Eric Dodge is the proud owner of The Brothers that just do Gutters of Sunnyvale, CA. He earned a B.S. in Biochemistry from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and an MBA from San Jose State University. Eric began his career at DuPont, where he spent nine years in various roles in Research & Development and Sales/Marketing technical support. Following this, he worked as a program manager at three pharmaceutical contract manufacturers (CDMO) for five years.
Driven by a desire to make a tangible impact, Eric left his corporate job to volunteer with Americorps VISTA, promoting access to afterschool programs in Las Vegas. This experience instilled in him the importance of making a difference in any situation .He chose to partner with The Brothers that just do Gutters because of their strong emphasis on employee development and aspires to be the owner and manager he always wished he had, focusing on treating employees well and providing them with opportunities for personal and financial growth.
In his free time, Eric enjoys watching and playing sports, traveling, trying new foods, watching movies, and spending quality time with his family. His entrepreneurial spirit was ignited after completing his MBA, and he spent the last year researching small business ownership. A chance cold email from a franchise consultant introduced him to the franchise model, which he saw as an excellent entry point for someone with no prior business ownership experience and limited funds.
As a company who values reputation, The Brothers evaluated the methods and processes in every gutter project. We soon realized each project is different and should be treated uniquely. We changed our focus from the job to the whole experience and focused on reinventing contractor service, especially when it comes to customer service and reliability. This meant not only being personable and responsible with the client, but being invested in our own employees. The more we invested into being the most personable and responsible gutter contractor, the more we had to change.
Soon it was not just better training we needed, but better products as well. To ensure our customers were getting the best products available, we chose our product and supply partners very carefully. If the products were failing expectations, we responded by replacing it with another more promising product of better design and build.
The efforts started to pay off as we gauged our work through surveys we sent to our clients. Being committed to every review meant posting them as they were submitted – negative, positive, misspelling, grammar mistakes and all. We did this to keep ourselves honest and driven to do our best. If a customer was experiencing a problem such as a repair, it became a priority to get there to solve it as soon as possible. As a result, we started to gain more than just a customer – we gained friends and neighbors. Our heart and passion was finally starting to show in our work and results.
In 1999 Ken Parsons had just left the teaching industry and started his own gutter contractor company under the name Waterfall Seamless Gutters. In 2002 Ken’s younger brother, Ryan Parsons, accepted a job on the truck with Ken after the Graphic Design company he was working for crashed. In 2006 the Brothers briefly changed their name to Water-flow Gutter Solutions before finally becoming “The Brothers that just do Gutters” in 2009. The name we all know and love came from a radio ad the Brothers ran just a couple years prior to the change. Everyone who heard it liked it so much they thought it was the company name so Ken and Ryan stopped fighting it and adopted the name. With the name change came a few title changes as well. We decided we no longer wanted to be salesman, presidents or owners but rather Solutionists©, which embodied what we represent to our clients. Ken Parsons was re-entitled Senior Solutionist©, and Ryan Parsons became Chief Solutionist©.
Being in the gutter contractor business for over 15 years was an effort of adaptation and determination. We have been able to be successful for so long because we made our main focus the customer. The Brothers that just do Gutters offer a wide variety of installations, cleaning and repairs in a small niche industry of seamless rain gutters and leaf guards. We have been able to grow the reliability of our services and offer only the best products by focusing all our effort on gutter systems and guards.
Our mantra, “Reinventing Contractor Service™” is the phrase we live by in all areas of our business, every day. The story of The Brothers that just do Gutters began with hard work and a dream to be a community-loved contractor. We wanted to reinvent how clients experience contractor services and provide a level of customer service and reliability that was lacking in our industry.
Along the way, we had to learn to move at the speed of business and invent many new methods never before implemented in the contractor field. Meeting our goal of being a five-star contractor and reinventing contractor service meant focusing on every detail of the job. By creating a unique experience with the homeowner, investing in our employees, sourcing the best products, and creating training methods for publishing every review a homeowner made on our independent review services, we started to rise above the rest.