What does it take to be the best? With 2023 being a record-setting year, SHIELDS® Windshields has proven its vision and core values are continuing to push the company in the right direction – and 2024 has the potential to be even better.
It starts with having a great product that serves more than one purpose. Safety is always a huge benefit, but not to be underestimated is the financial impact of keeping machines in operation and reducing downtime.
This is the third in a series of conversations hosted by Tim Surber about how the business took shape and grew over the past four and a half decades. Second-generation family member and President, Brad Shields, sat down with his daughter, Director Alyxa McKee, during a podcast where they discuss the company’s year and outlook.
https://www.shieldswindshields.blog/this-is-shields-windshields-how-it-all-began/
The big reveal
After receiving form-fit-function approval, SHIELDS® recently rolled out a new window for the Wirtgen Reclaimer. (It’s pronounced “Virtgen”) The company is excited about offering both the door and windshield for this incredible machine.
President Brad Shields explains the importance of it.
“It’s an amazing machine. Everyone’s seen it but you have no idea what it does. It looks like something from the Star Wars movies. It’s really large. It basically drives on the old road and chews it up, sifts through it and spits it out. Some of it is reusable material, so it’s almost like recycling.
“They’re almost like the cartoon world, the Jetson world, where you’d see it chopped up and the road laid right down. It’s amazing and an amazing machine.”
The Reclaimer will benefit greatly from having windows that can stand up to the rigors of working on the road.
The Wirtgen Reclaimer
https://www.wirtgen-group.com/ocs/en-us/wirtgen/wr-250i-88-p/
The benefit of a SHIELDS® window
Safety is always a prominent concern for every window the company produces, but it’s not the only one. Brad explained the different considerations of having a work stoppage and why SHIELDS® puts its windows on machines that aren’t necessitated because of safety.
“Any time glass breaks, there’s a potential for something bad to happen to the operator or someone nearby. But that’s not the one driving this – it’s the harmonics of vibration of this machine.
“But the glass is going to break. It could break on the way to the job site. You’re going to get all kinds of fragments coming up hitting it. Not enough to need a forestry package, but when that window breaks, that machine is done until it gets a replacement – and you’re replacing it on the site. You’re not pulling that thing back to the shop.”
Production has now stopped, and everyone sits there, waiting to get back to work. Expenses mount while deadlines are compromised – and that’s the SHIELDS® focus – to keep you safe and on time.
“Safety is first and we want to keep you on time. We also want better performance. There’s a lot more to it than just ‘this doesn’t break’,” Brad said.
This window is now available for purchase in the company’s growing list of offerings.
How to buy: https://www.shieldswindshields.store/
SHIELDS® has record-setting year
Because of the industry taking note of the benefits of a SHIELDS® window, the company enjoyed a record-setting year.
Director of Operations, Alyx McKee, reviewed the highlights.
“Based on your (Brad’s) tracking, we had eight record months. October was the best month in the company’s history – in sales, as well as volume. None of that usually happens within the same month. So, incredible. Our growth has been tremendous.
“There’s a lot of records, a lot of growth, a lot of change – an exhausting year. But we’re just getting started – and I had a baby in the middle of all that.
“One of the bigger things I was pumped about was that we shipped 20,244 parts last year, which was an eight percent increase in our throughput from the previous year. Our growth has been tremendous,” Alyx shared.
Brad concurred.
“As I mentioned at the company holiday dinner, my proudest thing about that is more than 20,000 operators are staying on time and going home safe – and that’s 20,000 minimum.
“It’s the start of the impact that we can be an integral partner in the world of construction. To not only help them stay safe but stay on time and be a better business.”
SHIELDS® Creating solutions
With the increase in exposure, customers are finding out just how good the windows really are, and they perform as advertised.
In addition to a good marketing plan and business strategy, word of mouth is still one of the best strategies for growth, and SHIELDS® has seen its profile increase within the business community as customers test out the company’s products and share about their experiences.
With an expanded reach has come increased opportunities. SHIELDS® growth as a company has come in both the window market, as well as businesses finding uses for polycarbonate with SUPERCOAT™. The company’s market share has increased dramatically in both areas.
But the goal moving forward is still the same.
Win the window world.
Brad shared his vision for what the company is looking for in 2024 and beyond.
“I’m not competing against the polycarbonate market. I’m not badmouthing anyone else making it. But they don’t do what we do. They certainly don’t do it how we do it.
“I’m after the window world; I’m not after looking to make the next cheapest widget. I’m not trying to do something that’s a quick sale in the sense of let’s just get it done. No, these are solutions, and that’s what we want.”
SHIELDS has record-setting year
A place for the individual contractor
Dominating the market involves more than appealing to big businesses. It means keeping the individual contractor in mind as well.
Brad’s passion continues to be to meet the needs of every sized business.
“I’m romantically still attached more to our individual’s retail, the men and women that work every day. I’d like to take my truck (which is the baddest ass truck on the planet!) and go door-to-door to self-contractors. I still like walking up to construction sites and talking to the workers and seeing their reaction to our windows.”
https://www.shieldswindshields.blog/we-found-a-fraud-website/
Values driving the business, record-setting pace
The company’s multi-faceted approach to becoming the leader in formed and post-coated polycarbonate will also happen because of the vision guiding the process.
Alyx is excited about the SHIELDS® team embodying the company’s mission statement and core values.
“It is our core values that we embody that will empower us to become the world leader.”
Integrity.
Innovation.
Intention.
Those words will be unpacked in days to come, but are the key ingredients to the future of the company’s mission and goals.
The bottom line for SHIELDS®
Brad sums up the business in a nutshell, “If you don’t have the best product, everything else you do is a waste of time. If you have the best product, your marketing is not done, but it’s there.
Alyx concurred.
“We educate, we don’t sell. It goes hand in hand. There is no scheme.”
Contact information
To learn more about shields and our commitment to windshields with performance proven toughness, visit shieldswindshields.com.
For any inquiries or to explore our range of products, call 1-800-554-7527, text us at 765-913-8121 or email info@shieldswindshields.com.
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