Entry & Exit - Inside the Security & Fire Industry

Most service businesses don’t fail because they lack growth—they fail because their financial systems break under scale.

In this episode of Entry & Exit, Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble break down the real-world lessons they’re learning while cleaning up their financials during rapid growth. From cash vs. accrual accounting to inventory control, job costing, and RMR reporting, this episode explains what actually matters when lenders, buyers, or equity partners start asking questions.

If you plan to acquire businesses, raise debt, bring on equity, or eventually sell, this conversation will help you avoid painful (and expensive) mistakes.

What You’ll Learn:

• When cash accounting works—and when accrual becomes unavoidable
• Why being “accrual-ish” causes major financial problems
• How poor inventory and purchasing controls destroy margins
• What senior lenders and buyers expect in your financials
• How to track RMR adds, attrition, transfers, and roll-forwards
• Why clean financials give you leverage and optionality

This episode is essential listening for security, alarm, and service-based business owners scaling past the $3M–$10M range.

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Stephen Olmon
Collin Trimble

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Most security & life-safety companies don’t get stuck because they lack hustle—they get stuck because they lack measurement.

In this episode of Entry & Exit, Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble (Alarm Masters, Houston) walk through their 2026 planning process: how they set revenue/RMR/EBITDA goals, translate them into departmental KPIs, and use actuals vs. budget to decide when to invest, when to cut, and how to avoid “hope-based” growth.

They unpack why so many firms stall around $3M in revenue (comfort + underinvestment), why “Talent Wins” became a non-negotiable, and how to think about emerging trends like AI the right way—starting with a solid tech foundation and the right people before chasing shiny tools.

You’ll also hear the core scorecard metrics they track across sales, marketing, finance, operations, and M&A, plus practical homework you can apply immediately in your own business.

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Stephen Olmon
Collin Trimble

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How do you scale a sales team inside a security or life-safety business—without hiring too fast, burning cash, or building a “hope-based” sales org?

In this episode of Entry & Exit, hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble break down the exact framework they’ve used at Alarm Masters to grow from founder-led selling to a six-person sales team—and the systems that make it repeatable. They cover quota math (3–5x coverage), segmented sales roles (hunters vs. farmers), the KPIs that prevent surprises, and why face-to-face wins in this industry.

You’ll also get real-world guidance on hiring, ramp expectations, building playbooks, and how to design your sales process around a clear value proposition—so your reps don’t default to discounting when pressure hits. Plus, they share quick updates on what’s happening at Alarm Masters, including new add-ons and expansion plans across Texas.

What You’ll Learn

• When to hire the next salesperson: The “pay for the next rep” principle (and how to apply it without waiting a full year)
• Quota math that actually works: Why 3–5x OTE coverage matters—and a simple way to think about it
• Segmented sales strategy: Why you shouldn’t expect one rep to do everything (and the roles to hire first)
• Hunters vs. farmers (install base): The difference between new-logo selling and expanding existing accounts
• Leading indicators & KPIs: Pipeline coverage, close rate, average deal size, conversion rates, and sales cycle length
• The gospel of face-to-face: Why more in-person time increases win rate and reduces attrition
• Sales process + value prop alignment: How “we’re the Chick-fil-A of security” shapes the entire sales motion
• Practical ops reminders: Contract audits, customer communication, and why intentionality beats hoping it works

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Stephen Olmon
Collin Trimble

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Avoid expensive post-close mistakes by running a calm, disciplined first 90 days after acquiring a security or life-safety business.

In this episode of Entry & Exit, hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble break down what actually happens after you close—and why most buyers hurt themselves by moving too fast. Drawing from real acquisitions (and real scars), they lay out a practical “stabilize first, optimize later” playbook: how to earn trust with a new team, avoid culture-killing moves, protect licenses and compliance, and lock down customer relationships before you start changing systems, comp, pricing, or process.

You’ll hear the biggest early-stage mistakes (the ones they made), plus the specific moves they now treat as non-negotiables: meet your top customers, over-communicate the transition, centralize logins, audit contracts, and use the seller’s knowledge before it disappears.

