not gonna touch on fire a whole lot, but the one thing I will say is you really want to try to get as much on a unified solution as you can possibly get. Now, you have to you have to really think about this because you're not necessarily like, yeah, we do a lot of multi-scope projects, but it is not often, or I should say, it's in the minority of sales we do where we're selling all three scopes at the same time. Traditionally, we're selling one or two, usually two, and then a third scope comes down or fourth scope comes down the road as they grow with us. Uh, so we almost always get all scopes, but it just doesn't happen on the first sale. And so you don't really need to stress too much about like if you're just selling access control and video, like then pick the best access control and video platform. And then, like, you know, you don't really need to stress too much about the intrusion stuff, but you should have a platform that has an integration to an intrusion system to some degree. Um, and so I'm always looking for a unified platform. Like, uh just in general, it makes sense to me that you would want to use one app to control all your stuff. Yes. And by the way, one reason for that has to do with identity, like identity federation is a big deal as you go up market. So, like active directory integration, Google workspace integration, etc. Like having a single source for where your company directory is, so you can just like give access and it federates it to all the different apps. Big deal. Having one platform makes that a lot easier. So let's get into it.
Um, on the access control side, um, I would pick Brevo. I worked there, so I am a little bit of a homer from Brevo, but I'll tell you absolutely biased, completely biased. It's true. Uh I will say this though. Um, they're extremely scalable, their hardware and their subscriptions are reasonable. The support is pretty good. And Brevo basically turns every one of your doors into a subscription, and they've been doing that for 20 years. Like, this isn't news for them. Like, it's not like Acre Security just releasing their new cloud platforms. Like Brevo's been doing this, and so I want to use something that's if it's gonna be a core product, it's gonna be trusted. And so I would say that's a really big deal, especially for customers with multiple locations.
You are biased, but I think you're biased, and it you could be biased to a bad solution. Thankfully, you're biased towards I think a great solution. Um, and um, it really has not been something that's created problems for us. Like if we look at it. I think our techs have have liked it. Exactly. Yeah, it's it's been a win.
Yeah, I think our technicians have have enjoyed it. I think that they appreciate it. Uh, I think it for the most part makes their job easier. Uh, it certainly makes the office's job easier. Um, so yeah, I agree with you. I think that it's been and it's easy to sell, easy to quote. So it's that's a big that's a big thing, by the way. It's like easy and easy to sell and quote. That's the hardest part about I mean, I this is a little more biased, but like the hardest part to me is getting your sales team spun up on what's the new feature set and like how to actually get it quoted. I feel like a lot of these solutions are fairly similar, and so the technicians usually can figure it out, even if they're not in even if they don't have a ton of experience. Like if they've done one access control system, generally speaking, they can kind of work their way through it. That's on the Brevo side. By the way, Brevo just uh they they're really going all in on the single platform thing. So they integrated with Radionics, which is an intrusion platform, they have an Alula integration,
so they're they're building that up into the single platform thing, but they also integrate with and is now have merged with the video provider we would pick, which is Eagle Eye. Um, and Eagle Eye is great because it is um here's what I'll say there are a lot of platforms out there that have a lot of sexy features, but they don't spend a lot of time and focus on their actual cybersecurity guardrails, like making sure that the infrastructure is really tight. And there have been cloud companies out there, I don't want to say who it is, for cop for cost, sorry, my chest. Oh, you okay? Yeah, I'm good, that have been hacked because they focus all their attention on developing feature set and not on um building out the foundation. And so I think that like if you're gonna if you're gonna do that, like you've got to really focus on the cyber security first, especially with all this AI, like all the injections now that it's just insane. Like you can AIs can hack data centers, it's wild, the things that are happening.
So uh anyway, can we pause? Can we have another pause, a moment of silence for security, security solutions not being secure? And just the deep, deep irony of that. Yeah. Um so, anyways, I digress. Um, and yes, the fact that they merged was really smart. Um, they already were, you know, essentially sister companies, worked closely together, and that just continues to drive towards the unified solution that we want. Um that is uh is probably uh like gold standard in what you know we should all be aiming for.
Yep. I agree. Um
the the intrusion alarm side, uh, I would say DP, they also have made a big push for the unified platform and have been for quite some time. Um and they have kind of been the tip of the spear. Alarms typically are tip of the spear um for security solutions. And so I think it's a natural fit for them to be investing a lot in their access control and their video solutions. Um I I would say this. I would say they're they're they're still catching up a lot on the like video side, and they I think they would say that um they're making a lot of investments, but man, I would not call them out. Like I would not say like they're gonna not make it. Like, I think they're gonna crush it. Like, I I really do believe in DMP as a company. We we've had the like um pleasure of getting to go out to their corporate office and meet their leadership team, and man, they're dialed.
They're awesome. Yeah, they're just dialed. Probably probably my favorite vendor partner, like of anyone we've ever really interacted with. Like, they're just a bunch of gems.
Yeah, they know what they're doing. They're operation, like literally their manufacturing, and like the way they operate the company and the culture is so top-notch that like don't count them out. It is like they're they're gonna they're gonna crush it. I really do believe that. So even if they are slightly behind on the geosurveillance thing, they have a bunch of integrations to video, so like I I think they're gonna be just fine, but I would say DMP is great because they also have onboard access control. So they've got like a really lightweight access control solution that is basically input like IOs on the and like relays on the um intrusion panel, so you can actually use the intrusion panel for access control and then it integrates with Eagle Eye. So it's like dang, you could really do all of it, and it's uh it's super reliable, it's manufactured here in the United States. It and they they have a lot of options for RMR. They've been all in on the RMR game for a while, so they get it, and I would say it's a top-notch solution. So if you're getting into uh if you're getting into the industry, I would definitely consider those three brands. Um, and I I don't think just the product is great. Like what you're gonna hear a lot from us is like, yeah, the technology is really cool, but I'm not really focused on features. I'm can focus on sustainability, on cybersecurity, on support, on easy to easy to quote. Do I believe they're gonna be an enduring company that's gonna be around for the next couple decades, or do I think they're gonna get acquired in the next decade?
Yeah, you know, that's a really good point. And yeah, I I will tag along just DMP support. Um, and there uh is just like world class.
Yeah. And and honestly, just so you and we're on the same page as everybody, like one thing I would avoid is just too many vendors. We've talked about this before. I think too many vendors is tough. I think we're a little bit different space because we do retrofits design builds, so like we're really focused on specifying that for our customers. A lot of times it's already specified, and so you're yeah, especially if you're doing ground up work, you're kind of forced into doing multiple vendors. And so that's that's a good point. Um, yeah, like I could see why you would want to be have access to a lot of that. But I guess what I would say is fine for the ground up stuff where you don't get to pick the solution, but the stuff you do get to pick the solution, pick something that's extremely advantageous to your business and is good for the customer, by the way. That's like good for them. Um, and ultimately something that's gonna drive, you know, um the most enterprise value for your business. So if you're not doing that, man, think about it. Because I think there's a lot of value. Anything else you want to add? Those would be the those would be the big ones.
The only thing I'll add is we are not sponsored by any. We sure aren't. Those and if they want a sponsor, please let us know. Yeah, send us an email. Um, but no, we're we're being very genuine. There's no uh you know outside motive to to talk about those three. We really believe in them and um they've been great partners.
Totally agree. Yeah, absolutely. Uh if y'all have any questions too, let us know. Like we get a lot of questions about who to sell. So um, especially for people that are new in the industry, I'd start there. They're great. Reach out to them, super fast response, usually. So um, yeah, let us know if y'all have questions. Thanks for listening.
