Podcast: Everyday Excellence with Todd Baldwin- How Tolbert Garage Door Conquered North Texas
Not many people grow up dreaming about garage doors. But for Colby Tolbert, founder and owner of Tolbert Garage Door, the industry isn’t just a livelihood – it’s a legacy in the making.
Born into a family with roots in the trade, Colby went from loading trucks in a warehouse to running one of the most recognisable home service brands in the Dallas- Fort Worth Metroplex. In a recent episode of the Everyday Excellence podcast with host Todd Baldwin, he talked candidly about how he built the business – from a DBA filed in 2014 to a company that now services all of North Texas, holds nearly 1,200 Google reviews, and has been named the official garage door company of the Texas Rangers.
Along the way, he navigated employee theft that nearly derailed everything, resisted lucrative buyout offers from private equity, and built a marketing strategy that defies conventional wisdom at every turn. Here’s what home service business owners – and anyone thinking about getting into the trades – can take from his journey.
From Warehouse Kid to Second- Generation Entrepreneur
Colby’s entrepreneurial foundation was laid early. His mother owns her own business. His grandfather ran Antique Auto Supply in Arlington – a classic car parts store that was featured on Texas Country Reporter – and would take young Colby to swap meets and teach him the fundamentals of selling and showing up.
But it was his father who handed him the most direct pathway into the industry. A well- known name on the wholesale and distribution side of the garage door market in DFW, his dad meant Colby grew up inside warehouses – loading trucks, cutting windows and doors, insulating panels, managing facilities. By the time he was considering his next move in his early twenties, the technical knowledge was already second nature. The only question was when.
He registered his DBA in 2014, but by his own admission was “halfway in, halfway out” until 2017, when he fully committed and went all in on Tolbert Garage Door.
The ‘Why’ That Drives Everything
When asked what finally pushed him to make the leap, Colby’s answer had nothing to do with market timing or exit multiples. It was entirely personal.
“I was the one pair of shoes kind of all year long kind of kid,” he says. “A lot of my friends – real big reason to my success – just took care of me, giving me clothes and shirts. I wanted to change that legacy.”
His goal wasn’t just to build a profitable business. He wanted to create something that would outlast him – a family enterprise that would still be operating generations from now. “Someday someone’s going to look at a picture and say, ‘Who is that?’ And they’re going to say, ‘That’s your great- great- great- great grandpa. He started all this.’ That was my why through all the hard times.”
That legacy mindset has also shaped his response to acquisition overtures. He’s been approached by manufacturers, private equity firms, and competing garage door companies – and has turned every one of them down. But he doesn’t dismiss the approaches either. “I use it as a pat on the back that people are seeing what you’re doing and it’s working.”
Build Commercial Before You Chase Residential
One of the less obvious strategic choices Colby made in the early years was to focus on the commercial side of the business well before aggressively pursuing residential customers. Today the split is roughly 50/50. But in the beginning, commercial work dominated for a practical reason: it generates predictable, recurring revenue that funds everything else.
“In the first five years, it’s a lot of maintaining relationships and developing them on the commercial side,” he explains. “And as you start to gain more and more money, that’s when you can switch over and go after the general public.”
That discipline – resisting the temptation to go after everything at once – allowed him to build a financial base before scaling his residential marketing efforts. It’s a patient, staged approach that many early- stage service businesses overlook.
Why a Physical Showroom Still Matters
In an era where many service companies run entirely out of a truck, Tolbert Garage Door has a proper brick- and- mortar showroom on I- 30 in Mesquite. He describes it as one of only two garage door companies in the region with a true retail presence.
“Garage door is an unlicensed industry, so a lot of people just run out of their house with a truck,” Colby says. “Having a location – it’s not going to do anything that first year. We’re a call- to- action business. They’ve got to see that building, and then when the garage door breaks, that’s when they call us. After six years here, it just creates a great sense of establishment.”
The logic is straightforward. A physical location builds trust in a way that a website alone can’t. Homeowners know exactly where to find you if something goes wrong. It signals permanence in an industry full of transient operators. And sitting on one of the most heavily travelled interstates in Texas, the showroom doubles as a continuous advertisement.
Morning Meetings, 4:30 AM Starts, and the Culture Behind the Brand
Colby doesn’t allow technicians to dispatch remotely or work from satellite locations. Every working day begins at the Mesquite office with a morning meeting, and his reasoning is as much about leadership as logistics.
“It’s really hard to set morale or culture if they’re not coming in where you can talk to them and build them up,” he says. “How do I find out one of my guys had a problem at home last night if he’s not standing in front of me in the morning?”
