Hardware Stores as Home Service Hubs
How Darryl Rose’s Hardware Store Hero program is turning referrals into revenue
Hardware stores get paid for what they know. Why shouldn’t they also make money based on who they know?
Darryl Rose posed that question to Chicago-area hardware store owners several years ago. Rose ran a handyman business that needed leads to grow, and he knew that one of the most common questions hardware stores get is “Do you know someone who can do a job for me?” Give me the lead and I’ll pay you part of the job’s revenue, Rose said, and often buy the products needed from your store as well.
From this concept has grown Hardware Store Hero, a software platform that retailers employ to help their customers find people who can do typical housing tasks. Last year, Hardware Store Hero references led to connections through which Rose’s home improvement contacts did more than 10,250 projects.
Hardware Store Hero (HSH) works in part because hardware owners can see the potential profit from referrals, but mainly because Rose makes sure those recommended can be trusted. He learned that lesson nearly 20 years ago from Ed Sanders, the owner of his first customer, Millen Hardware in Wilmette, Ill.
Not long after, Rose had created a handyman service in Wilmette called Get Dwell. Sanders noticed the business Rose was doing at Millen Hardware, so he called Rose in. “He said, ‘I want you to be the go-to source for my customers. I can do DIY but not DIFM,’ ” Rose recalled. “So our brochures went up, and they began referring us. For the next two years I focused on what it was to be a service provider to a hardware store owner.”
Rose recognized the need to improve while working with Millen Hardware, spending several years refining skills, learning the business and adapting his approach. Having experience in both home improvement services and hardware retail, Rose notes that while home improvement has its challenges, operating a hardware store presents an even greater level of complexity.
Rose believes a hardware store’s recommendation tops a reference from a friend or family and is more likely to lead to work. Likewise, the store wins because customers get good service that they were wary of providing previously.
Expanding, Solving Service Gaps
After his apprenticeship with Millen Hardware, Rose expanded to other stores in Chicagoland. At one point, he had 50 stores in the system, but closures and mergers have cut the number to 35. They range geographically from Lake Geneva, Wis., to a JC Licht store in Chicago’s South Loop.
Serving all those stores required systems that outside firms couldn’t provide, so Rose’s team created proprietary software. Around 2019, the Hardware Store Hero program was born.
Like many remodelers and handymen, Rose’s team of service providers enjoy doing work with him because they don’t like having to do lots of paperwork and self-marketing. Project managers help scope the project, and the HSH software saves home service providers time by handling tasks like automatically placing projects on electronic calendars and factoring in travel costs. They can focus on what they like: doing the work.
