Episode 011
Kim Prosser
What happens when you hit a business plateau? In this episode of Women’s Million Dollar Conversations, Alice Tang sits down with Kim Prosser, owner of Precision Garage Door Service. Kim shares her journey of breaking through revenue barriers and achieving a consistent 20% annual growth rate.
Kim’s philosophy is simple: quitting isn’t in her lexicon. She discusses how to depend on yourself, never take “no” for an answer, and find the courage to continue when economic times get tough. If you’ve ever felt paralyzed by a big decision, Kim’s “take it all in and go with your gut” strategy is exactly what you need to hear.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
-Why Kim views “no” as just a temporary roadblock.
-The danger of letting underperforming team members impact your “stars” for too long.
-How to process information quickly and make high-stakes decisions without perfectionism.
-Why self-reliance is the ultimate form of financial security.
"Never take no for an answer. 'No' is just a temporary roadblock for you to figure out a way around."
[00:00:00] Welcome to women’s million dollar conversations with Alice Tang, where we share stories from successful business women who have saved, earn or sold over a million dollars and discuss how they build their success and insights to help you achieve your goals. Now let’s join the conversation.
[00:00:20] Alice Tang: We’re very happy to have Kim Prosser with us today at our Woman Million Dollar Conversation. So welcome Kim. Thank you for spending time with us and sharing your insights so that we can empower the next generation of women to get to the level that they haven’t dream of. Welcome, Kim.
[00:00:42] Kim Prosser: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:44] Alice Tang: Sure. Kim, Would you tell us your your company your industry, how long you have been there? Maybe share a little bit about what your company do.
[00:00:52] Kim Prosser: Sure. My name is Kim Prosser and I own Precision Garage Door Service in Tigard, Oregon.
We are a home [00:01:00] improvement based type of company, general contracting. We do focused on residential garage doors, do repairs and replacements, and opening systems for garage doors, primarily homeowners.
[00:01:12] Alice Tang: Excellent. I heard 70% of our population own homes. So your market is huge.
[00:01:18] Kim Prosser: Own a garage? I’m your girl!
[00:01:20] Alice Tang: Yes. Yes. They need garage door and the real door so that nobody walk in and out freely.
[00:01:26] Kim Prosser: Nobody uses the front door anymore now. Yeah. We’ve been a business for over 19 years.
[00:01:31] Alice Tang: Oh, great. Awesome. Thank you once again. Now we are focusing on talking about revenue. So could you just think about how long does it take for your company to get to your first million dollar of revenue?
[00:01:44] Kim Prosser: That took probably the first three years or so to get there. In the business. And then we plateaued for many years at a midpoint, and it wasn’t until the last three or four years that we broke over some of the barriers that we had [00:02:00] and have grown. About 20% a year.
[00:02:03] Alice Tang: Wow. A 20% growth is way more than the standard and poor index would return on average, including the ups and downs. That’s why we want to do business. So thank you for serving our community.
[00:02:16] So I’m gonna take you back to the time when you just hit your million dollar of revenue. How does it make you feel? Tell us about your emotion. Tell us about your feeling.
[00:02:26] Kim Prosser: I honestly, I don’t think it was a, it was it wasn’t really a mark that I recognized. I guess I’m always looking for the next level and don’t really sit down and pat myself on the back for the level it’s achieved. And I’ve been in businesses before that with more revenue than that I don’t, honestly, it wasn’t a big deal.
[00:02:45] Alice Tang: Oh, okay. You were in business before you’ve touched that million dollar before already. So it’s not something that is super new, super exciting, but it’s great to get to that landmark so that you can reframe what’s possible, [00:03:00] continuing to do what you do, and now you have 20% growth anyway.
Very good. So would you mind sharing the bias that you have felt and overcome or have not overcome still, on your road to success.
[00:03:16] Kim Prosser: For me, I think that the thing I’ve experienced most is a gender bias. Starting early on, raised in the sixties and seventies, at least in my world, you’re kind of raised with the notion that if you really want financial security, you need to marry well.