To make this work without burning his team out on commute times, Colby himself arrives at 4:30 or 5:00 AM. Those early hours are when he handles his own administrative and operational work – so that by the time the team walks in, he can give them his full attention. “When they walk in, they get all my energy. What’s going on? How was your night?”
The approach is deliberately old- school – and deliberately intentional. People who feel seen before they leave for a job are more likely to represent your brand the way you’d want them to.
Hire for Character. Train for Skill.
If there’s one hiring principle Colby returns to more than any other, it’s this: stop searching for technicians who already know the job. Hire for character and teach the technical skills afterward.
“A lot of companies hire garage door technicians with backgrounds in the field,” he says. “That’s fine in a crunch. But what I’ve learned is to hire people off their character. You can train garage door. You can’t train who someone is.”
His preference is for younger hires – people in their early twenties who haven’t yet acquired bad habits from other employers and who can be genuinely shaped into the kind of professionals he wants knocking on customers’ doors. He looks for physical capability (commercial work can be demanding), but the attribute that weights heaviest in an interview is simple courtesy.
“‘Yes sir, no sir, yes ma’am, please, thank you’ – those four or five words will open doors for you. You’d be astonished how much they can do.”
Once hired, team members are brought into what Colby describes as a “village” culture. “I don’t care if you’re the mayor of the village or the fisherman – we all drink from the same well. If someone dilutes it, we all die. If someone drinks too much, we all die. It has to be a good ecosystem.” When that ecosystem works, the customers feel it too.
Retaining Good People: Insurance, PTO, and Surprise Raises
Building a great team is only half the challenge. Keeping them is harder. Colby has developed a retention philosophy that combines meaningful financial benefits with genuine respect for people’s lives outside work.
After two years of service, he covers 100% of an employee’s health insurance – not a partial contribution, all of it. “They’ve given me two years, I know they’re committed to me. I’m going to commit to them and their family.” It’s a substantial cost, but he views it as both a loyalty reward and a retention anchor.
On time off, he runs an open policy. “You’re not going to miss dads and donuts at your kid’s school. Just go.” The trust- based approach avoids the bureaucracy of formal PTO tracking and signals that the business values the whole person, not just the worker.
For performance recognition, Colby favours the unexpected reward over the annual review cycle. “I’ll walk into a staff meeting, someone just did something outstanding, and I give them a $3- an- hour raise on the spot. The morale in the building just goes up and everybody else starts working even harder – because they don’t know when it’s coming.” The unpredictability keeps the entire team motivated year- round.
The Hard Lesson: Employee Theft and the Systems That Prevent It
In 2023, Tolbert Garage Door was riding high. The company had been named the official garage door company of the Texas Rangers, had expanded to two locations with 15 employees, and Colby had placed enormous trust in a general manager who had been with him for four years.
Then came the discovery. That manager – along with four technicians and a front- desk employee – had been operating a shadow business under the Tolbert name for roughly two years. They would arrive at jobs presenting themselves as Tolbert representatives, collect payment, and pocket it. In some cases they charged customers more than Tolbert’s standard rates, while Colby absorbed all the costs of acquiring the lead, dispatching the crew, and providing the materials.
“I would have taken a bullet for that man the day before,” Colby says. “The day after? Different story entirely.”
The experience was devastating – but not fatal. And the rebuild has been transformative. Tolbert Garage Door moved from paper- based processes to a fully digitalised operation: CRM software, point- of- sale systems, GPS tracking in every vehicle, cameras throughout the fleet.
“Put the ‘beware of dog’ sign up before you get broken into. Put those cameras up before you get robbed.” In other words, build your accountability systems before you need them – because the best theft prevention is making theft difficult to contemplate in the first place.
A Marketing Strategy That Ignores Conventional Wisdom
Here’s where Colby’s approach becomes genuinely unusual. Despite operating a substantial business across one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, he has never run a paid digital advertisement.
No Google Ads. No Local Service Ads. No third- party lead services. No paid social.
“For the first time in business history, hustle and an organic social media presence can do about the same as money – and that’s never been true before.”
Instead, his marketing rests on three pillars:
Radio: The Long Game
For six years, Tolbert Garage Door has been a consistent presence on 105.3 The Fan, a DFW sports talk radio station. The operative word is consistent. A three- month or four- month radio campaign, Colby argues, is essentially pointless for a service business. Unlike a burger joint – where a good ad can bring someone in today – the garage door on someone’s house might be working perfectly right now. Brand awareness needs to be built long before the moment of need arrives.
“After being on there six years, it’s just established us in that community. Cops, firefighters, construction workers – they tend to leave the radio on all day. It’s a perfect storm.”
