From White Box to Big Box and Beyond
The Beam Team Construction, Inc. offers full, unique range of commercial contracting services
“We do well with change; we embrace it,” says Greg Hall, President of The Beam Team Construction, Inc., summing up the business philosophy that has guided this Alpharetta, Georgia-based company from its origins as a manufacturers’ representative through multiple transformations.
The company now offers merchandising, installation, interior construction and general contracting services to retail, restaurant, hotel, banking, commercial real estate and warehouse clients across the United States. During the offseason it employs between 300 and 400 people, with this number approaching 600 during peak periods.
From the Front Line Forward
In 1984, Greg’s father, Harvey Hall, and oldest brother, Jay Hall, founded Pro Marketing Sales, Inc., a company that represented manufacturers’ products, which it sold to hundreds of hardware and home improvement stores.
“Manufacturers’ reps get paid by commission only, so if you don’t sell it, you don’t get paid,” says Rick Hall, Greg’s brother and Chief Administrative Officer of Hall Boys Holdings, the umbrella company for The Beam Team Construction, Inc., Pro Marketing Sales, Inc. and Hallway Plumbing, LLC.
This compensation structure combined with the advent of big-box home centers prompted Pro Marketing Sales to expand its services toward the front line.
“When big-box retailers entered the market, they changed the dynamics of how home improvement stores were operated,” Greg says. “Before that, manufacturers’ reps mainly sold products to mom-and-pop hardware stores. We started sending people into Home Depot and other big-box stores to fight for shelf space and do the merchandising, just like in the grocery industry.” The company’s site teams labeled and positioned products, mounted signage and built and set up displays to help maximize sales.
The Birth of The Beam Team
“Home Depot called us The Beam Team because we were always moving the orange beams that go across their pallet racking to reset and remerchandise the products we represented,” Rick says. “Then, Home Depot’s leadership changed, and they decided to work with factory representatives. They still needed help with what we’d been doing, though, so they hired us directly to work in the stores.”
In 2003, the six Hall Brothers—Jay, Rick, Greg, Bill, Tim and Joel—and their friend, Jim Horton, founded The Beam Team, Inc. (which is now known as The Beam Team Construction, Inc.). The firm continued to do what Home Depot called “combined resets”—projects that required both resetting and merchandising services.
“We call these installations,” Rick says. A few years later, when Home Depot internalized these services, The Beam Team was already doing installations for other retail customers.
Expanding Services to Meet New Needs
“The recession led to another big change,” Greg says. “Many retailers got rid of their construction departments because they weren’t building new stores. They were investing in their existing stores, though, and needed companies they trusted to expand the services they offered. We saw this opportunity and jumped on it. We started by doing some of the interior finish work. In 2014, we formed The Beam Team Construction, Inc.” This company now holds general contracting licenses in every state except Hawaii, Wisconsin, Utah and New Mexico.
While this path to becoming a general contractor is rare, it offers several unique benefits.
“We understand how to best serve our customers’ businesses,” says Lauren Hall, Marketing Manager for The Beam Team. “For example, one of our department heads, Tim Cahill, developed and implemented a creative system for labeling and setting up a Home Depot store. He shares this information with other installation companies. We want our customers to be successful regardless of who’s doing the work.”
Rick elaborates: “Everything we do focuses on the convenience of our customer’s customer—the person staying in a hotel, shopping in a store or eating in a restaurant. We keep the job site clean and neat. We make sure guests can get into an elevator or down an aisle or hallway easily.”
The Positive Loop
This is all part of what Rick calls “creating a positive loop”—doing things that foster a good experience for customers and yield positive returns.
“We are always looking for ways to improve our process,” Rick says. “For example, when we were installing a vinyl shed at each of about 2,000 Home Depot stores, the initial plan involved constructing a wooden platform with two-by-fours and plywood,” Rick says. “That took almost a whole day. Then we’d assemble the shed and place it on the platform. One of our guys figured out how to make two cuts in a four-by-eight and a couple other cuts in the two-by-fours so that we could build a platform in a couple of hours. We went from putting one shed in every two days to installing two to three a day.”
