Tony Thornton has spent 50-plus years in the fencing industry — starting at 15 years old in Mississippi, working summers for a neighbor called Jerry Jeffcoat. Those early days grew into a mentorship that lasted decades. From there, Tony launched a career that took him through operations management, manufacturing, distribution, eight years as executive director of the American Fence Association, and now Thornton Fence Consulting Group, where he's helped thousands of fence professionals move the needle on profitability.
He doesn't call himself a legend. "I'm just Tony," he says. But what he's seen across 80-plus clients and years of watching the industry from every angle gives him a clear view of who makes it and who doesn't.
The answer, more often than not, comes down to one thing: confusing busy with successful.
There's a post that shows up on fence industry Facebook groups constantly.
"Tony, I did 5 million in sales last year, and I have nothing to prove for it in the bank." That's the call he gets as a consultant. And when he asks about gross profit margin, sometimes the answer is: I don't even know what a P&L is.
The contractors doing less to make more, he says, are the successful ones. "Success is not being 12 to 14 weeks out. You've just got 12 to 14 weeks of headaches that the other successful companies don't."
It's not about being less busy. It's about being priced right enough that the work you do actually leaves something behind.
Residential is soft. The economy is at a challenge, consumer confidence is shaky, and the home-build slowdown in major markets has left fence contractors feeling it. But the picture isn't uniform.
"Those that are really focusing on commercial are doing extremely well right now." Municipalities, government funding, parks, ball fields, data centers — commercial work is moving. And ag fencing is one of the fastest-growing disciplines in the space, with rural operators who used to run things by the seat of their pants now diving deep into efficiency and margins.
His advice to contractors caught in the residential slowdown isn't to panic. It's to point the ship somewhere else.
"You can't control the macroeconomic factors. But you can control where you shift your business." The contractors who study the market, talk to others, build a mastermind group — those are the ones navigating it. The ones who just hope the phone rings aren't.
1. They know their numbers before something goes wrong, not after.
The fatal version of running a fence business is looking at your financials once a month — or not at all. By the time the P&L shows a problem, you're already behind it.
The contractors who survive downturns are tracking weekly. They know their gross profit margins by job type, by market, by material. They know when something shifts before it wipes out a quarter of work.
2. They hire through their network, not just the internet.
"I can't find good people" is one of the most common complaints Tony hears. His response is direct: Have you looked in the mirror first?
Are you someone people want to work for? Have you built a culture worth joining? And — more practically — does your network even know you're hiring?
Tony's seen clients fill positions in 7 to 14 days by working their personal network instead of waiting for job boards to deliver. The people in your church, your bowling league, your kids' sports sideline — they might not know what you do, let alone that you're growing. Most fence owners, he says, are wearing their branded shirt to the softball game but never actually having the conversation.
The added benefit of network hiring: those people already share your values. "Typically that network shares the same moral, ethical focus that you want within your company."
3. They price for margin, not just for market.
If you're booked out and still not making money, the math is simple: your prices are too low.
"Less is more" is the philosophy Tony brings to every client. He wants them hitting a specific gross profit margin — and if the market won't support that margin, the answer isn't to lower the target. It's to let the work go and find the right customers instead.
That starts with market segmentation: understanding exactly who your ideal customer is, which neighborhoods to target, and where you're wasting time on calls that will never close. "Who is your perfect customer? And it's not somebody that's willing to pay me."
The best fence companies define that answer and build their marketing strategy around it.
Aluminum up. Vinyl framework up. Material prices moving faster than most contractors can adjust.
Tony's advice: build a relationship with your suppliers and stay ahead of pricing changes, not behind them. Know what's moving before it hits your quotes. And have a system that lets you update pricing fast when it does.
"We continue seeing aluminum prices go up. If you don't monitor it and have a good strong relationship with your suppliers... it's very difficult to maintain good profitability."
The contractors who get hurt are the ones updating their price lists quarterly when the market moves monthly.
One thing isn't going away: the need for skilled hands in the field.
"We've got to dig a hole. We've got to mix cement. We've got to drive that post." Technology, AI, better tools — all of it matters. But fencing will always be a people business on the ground. The opportunity is in making those people more efficient, better trained, and better retained.
On AI, Tony's position is clear: it's real, it's useful, and ignoring it puts you behind. But the implementation has to be intentional. AI answering your phones might save time — or it might cost you the customer who just wanted to talk to a human. "We need to be really intentional with where you're putting it in your process."
The contractors who will lead the next decade are the ones learning from peers now, building systems now, and pricing for where they want to go — not just where they are.
"The successful companies have a base margin they're going to set, and they're always going to strive for that."
The field is thinning. The room it creates goes to whoever built the foundation before they needed it.
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