In our industry, our private, family business exists in a crowded sea of private equity (PE)-owned rivals, like in so many other industries. We are a supplier to elevator contractors and while we are mid-size as a supplier, we are small compared to our customers, the large multi-national elevator contractors. We are constantly looking for ways to define and take advantage of our strategic advantages. In our case–and it may be the same as yours if you lead an Evergreen® company–it is the very fact that we are Private and Evergreen that allows us to do this; our very identity helps us not only survive but thrive.

Our company, Wurtec, operates in a niche industry. In the elevator industry, there are four multinational, global companies, who build, install, and service their own elevators through a network of offices all around the world. Additionally, there are a great many regional and local players, like us, who provide products and services to elevator contractors, both the multi-nationals and the regional/local variety. We are based in Toledo, with six regional distribution warehouses around North America, supported by our main manufacturing and distribution facilities in Toledo.

About fifteen years ago, PE firms began to move into our industry. At first, I admit I more or less ignored them. But this became harder to do; for about the last 10 years, they’ve been beating such a loud drum, they can no longer be ignored. I started paying attention, reading up a little bit about what and who they were. I’m blessed to have a son who’s always on the leading edge of new trends, and he helped me a lot as I worked to understand what this might mean for us. Ultimately, the pace of the PE activity picked up and, about seven years ago, they started buying up just gobs of companies, many of whom were our competitors, and bolting them together into organizations much bigger than Wurtec. Their consolidation of companies has fundamentally changed the landscape of our industry, making many companies bigger, but never better. They have gutted the tribal knowledge that existed in the organizations they have purchased, and they have turned what were happy employees into disgruntled ones.

At first, as you can imagine, this was intimidating, and I was concerned about how we could win against these new, much larger companies. But then I started paying attention to their tactics and behavior. Their approach seemed odd. As they rolled up company after company, I could see that there was no consistency, no similarity between the companies they were buying. I didn’t understand the strategic value of it. I watched it for a while and eventually it dawned on me; all they cared about was growing the revenue. They definitely did not care about making the companies better, nor did they care about the employees.

At Wurtec, we have a strong foundation in values. Our purpose statement reads, “To build a best-in-class family business, operated by a team that shares common core values, and produces a world-class experience for our employees and customers.” Our grounding in shared, core values, our emphasis on family, our people first mentality, and our customer-facing purpose combine to make us a fundamentally different company from the ones being created by the private equity roll-ups. The polar opposite, in fact. So, I decided that if we were going to engineer a response to our new competition, it had to start there.

We gradually began to sharpen the contrast between our company and our PE-backed competitors—not just internally, but as a message to customers, suppliers, and potential hires. In our communications with our customers as well as our team, we never once mention that we’re here to make money. We’re here to build a great family-owned company that deeply cares about our employees. We believe that if we do that, making money will be an after effect.

I realized something critical as I worked through all this in my head and then with my team. As a small, Evergreen, multi-generational company that intends to endure for the long term, we are capable of long-term thinking. The distinction between us and our competition is not simply theoretical; it shows up in how we invest in projects, in our team, and in our future. It shows up in how we communicate our value and how we operate our business.

As an example, we recently undertook a long-term product development project. We spent millions of dollars, and it took nearly four years to complete. I don’t believe there is a private equity firm in our industry that would’ve taken on that project. The time frame was too long, the outcome was too uncertain, and the returns were not immediate enough to work in their short-term formulas. As we all know by now, the PE model works because you flip it in five to seven years. To me, that is baffling, since we think in such long-term time frames. I can’t imagine how can you run a company that way, but they do. Well, we spent four years and a lot of money developing our new product, and now, it is our single fastest growing product.

Another example of our competitive advantage has more to do with our team and hiring and retention. I don’t usually meet with our new hires until they’re very close to being hired, so I acknowledge that I only talk to the ones we have chosen and who have chosen us. Values-alignment probably has a lot to do with that. But even so, it’s uncanny how many of them say that the reason they chose to work for Wurtec is because of our Purpose statement, or our core values, or the fact that we are a Private company. Particularly when somebody worked for a private company that was bought by private equity, and they were laid off or found the courage to leave, they’re a prime candidate for us. They view us as a nice, safe space where they can come back to that feeling of working for a company that really cares. When layoffs happen in newly acquired companies, our phones start ringing.

One thing that confirms our success in the eyes of our team, and that I am very proud of, is that we’ve won the Top Workplace Award in Toledo nine out of the last ten years, which is grounded in employee surveys. This recognition means more to me than any other, because it comes from our team. I tell them that often.

How effective is our strategy of leading with what sets us apart from our private equity owned competitors? In all honesty, the potential and eventual customers who are themselves private get it the fastest and the best. With these companies, we almost don’t even have to sell it at all. We have similar value systems. Our handshakes are more sincere. Our conversations are more vulnerable. The camaraderie is real.

With PE-owned companies, it’s different. The relationship piece is the biggest difference. There’s a good chance that somebody who works for a private equity firm won’t be there in five years. That impermanence makes meaningful relationships—and the deep collaboration that often follows—harder to build. In the end, we find that we are less interested in working with them and they are ambivalent; for them, it’s all about finding the lowest price, and the rest doesn’t matter so much.

With the larger, multi-national companies, our positioning does make a difference. Sometimes all they care about is price, but often they care about partnership and stability, too—at least until their stockholders start holding their feet to the fire. When all else is equal, I think it tips in our favor.

Ultimately, the advantages of private ownership are more than cultural—they’re practical and measurable. From recruiting and retention to customer loyalty and long-term investments, we’ve seen consistent returns on choosing Purpose over speed, relationships over transactions, and stewardship over short-term gains. We are leaning into it as a strategy, but it only works because it’s really not a strategy. It’s simply who we are, it’s our DNA, and it’s what we believe.