Rick and Greg are especially impressed with how The Beam Team’s employees find creative ways to put the firm’s business philosophy into practice. “They see an opportunity to do the right thing and they do it,” Rick says. “For example, one of our guys who was working on remodeling the lobby of The Hilton Garden Inn in Kennesaw, Georgia, saw a woman struggling with her suitcase. He walked over and helped her put it in her car with her other luggage. She mentioned this in her positive review of the hotel, and we received a thank-you letter from the hotel’s manager.”
Mobilizing to Tackle a Crisis
This total commitment to providing quality customer service travels with The Beam Team employees, even when they are thousands of miles from home and dealing with a crisis.
“One of our proudest moments was when we sent a team to repair a Home Depot store in St. Thomas [in the U.S. Virgin Islands] after it was hit hard by Hurricanes Irma and Maria,” Greg says. “Getting this store back up and running was a priority because people on the island needed supplies and equipment to repair their homes and businesses. Our team worked over the holidays, refusing to come home until the job was done.” This included clearing out all merchandise, fixtures and equipment that had been damaged, cleaning up and repairing the building’s interiors, installing new pallet racking and restocking the store.
“This was hard, hard work and there was limited access to food and water because almost everything was wiped out,” Rick adds. “There was no air conditioning or television at the hotel where our guys were staying because the generators were being used for more critical purposes. Our crew took a bus to and from the site each day. When they realized the bus driver didn’t have power in his home, they all pitched in and bought a generator for him.”
Helping Others in Need
The Beam Team employees are proud to be in a family-owned, family-focused business. Lauren says one aspect she likes best is that people she works with “genuinely care for and help each other.”
In fact, helping employees and supporting the causes that matter to them is a company policy.
“If our employees want to raise money for a charity or community group, we often match that amount,” Rick says. “If they encounter a personal crisis and we can help, we do.” For example, when an employee’s home flooded after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, the company contributed funds to help this family recover from the damage.
In addition to sponsoring fundraisers, The Beam Team’s leaders look for opportunities to provide hands-on help. They formed a partnership with Rainbow Village, a local charity, when they learned it had facilities in need of repair.
“This organization provides housing, child care and job training for single moms,” Lauren says. “When our team was repairing and finishing walls in two apartments and the day care center, one of our guys noticed some plumbing problems. So, he fixed those, too.”
Impact Services, Inc. provides similar services (housing and job training) to veterans and others seeking to re-enter the workforce. In 2019, when The Beam Team’s leaders learned Impact Services needed help creating a new library and TV room at its facility in Philadelphia, they sent a team to complete these projects.
A letter from Blair A. Tiger, Director of Veteran Services for Impact Services, describes what “a tremendous impact” this project has had on the building’s residents. “We struggle to meet the needs of our aging facilities,” he writes, “so The Beam Team’s generosity filled a gap where we have a dire need.”
Blending Traditional Talent with New Expertise
The growth resulting from an openness to change has presented opportunities for The Beam Team’s employees to apply and expand their skills while the company has strategically added staff with expertise in new markets.
“One of the large hotel projects we’ve done was the interior remodeling of the Hampton Inn in Atlanta,” Greg says. “We used some of our traditional Beam Team talent to do the demolition work, pull wallpaper down and remove the carpet, then bring the new materials in and organize them for efficient installation. Our plumbing company did all the plumbing moves for a couple of hundred guest rooms. We also used some of our new staff who had expertise remodeling hotels because these projects are managed differently than stores or restaurants where you can work during the hours they are closed.”
From White Boxes to Big Boxes and Beyond
As The Beam Team continually adapts and evolves to meet the needs of customers in the dynamic markets it serves, it has also built a portfolio of projects that range from less than 1,000 square feet to over 250,000 square feet in size.
“We work with the No. 1 home improvement chain and the No. 1 electronics retailer in the country, which have major storefronts,” Lauren says, “but we also work on smaller projects, such as the cafes we’ve done for Tropical Smoothie. We can take a white box space with a dirt floor and convert it into an inviting cafe or something like that by installing the flooring and other finishes, the kitchen equipment, the countertop and furniture and the lighting, mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. Our family values and experiences make us big enough to qualify, but never too big to care.”
As The Beam Team has changed since the days it first earned its nickname from Home Depot, it has grown to provide the full range of services needed to create positive experiences for its clients’ customers.
“We were manufacturers’ reps and then service merchandisers,” Rick says. “Then we added installation, construction and general contracting services. Now we do the whole thing for Home Depot and others.”