And I think that was a philosophy that my, my mother was raised in and it got passed on to us in the sixties and seventies even. I remember in the seventies in high school and talking about, women’s liberation, burning bras, all these things. And there was always this pat on the head. It’s like, well, you know, I believe in women’s rights, but you’re not one of those women’s libbers are you? And there’s just that male bias that you grow up with and you don’t really realize [00:04:00] how it is just invaded your thought process on what you think is possible. This growing up with, the only way to really be secure is to marry well is just not true.
And we were raised with it. We were raised in that environment, it’s philosophy and it was wrong. Even to this day, women don’t have equal rights. And hopefully young women now as to what’s happened in the last few weeks, are realizing that if it’s not in the Constitution, you don’t have it. And I think that we have got to do something very strong in this country. Give women equal protection, equal footing because we do not have it. It can be torn away. We’re protected by basically a patchwork court of local and state and federal laws. And those, as we have now seen, can be torn away at any moment.
And I don’t think women will be able to overcome the male bias until we actually fight and make it so.
[00:04:54] Alice Tang: We all, have our previous generation somewhat pave the path for [00:05:00] us so that our path is little flatter, a little smoother. I think we owe it to our next generation to do the same for them. So thank you for sharing your thoughts.
All right. The next question is about your number one piece of advice that you would give to another woman who aspires to be a Kim . So what would you say to them?
[00:05:21] Kim Prosser: I have two bottom lines. One is I never take no. No is just a temporary roadblock and you figure out a way around it. And two, you never quit. It’s not even in lexicon. It’s not a possibility. When things are bad or tough economic times. You just figure out you do what you gotta do to stay alive and to make it work.
And don’t depend on anyone else. Depend on yourself. You have what it takes.
[00:05:46] Alice Tang: Very good. I think independence in terms of I can make it by myself is important. I’m also married like you and a marriage it’s just like any other relationship. You have some challenging time or rough time. You have some [00:06:00] very good time. So in the rough time, I think one of the things that I learned from my mom is you always want to have your blue sky. So yes, it’s rough. Yes, you probably prefer to have a relationship. However, if you’re pushed to a corner that you got to choose between, certain important things to you, whatever those are, and your relationship, you know that you’re resilient because , you can.
So, Long winded about me. It’s about Kim in this interview.
[00:06:33] Kim Prosser: No, that’s I agree with you. I agree with your mother.
[00:06:36] Alice Tang: Yes. How do you process a piece of very big decision, like when the stacks are very high? Do you have a process or do you go with you gut feeling? Do you walk in the woods or take a shower just like one of our guests?
[00:06:49] Kim Prosser: I think that I take a lot in. I’m a big big study and observer of things, and so a lot of the way I take in information is just listening in a [00:07:00] room to, whether it’s my team, of ideas or whatever. And so one is listening and taking in as much information or if it’s something you’re not familiar with, go educate yourself really quickly and take it all in and then process it and then go with your gut.
I’ve learned over time, it’s the, it’s my best judgment and best feeling. If it really doesn’t feel good, even if everybody else is saying to do it, I won’t do it. And I can make a decision pretty quickly based on as much information as I can gather. But I think that, once you make the decision go, if you made the wrong decision downstream and you need to fix it, so what. I think it’s more important to take as much information, make the best decision you can at the time, but you can’t beat yourself up if something changes. I think people get paralyzed trying to make a decision because they have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to be perfect, you do the best with what you have at the moment of the time and you go.
[00:07:53] Alice Tang: That’s right.
Especially in business, because sometimes a decision made too late. It is not a good decision even [00:08:00] it would have been a good decision like how many days ago? How many months ago?
So I really love your approach. Collect as much information as possible. Think about this, analyze it, and then make sure the gut feeling is sitting right and then move. And do not worry so much about a good decision, a bad decision. We’ll find out. That’s why we have something called fine tuning. Fine tuning right? Who said You can’t be wrong. Nobody’s perfect, and no decision is perfect.
[00:08:29] Kim Prosser: No.
[00:08:30] Alice Tang: Awesome. Thank you. And of course 19 years in your current business and you own your previous business before, there are times when business or life becomes so tough that we want to quit. What keeps you going .
[00:08:45] Kim Prosser: I don’t know what keeps me going. We’ve gone been through many recessions and this, almost didn’t make it in the present business we have.
