A series of acquisitions, new branch openings and increase in staffing that ASG, Beltsville, Md., describes as “explosive growth” can be further characterized as an extraordinarily controlled and calculated explosion. In the past year, not only did ASG acquire two companies, grow its RMR base by 16 percent, set a “300 strong” sales force goal and open two new branches; the company managed that growth with a level head, putting its customers first and always keeping the big picture in mind.

Joe Nuccio, president and chief executive officer at ASG, noted that the company has always been consistent in its growth plans. “Every year we’ve always looked to open up to a new market,” he explained. “What was a little bit different in 2011 is we found some really unique properties, in addition to expanding our internal sales force.”

Those unique properties were LV Systems Inc. in Oklahoma City and Texana Security, LLC, Carrollton, Texas. Nuccio explained, “LV, which is just a wonderful 30-year old company has been a great opportunity for us because we primarily only had residential in Oklahoma, and now we’ve added that commercial channel. So now it’ll be the exact same thing as all of our other branches.”

Nuccio added that what attracted ASG to that company can be summed up by, “premiere serviceability, community ties, community relationships, a strong presence in commercial and high end residential and an absolute complement to what we already do in Oklahoma.” Though location played a big factor, Nuccio said, “We just happen to be lucky that that company was in Oklahoma. Because it had all the attributes that we would love to have everywhere.”

In Texana, ASG found both complementary operations and an outstanding sales platform. “[Texana] is a great opportunity because it had a branch in the valley of Texas, which we have a very large presence in.” ASG already had a large operation in Dallas, and Texana’s Dallas branch was advantageously “rolled into” it, Nuccio added. “But we also had the opportunity to open up a new market, which is the St. Angelo and Abilene area. And also the tertiary markets that fell in between there. This has put us on a trajectory to really go into 2012 on all cylinders.”

According to Nuccio, Texana also displayed a “tremendous account base, and great reputation,” in addition to overlapping two existing markets. “Those are exactly the kind of companies we look for. They have great metrics, great serviceability, and are in-tune with their customers. And that’s the secret sauce, right?”

In addition, ASG added two new branches in Corpus Christi and Austin, Texas and plans to grow its sales rep headcount in 2012 to more than 300 sales representatives across its territories and nearly 1,000 total employees across the enterprise. Bob Ryan, senior vice president, sales and marketing, commented “In tough economic times we see enough opportunity to where we’re going to continue to grow.”

Bob Ryan, senior vice president, sales and marketing, commented, “We get a lot of notoriety for these really colorful acquisitions, but we have slowly but surely over the years built a very large sales force across all of our markets and we’re going to continue to invest in internal growth and make a considerable leap in the size and scope of our sales force going from 2011 to 2012.”

Ryan continued, “Our 2011 headcount being about 250 sales persons across our enterprise, if you take Texana and LV, we’re getting about 25 sales reps. Then through the rest of our enterprise we’re adding another 25 or 30. For the first time we’ll have a sales force 300 strong going into 2012 and we think that gives us a lot of leverage off of our sales platform. And this is significant, because I see a lot of other companies contracting a little bit in terms of their sales staffing. And we’re the contrarian. In tough economic times we see enough opportunity to where we’re going to continue to grow.”

That opportunity, for ASG, exists in new geographic markets, but also in migrating to more lucrative offerings. “I think the industry has really done a great job of moving from alarm monitoring, which doesn’t have the value of today’s enhanced services that include energy management, control of locks, lights, thermostats. Residential video surveillance, which was not even a real category a few years ago, is now a very high demand offering that we have. That’s a game-changer because now there’s an RMR-based service versus years ago just a product sale. That’s all changing the game, our RMR is going up as a result of it and we’re going to continue to focus there,” Ryan said.

We’ve seen a shift and a new class of product, just tale a look at the residential and small business sectors,” Ryan continued. “I think the industry has really done a great job of moving from alarm monitoring, which doesn’t have the value of today’s enhanced services which include energy management, control of locks, lights, thermostats. Residential video surveillance, which was not even a real category a few years ago, is now a very high demand offering that we have. That’s a game-changer because now there’s an RMR based service versus years ago just a product sale — you sell, you’re done and you move on. Here it’s a service that our customers are engaged in on a daily basis and it’s one that they want. That’s all changing the game, our RMR is going up as a result of it and we’re going to continue to focus there.”

ASG’s RMR increase of 16 percent in 2011 is about 60 percent internal growth and 40 percent through acquisition, explained Ralph Masino, chief financial officer.