What You’ll Learn

• The 90-Day Mindset: Why your #1 job is to be the world’s best employee first—not the hero CEO on day one
• Team & Culture Traps: How arrogance, fast firings, and premature promotions create attrition (and how to lead with humility)
• Stabilize Before You Optimize: Which operational “improvements” (tech stack, process, comp, parties/bonuses) backfire if you rush them
• Customer Protection Plan: How to identify your top customers, meet them early, and prevent churn through over-communication
• Operational Risk & Compliance: License/CEU gotchas that can bite you when you’re distracted by integration work
• Post-Close Hygiene: Passwords/logins, contract cleanup, and why “we’ll get it later” becomes months of pain
• Pricing & Branding Decisions: Why you shouldn’t raise prices (or kill the acquired brand) in the first 90 days
• Homework Framework: Build your “do / don’t” list and keep your first 10 priorities mostly learning, not change

🔗 Connect

Stephen Olmon — https://x.com/stephenolmon
Collin Trimble — https://x.com/TXAlarmGuy

More Entry & Exit — https://www.entryandexit.co/

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Avoid expensive post-close surprises by mastering the first seven days after signing an LOI.

In this episode of Entry & Exit, hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble deliver a brutally practical due diligence playbook for buying a security or life-safety business. Drawing from real acquisitions, they break down exactly how to run diligence without chaos—and why skipping steps almost always shows up later as lost revenue, integration pain, or legal risk.
This episode walks through a real-world due diligence checklist, focusing on what to request immediately, where buyers most often get blindsided, and how to protect yourself before money changes hands.
What You’ll Learn

The Week 1 Protocol: The specific diligence requests you must make immediately to uncover key-person risk and owner dependency
Financial Deep Dive: Why quality of earnings analysis and RMR audits are non-negotiable in security and alarm acquisitions

Legal Pitfalls: Purchase agreement strategy (Asset Purchase vs. Stock Sale), assignability issues, and spotting “tribal knowledge” gaps
Risk Management: How customer concentration and undocumented arrangements should impact deal structure and walk-away thresholds
Whether you’re evaluating acquisition due diligence for a small alarm company or a multi-branch integrator, this episode breaks down the real cost of rushing diligence—and how disciplined buyers avoid it.

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Stephen Olmon

Collin Trimble

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Hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble sit down with Lee Odess for a wide-ranging, no-nonsense conversation about the forces reshaping the security and life-safety industry—and why operators who keep treating cloud, mobile, and AI like “features” are already falling behind.

Lee, one of the most connected voices in access control and physical security, makes the case that our industry is no longer evolving like a traditional hardware channel. Enterprise software norms are taking over: value is pooling in data, software, and architecture—not panels and readers. And that shift is happening now, not five years from now.

They dig into what this actually means for operators on the ground. Why alarms will become the minority of security spend. Why access control and video are converging into platforms. Why vertical-specific solutions are replacing generic systems. And why the real risk isn’t disruption—it’s clinging to “old truths” that used to protect the industry but now actively hold it back.

Lee also lays out the early warning signs operators should be watching for: losing deals to software-led solutions, manufacturers showing up with their own demand gen, revenue trapped in hardware margins, and brand-collector integrators who can’t operationalize what they sell. Throughout the conversation, one theme stays constant: this is an and moment, not an or moment. You can stay in the $10–12B high-security market—or reposition to compete in the $70B+ mainstream market—but you can’t pretend the choice doesn’t exist.

The episode closes with a clear, tactical starting point for owners of legacy security businesses: erase the old mental model, define a 30-year vision, and rebuild your product mix, partners, and talent around where value is actually going—not where it used to live.

✨ What You’ll Learn

• Why physical security is being reshaped by enterprise software—not incremental tech upgrades
• The difference between treating cloud, mobile, and AI as features vs. architecture
• Why alarms are becoming a minority of total security investment
• Early warning signs your business model is quietly falling behind
• How value is shifting from hardware margins to software, data, and systems integration

🔗 Connect

 Lee Odess

Stephen Olmon

Collin Trimble

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Hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble go deep on recurring monthly revenue (RMR) in the security and fire-alarm industry—why it’s the heartbeat of the business, the biggest driver of valuation confidence, and the single most stabilizing force for operators trying to scale without cash-flow whiplash. They unpack how RMR smooths payroll, fuels growth investments, and answers the only question buyers ultimately care about: where is the next dollar coming from?

From there, the Alarm Masters partners get specific on what “great” actually looks like. They lay out the RMR-to-topline ratios they see across company sizes, explain why big projects can quietly distort your mix if you’re not squeezing every available recurring dollar, and clarify that even EBITDA-based deals live or die on the quality and density of RMR.