The station’s core listeners – known internally as “Tolos” – listen with the kind of loyalty and attentiveness that digital advertisers can only dream of. Colby has developed genuine personal relationships with the hosts, hosted multiple live broadcasts at his showroom, and become part of the fabric of DFW sports culture. None of that happened with a single campaign. All of it happened through six years of showing up.
Community Involvement: The Grassroots Approach
Colby speaks at high schools. He sponsors youth sports. He attends the Mesquite Rodeo every Saturday over the summer. He is woven into the life of his community not as a calculated marketing exercise, but because it’s genuinely who he is.
“If you really dive into the community, when it’s time for someone to need a garage door, they’ll look for you specifically.” The practical result: instead of competing with anonymous competitors for “garage door repair in Mesquite” search queries, his customers often go directly to Google and type “Tolbert Garage Door.” That’s brand power – and as Colby points out, direct traffic is entirely free.
Organic Social Media: Hustle Over Budget
Colby handles a significant portion of the company’s social media himself. The content is authentic – event coverage, community involvement, behind- the- scenes footage – not polished agency creative designed to hit algorithm targets. The goal is genuine presence, not manufactured reach.
His Google Business Profile, approaching 1,200 reviews at the time of the conversation, represents years of disciplined follow- up with satisfied customers. Those reviews compound over time and drive organic local search visibility without a dollar spent in advertising.
What Every Homeowner Should Know Before Hiring a Garage Door Company
With years of experience watching how the industry operates from the inside, Colby offers homeowners practical, candid advice before they commit to any garage door company.
Get multiple quotes. Don’t assume the first result on Google is the best operator. “If you came in with nothing but honesty, respect, and no pushy sales tactics, those other quotes sell the job for you.”
Verify the address is real. The DFW market – like many large metros – has been infiltrated by companies that game Google Maps with fake satellite office listings that exist only to rank for local search terms. Before hiring anyone, confirm the location actually exists. Drive past it if necessary.
Sort reviews by newest – not highest. The algorithm surfaces reviews that make companies look good. Clicking to see the most recent reviews, or the lowest- rated, gives a far more accurate picture of current service quality. Some operators are actively removing or burying negative reviews before they can be seen.
Advice for Anyone Considering the Trades
On the question of career paths, Colby is clear: the skilled trades have never offered better opportunities than they do right now, and anyone willing to put in the work can build something meaningful.
His advice for getting started:
Don’t fixate on your starting wage. Go into a job willing to work as hard as you possibly can – even for less than you think you’re worth. “Make yourself so invaluable to that company that they can’t function without you. When you’ve done that, you’ll get exactly what you ask for.”
Find your ‘why’ before you need it. There will be days you want to quit. Weeks where it all feels too hard. Without a deeper reason for doing it – family, legacy, community, faith – those moments can end good businesses before they’ve had a chance to become great ones. “My why is too great. Nobody’s ever going to beat me with it.”
Give back without expecting anything in return. Not as a marketing strategy. Just as a way of being. The community you invest in will, in time, invest in you – but only if the giving is genuine.
What’s Next for Tolbert Garage Door
Looking ahead, Colby’s ambitions are as personal as they are commercial. His oldest daughter is 16; within the next five years, he hopes to be building the business alongside his children – the family legacy he set out to create when he filed that DBA over a decade ago.
The desire to expand geographically remains, but he’s recalibrated after 2023. With eight million people living in the DFW Metroplex and the region still growing, the opportunity in his own backyard is enormous. “Everybody’s coming to Dallas for a reason. I’m already here with a hell of a head start. It’s about solidifying this region and holding down the Alamo.”
A strategic partnership with the right capital partner remains a possibility – but only under conditions that preserve the family character of the business. This was never going to be just a transaction.
What the Tolbert Story Really Teaches
Colby Tolbert didn’t build his business by outspending competitors. He built it by showing up – at 4:30 in the morning, at the high school auditorium, at the Saturday rodeo, and at every job in between – with consistency and genuine care for the people around him.
For home service business owners, the lessons are transferable and hard- won: build commercial revenue first to fund your residential growth, invest in operational systems before you need them, hire for character and train for skill, and market where your community actually lives. Most importantly, know why you’re doing it – because the why is what carries you through the days when nothing else will.
Tolbert Garage Door serves all of North Texas, including the greater Dallas- Fort Worth Metroplex, from their showroom at 3916 I- 30 in Mesquite. Visit TolbertGarageDoor.com or call 469-909-0956. You’ll also find them most Saturday evenings at the Mesquite Rodeo.
