How Michigan Gutters Added $1 Million in Gross Revenue with ArcSite

About Michigan Gutters

Industry: Gutters

ArcSite customer since: May 2020

Their Story: Steve Ball is a fire captain turned serial entrepreneur. After helping a retired firefighter install gutters on his days off, he purchased the business outright in 2008 and built it from scratch — without knowing anything about estimating, pricing, or running a company. Today, Michigan Gutters is a ~$5M operation serving northern Michigan with gutter installation, heat systems, and ice removal services.

The Impact

• ~$1 million added to gross revenue directly attributable to ArcSite's standardized estimating and pricing workflow
• Dramatically reduced callbacks and operational errors by replacing hand-drawn sketches with clear digital proposals and photo documentation
• Proposal quality became a competitive differentiator — professional ArcSite estimates commanded higher prices than competitor hand-written quotes
• Scaled to 25 employees while the owner stepped fully out of day-to-day operations
• Real-time price book updates — when aluminum costs rise, one backend change instantly flows to all 5 estimators with zero manual intervention
• Dispute resolution time cut — Arcsite helped eliminate "he said/she said" scope conflicts between customers and install crews with easy-to-understand photos and documentation

The Overview

Steve Ball says he “likes being stressed.” Not something a lot of people say! But when you look back on his career, he’s spent 24 years as a fire captain in Traverse City, MI. He is practiced at making calm, decisive calls under pressure. That same instinct has defined his approach to business.

"I woke up a business owner," Ball recalls. "Didn't know anything about it. Didn't even know how to estimate. I knew nothing other than just holding a piece of gutter up and screwing it in."

That was 2008. Today, Michigan Gutters operates at nearly $5 million in gross revenue with 25 employees, five estimators, and a suite of winter services including heat cable systems and steam-based ice removal. Ball still works shifts at the fire department — now as a captain — and has largely stepped back from day-to-day operations of Michigan Gutters, having built a team capable of running the company without him.

Part of what made that possible was getting the right systems in place. ArcSite was one of them.

The Challenge

For years, Michigan Gutters ran its estimating process on paper. Estimators would sketch drawings by hand, do math on the fly, and present quotes that varied in quality, clarity, and accuracy depending on who wrote them.

"Getting their vision onto a piece of paper so the ops folks can determine and order material off that, and then ultimately have the installers install on that piece of paper — is very difficult," Ball explains. "That's one reason why gutter installation is hard to scale."

With five estimators each doing things their own way, consistency was nearly impossible to enforce. A customer might receive a meticulous drawing from one rep and a rough sketch from another. Pricing could vary based on how each estimator calculated material costs in their head. 

And when miscommunications happened between the estimate and the install, there was no clear record to refer back to, which led to lost revenue and higher costs. 

Ball had been searching for a better solution for years. Paper worked when the business was small. It wasn't going to work at scale.

The Solution

The introduction came through Tony Cobb of All Gutter Systems in Grand Rapids — the same mentor who helped Ball establish the business side of Michigan Gutters in the early days. When Cobb showed Ball ArcSite in 2020, it clicked immediately.

"He introduced me to this new tool. We were drawing on tablets, and I just loved that. For years, I personally had been trying to come up with something better than just a pad of paper and a pen."

The estimating workflow was rebuilt from the ground up. When a customer calls in, a sales coordinator creates a file in ArcSite with all pertinent information — name, address, notes — before the estimator even leaves the office. The estimator arrives on-site, pulls up the pre-populated file, takes photos through the app, draws the layout, and captures all relevant details directly in ArcSite on a tablet. Pricing updates — such as aluminum cost increases — are made centrally in the price book, so all estimators automatically quote the correct rates without any manual intervention.

The Results

The impact of ArcSite on Michigan Gutters has been broad, touching everything from sales presentation quality to operational accuracy to internal communication.

"All in all, it's probably a good million dollars to our gross revenue."

Ball attributes this figure to a combination of factors that compounded over time. The professionalism of ArcSite-generated proposals gave Michigan Gutters a visible edge over competitors still working off handwritten quotes.

"When we would send an estimate versus the competitor showing an estimate, it was hands down. You would even pay a little more to have that professionalism. You'd see it and say, 'Wow, these guys know what they're doing.'"

"It made us more money because there were fewer mistakes," Ball says. "You're not forgetting certain things, and you're not trying to use math in your head."

The clarity of digital proposals reduced conflicts between what customers expected and what installers delivered. When a customer questioned whether a particular section was included in the scope, the drawing and signed proposal provided an unambiguous answer.

"It really did clear up a lot of those 'what if' issues between the installation and sometimes even the estimators," Ball explains.

And practically speaking, office staff could now pull up an estimate and make minor adjustments — removing or adding a line item — without needing to reach the estimator directly. Workflows that once required hand-offs became self-service. With office staff being more involved and having access to information, it freed up estimators and field staff to do more with less. The entire team became more efficient and self-sufficient to serve Michigan Gutters’ customers. 

Ball is approaching retirement from the fire department after 24 years of service. With that transition on the horizon, his focus is on stepping back from Michigan Gutters’ day-to-day operations and positioning the business for its next phase of growth — potentially expanding into additional markets or opening new locations.

Ball’s advice is straightforward, saying, "Don't quit. It's persistence. The duration of doing the right thing. And get good at your financials. If you can go through your P&Ls and your balance sheet and understand what those numbers mean, that's what should guide all your decision-making."

With ArcSite and a good understanding of your financials, you can build the business that you’ve always wanted.