They also walk through the five major buckets of RMR—monitoring, software subscriptions, hardware-as-a-service, maintenance plans, and managed services—plus the real tradeoffs between margin and stickiness. Burg monitoring might throw off 65–75% gross profit but churns more. Cloud access/video subscriptions run lower margin yet can be sub-1% attrition because the hardware and software are inseparable. Their core message: win by being multi-service per account, stacking recurring layers until switching costs make churn irrational.

Finally, they bring it home with an operator’s playbook: your back office must be built to bill and offboard RMR cleanly, your techs must be trained so installs stay profitable, and your salespeople must be comped like RMR is the main product—because it is. If you want to hit the “mature business” benchmark, they give you the homework to map your current base, model your path to 50% RMR, and tighten your execution over the next 12–24 months.

✨ What You’ll Learn

• Why contracted RMR creates stability and higher valuation confidence
• The “golden” RMR mix by company size—and why 50% topline RMR is the maturity marker
• How big projects can tank your RMR ratio if you don’t engineer recurring dollars into every job
• The five buckets of RMR and how to prioritize them by margin vs. attrition

🔗 Connect
Stephen Olmon — http://x.com/stephenolmon
Collin Trimble — https://x.com/TXAlarmGuy

More Entry & Exit — https://www.entryandexit.co/

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Hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble tackle one of the most misunderstood parts of a security & fire-alarm business: the service department. Too many owners treat service like a cost of doing business—something you begrudgingly do to keep customers from canceling. That mindset is killing growth and lowering valuations.

In this episode, the Alarm Masters partners break down why service is actually the tip of the spear for customer experience, one of the most controllable revenue streams in the company, and a huge driver of enterprise value. They share real examples of how service failures cause churn, how tight process and communication prevent blowups, and why “see you tomorrow” has to be built into the DNA of your service culture.

They also get tactical on profitability: how to schedule tighter, keep tech utilization high, price service competitively without racing to the bottom, and actively create service demand instead of waiting for the phone to ring. If you’re buying companies, scaling one, or planning to sell, this is a playbook for turning service into recurring, predictable, high-margin revenue.

✨ What You’ll Learn

- Why your service department is the #1 driver of customer experience (and cancellations)
- How service can be more profitable than projects when run right
- The exact process + communication landmines that cause churn
- How to use non-customer service calls to win new monitoring accounts
- What to look for in a great service manager (and why the default picks usually fail)


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 Stephen Olmon

Collin Trimble

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Hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble get tactical on the question they hear nonstop: “How do you actually find deals worth buying?” After seven acquisitions in three years, the Alarm Masters partners break down why quality lead flow is hard in fire & life-safety, what “deal size” really means in this industry, and how to build a sourcing engine that doesn’t rely on luck.

They walk through the real-world channels that drive acquisition opportunities—brokers, vendors, referral partners, conferences, and owner-to-owner relationships— plus the hidden tradeoffs between big competitive processes and smaller “hairy” tuck-ins. Along the way, they share the most common landmines they see buyers step on (key-man risk, messy RMR data, underpaid teams, weak SOPs, unrealistic add-backs), and how to tighten your buy box so the right deals start finding you.

If you’re serious about buying a “book of accounts,” a local competitor, or your next platform—but don’t have a repeatable way to source or qualify deals—this episode is your playbook to stop chasing random listings and start building real deal flow.

✨ What You’ll Learn

• Why finding good acquisition leads is so hard right now
• The difference between great deals and available deals
• The “hair” to expect in sub-$1M EBITDA / smaller RMR buys
• Brokered vs off-market deals (and why neither is automatically better)
• Vendor & partner channels that actually produce leads

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 Stephen Olmon
Collin Trimble

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Hosts Stephen Olmon and Collin Trimble lay the groundwork for M&A in security & life-safety, how to buy your first (or next) company without blowing up your P&L or culture. They unpack how they’ve bought 6 (soon to be 7) alarm businesses in under two years, why they’ve stayed in their lane with RMR-heavy alarm companies, and how to think about platforms, add-ons, and tuck-ins before you ever sign an LOI.

From choosing the right type of security company (integrator vs alarm, commercial vs residential), to navigating RMR vs EBITDA valuations, to financing and due diligence, this episode is your primer on doing deals that actually make you richer, not just busier.

If you’re daydreaming about “buying a book of accounts” or a shop in the next city but haven’t nailed your strategy, financing, or integration plan, this one’s for you.

✨ What You’ll Learn

• M&A Fit > M&A FOMO
• Types of Security Companies to Buy (or Avoid)
• Platforms vs Add-Ons vs Tuck-Ins

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Stephen Olmon 

Collin Trimble

Owned and Operated

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