How many times have you come across this quote, usually misattributed to Albert Einstein or Benjamin Franklin?  Almost every week, I’ll bet.   But, it really hits home when talking about basement waterproofing and most other home improvement marketing.  I should know, I owned and operated a basement waterproofing company, just like you’re doing now, for twenty years, in the St. Louis Missouri and Southern Illinois areas.

I quickly learned that, unless I had something unique about my company, something that my competition didn’t have or couldn’t easily duplicate, I was destined to forever compete “only on price” with all of my equally ordinary competition.  And, as we both know, when you’re considered a commodity by your potential customers, then you will compete only on price.

What If
You had a “unique and exclusive” method
to waterproof basements that could:

·     Minimize the destruction to your customer’s home
·     Save you up to 50% of your labor costs
·     Save you close to 50% of your total installation costs

Ten years ago I was in the 17th year of owning my waterproofing/foundation repair business. I was experiencing the same production headaches you’re having today; work comp injuries, government regulations, rising health care costs, difficulty finding intelligent hard-working employees, inability to pay higher wages because of slim profit margins (remember, my company was considered a commodity and was competing on price).  I just had to come up with a better way of doing business. 

During that time, I became active in the National Association of Waterproofing and Structural Repair Contractors (NAWSRC) and eventually was elected to the Board of Directors and held the office of Treasurer for several years.  While a member of that organization, I spoke with several members who claimed to have patented new technology which would revolutionize the waterproofing industry, but it almost always turned out to be just another shape of drainage pipe.  Hardly anything revolutionary.

For years l had been trying to find ways to use technology and innovation to make waterproofing less labor-intensive, and I had minor successes, making a few small changes here and there.  But, the job was still extremely physically challenging.  I would watch my crews jackhammer out all that concrete, just so we could dig a trench alongside the footing, install a pipe, and then cover it all up with concrete again.  It seemed like there had to be a better way.

I began looking at other industries and studying how technology was being used to produce revolutionary changes, particularly in the field of medicine.  Arthroscopic surgery intrigued me, and when I began applying the concept of  “minimally invasive surgery” to basement waterproofing, I knew I had found the solution to my problem.   I eventually developed a method to waterproof basements using this “minimally invasive” concept and had that method protected with U.S. patent number 6,230,468 on May 15, 2001.  I encourage you to go to the Patent page on this site or go online and become familiar with my patent and gain an understanding of how my method can drastically reduce the amount of concrete breaking, removal, and replacement, as well as the associated labor and materials.  You’ll notice from the patent diagrams and explanations, that I have addressed all the ways water can enter a basement; wall cracks, water under the floor and water at the cove.

So, now I had a unique, patented, and revolutionary “conceptual method” to waterproof basements, everything I would need to separate myself from the competition.  Everything, that is, except the tools and equipment to actually implement the patented method.  All I had to do was find the time to figure out how to go about digging under a basement floor from a small access hole, how to remove the “spoils”, as well as a few other technical issues, and I would be “good to go”. Not a small task.

Back in 1994 I had picked up the Gutter Helmet line of gutter protection, which fit in quite well with my existing foundation repair business.  By 2002, I was in my ninth year as a Gutter Helmet dealer and this business was really taking off.  But think about it, Gutter Helmet (back in 2002) still had patent protection and I had almost no competition.  I literally owned the St. Louis market and I was devoting most of my time to Gutter Helmet.  I was among their top five dealers nationwide.  The profit margins were much better than my ordinary basement waterproofing line and I had fewer headaches.  So, in 2003, after 20 years in the waterproofing business, I sold off my waterproofing/foundation repair division, except for this patent, and decided to devote all my time to Gutter Helmet (only to again become the owner of a commodity when the Gutter Helmet patents started expiring within the next few years).

The agreement to sell my waterproofing business prohibited me from competing in the waterproofing business for five years. In 2008, nearing the age of 60, I decided to seek a buyer for my Gutter Helmet business and spend whatever time and money I had left attempting to complete my work on the patented system.  I was fortunate enough to find a buyer for my Gutter Helmet business and, in April of 2009, that sale was completed.  Since then, I’ve attended many trade shows including World of Concrete, the International Construction and Utility Equipment Exposition, and the Pumper and Cleaner Environmental Expo, looking for the equipment I would need, or for ideas I could use, to develop my own equipment.  For the next 18+ months I spent all my time and a lot of my money (well into six-figures) designing, testing, re-designing and re-testing the parts and equipment for my minimally invasive basement waterproofing system.  And, in early October of 2010, I finally put all the pieces of this puzzle together, except one. 

At my age, I have no desire to get back into the basement waterproofing business, or any home improvement business for that matter.  I’ve already had a lifetime dose of employees, regulations, taxes,  you know what I’m talking about.  So, now I have this patented method and the equipment necessary to implement this method, but I don’t  have a business in which to use it.  That’s where you, the final piece to the puzzle, come in. 

I will be licensing my patented method to contractors just like you throughout the U.S.   I plan to eventually have at least one licensee in every suitable market, and, based on population and the number of licenses you have, you can have exclusivity in your market if you act soon, before a competitor has a license.   We still have ten years left on this patent, that’s ten years of having something unique that your competition doesn’t have.  In addition, I plan to apply for a patent on the Horizontal Excavation Machine (HEM) which I have designed and, if awarded, that should buy us twenty years of exclusivity.

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