Phillip Gehrig

CEO
The Home Doctor
Falls Church, Va.
Projected 2023 Revenue: $10 million

On being successful: I think it’s just not giving up. It seems like a cliche answer, but I was a one-man show and there were multiple times when I almost went out of business.

At one point about a year in, I wrote an email to my previous employer asking for my job back. But I never sent the email. It’s still in my draft folder to this day. I kept fighting and fighting. It got exponentially easier over the past three to four years.

On virtual consultations: Most of our competitors stopped doing virtual consultations altogether and we’ve taken advantage of that with our marketing. We’ve recently started doing TV commercials and it’s me basically calling out our competition for making the process of getting a quote more complicated than it should be. I say that instead of sending out a high-pressure salesman to your home, we use state-of-the-art technology to gather the measurements and connect with you virtually.

We’re still doing about 60% of our sales calls in the home, but 40% are now done virtually. We’re not only thinking about how the existing homeowner buys. We’re also thinking about how their kids are going to buy. And their kids are on tablets right now. They’re not going to want me to come into their houses when they’re homeowners. It might not be for another 20 years, but if we’re looking forward to the future, I think that virtual consultations for home remodeling will continue to grow.

Book recommendation: How to Win Friends & Influence People

Unveiling the Forty Under 40 Class of 2023