Barely 4 percent of U.S. home owners possess a generator. An outdated electric grid is making power outages more commonplace. And instances of severe weather and wildfires are increasing around the country. In this environment, Generator Supercenter believes it’s positioned for continued growth.
It’s hard to tell exactly what that growth will look like for the company in the next five years, said Glenn Leingang, the chief development officer who is responsible for franchise sales. Generator Supercenter is on track this year to match the 48.5 percent sales growth and the 34.2 percent unit growth posted in 2022, he said.
Whether Generator Supercenter will ever surpass its record-setting 278 percent sales growth in 2021 is unclear, but it’s possible, considering the growing demand for home power capabilities, Leingang said.
Neil Leingang, the chief development officer for Generator Supercenter
“Ever since the pandemic, and with more people working from home now than ever before, the demand for controlling power in homes has only increased,” he said. “Add in the fact that the burden on our electric grid is only going to increase with more electric cars plugging in to the grid, we see tremendous opportunity out there and no reason to believe that we cannot keep growing at our current rate.”
Generator Supercenter currently has 104 stores open and another 20 set to open by the end of the year, with the bulk of its locations in its home state of Texas and along the East Coast. “We have room for tremendous growth in middle America as well as out West,” Leingang said. “This is fertile ground that we are tasked to find the best possible partners in.”
The company jumped 60 spots to No. 223 on the Franchise Times Top 400 list, which ranks franchisors by systemwide sales.
The biggest challenge for Generator Supercenter is educating consumers about their home power options and ramping up their support teams, said Derik Gatzke, president of new business for the brand. A typical home generator offered by the company sells for about $10,000, plus installation, maintenance and service.
One of Gatzke’s main responsibilities in his newly created role is launching Generator Supercenter’s new clean energy sales initiative, which is currently beta testing a lineup of solar panels, inverters, racking and battery storage products. Those green energy products, scheduled to launch in early 2024, will be first offered in the Dallas corporate locations in January before rolling out in its other markets.
“Generators will always be our core business, but we also recognize the world is changing and that solar power is the future,” said Gatzke, who previously worked as a senior vice president at Generac, the official supplier of generators and parts for Generator Supercenter.
“We want to make sure they are ahead of the competition and launch our clean energy vertical faster and harder than anybody else,” he said.
Derik Gatzke, president of new business for Generator Supercenter
To help keep up with the company’s explosive growth and meeting the increasing demand for franchise support, Gatzke was one of the seven new corporate hires in the last six months. The corporate positions added include a senior business development manager, franchise onboarding manager, regional franchise manager and two franchise field consultants.
The total estimated investment for a Generator Supercenter store ranges from $434,950 to $858,250, according to the company’s franchise disclosure document.
Leingang said the corporate staff “has literally quadrupled on the operations side over the past three years.”
“You’ve got to keep up your support ratios on the corporate franchisors side to match the growth on your franchise territory side because you can’t shortchange new people coming into the system,” Leingang said.
Additionally, a new 20,000-square-foot training facility is scheduled to open in December at the Tomball, Texas, headquarters that will be used to onboard new franchisees as well as provide free ongoing training for all employees of the brand. Leingang said last year the company began offering free year-round training to franchisees and any of their employees.
To promote Generator Supercenter, the company has invested upwards of $250,000 this year alone on radio advertising campaigns nationwide.
“GSC has always had a growth mindset,” said Leingang, “and I don’t see that changing.”