I just I don’t know what it is. It’s, I don’t have any magic thing. It’s just like I said to begin with, but [00:09:00] quitting is not an option. It’s just not, in my world. So you just keep figuring out how to make it work or fix it or change it or do something different. I do know that if you keep doing the same thing and it’s not working, and you are afraid to make a change or say you’re wrong, or whatever it is, you will fail.
But if you recognize the situation and make a new strategy and go you’ll get through it. But quitting isn’t really an option.
[00:09:27] Alice Tang: Quitting is not an option. I love it. I love it. Just use another direction to approach the same problem if it didn’t work and don’t just being stuck.
[00:09:36] Kim Prosser: Yes.
[00:09:36] Alice Tang: At the same place, using the same method. Of course, we wouldn’t make it work because it wouldn’t, it didn’t work for the few times already.
[00:09:43] Kim Prosser: Yeah.
[00:09:43] Alice Tang: What is one thing you would do differently? Or is there any knowing what you know now 19 years ago?
[00:09:50] Kim Prosser: I think that if anything, I tend to let, either some, maybe a person not performing well or circumstances or situations get in the way sometimes, and I let [00:10:00] things go too long. I’ve definitely learned with a good high performing team that even though there may be someone who’s not performing well and you want to give them every benefit of the doubt and try hard to turn things around. At some point you cross a line where you’re now impacting the rest of your team.
And so I’ve learned to listen to the team and if you’ve gotta make a painful choice or let someone go or change something, behavior that’s not working for the rest of the team, you gotta do it cause you really have to focus on your stars and not impair them by hanging onto someone who’s not performing
[00:10:36] Alice Tang: Yes.
[00:10:36] Kim Prosser: As painful as that is.
[00:10:38] Alice Tang: Yeah, make that decision. Copying what you just said. Make that decision. Listen to the people who trustworthy around you, cuz you wouldn’t have your team around you if none of those people aligned with your values and can run together with you. So if one of them is not performing of course we talk about it, but if it doesn’t change the situation, when it become an [00:11:00] impact to the team being a great decision maker, you make a decision very fast just now you you’re gonna take care of it. And perhaps that staff or team member would thank us too because it’s a, truly everybody tend to do better, but if they can’t, probably it’s a mismatch.
Awesome. I have two more questions, so I’m coming.
[00:11:20] Kim Prosser: Okay.
[00:11:20] Alice Tang: Because this is a woman’s million dollar conversation I want to know what’s the value of money for you?
So some people say, Okay it’s really for providing for my family. Some people say it’s really financial security or financial independence. Or fearful of not having. So there’s many of them. So what is the money value for Kim?
[00:11:44] Kim Prosser: That’s a complicated question, but I think that, the money is a means to an end.
It is, for me, it’s probably independence and security or what it represents. Be able to be self-reliant and to be fairly independent and go your own path. I think [00:12:00] it’s probably what it represents to me.
[00:12:02] Alice Tang: Thank you, Kim. Last question. What is the best advice or the worst advice that has huge impact in your life? Would you share one or both?
[00:12:12] Kim Prosser: I think it’s probably this quote, which is sitting right on my wall here at my desk by Winston Churchill, and I’m sure everybody’s heard it, but success is not final, failure is not fatal. It’s the courage to continue that counts.
[00:12:27] Alice Tang: Wow.
[00:12:27] Kim Prosser: That’s that’s just, really speaks a lot to me and I believe it.
[00:12:33] Alice Tang: I believe it too. Success is not final, failure is not fail. It’s the courage to pick it up from there and continue.
[00:12:40] Kim Prosser: And continue. Yeah.
[00:12:41] Alice Tang: Awesome. Today I want to thank Kim a lot for granting as a 10, 15 minutes time to just learn a little bit about her mindset and how she become who she is.
Thank you, Kim.
[00:12:54] Kim Prosser: Thank you. Good conversation. Thanks.
Kim began her career in the construction industry, and has worked in many types of business during her career. She met Stan when she went to work for him at his former business in 1987. They have been working together ever since, married in 1997 and in 2003 purchased Precision Door together. She enjoys working on our business and seeing our Precision team grow together successfully. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with my family, golfing, cooking, music, traveling, wine tasting and checking off her bucket list. One of her proudest accomplishments was earning her Private Pilot license in 2001.