How a Chippewa Valley paving company built a reputation one driveway at a time
Nobody notices a parking lot until it fails. That is the whole problem with selling paving, and the reason Senn Blacktop spends most of its time on the part customers never see.
Ask most people what makes a good driveway and they will describe the surface. Smooth, black, even. What they are describing is the last two hours of a job that took three days.
The part that determines whether a surface lasts eight years or eighteen happens well before any asphalt arrives. Grading. Drainage. Base preparation. Decisions made with a laser level and a lot of accumulated judgment about how water moves across a particular piece of Wisconsin ground.
That is a difficult thing to put in an advertisement. There is no showroom, no product you can hold, and the best possible outcome is that a customer never thinks about you again.
“You can put good asphalt over a bad base and it will look perfect for two years. Then it tells on you.”Senn Blacktop
It is also why word of mouth carries more weight in this business than in almost any other local trade. A driveway is a fifteen-year referral, and in a market the size of the Chippewa Valley, the people who had a good experience tend to know the people about to make the same decision.
What a video adds is the thing a referral cannot carry: the sight of the work itself. The grading. The crew at seven in the morning. The judgment calls that separate a surface that holds from one that does not.
The business
More spotlights
Growing in Eau Claire?
Site selection, permits, incentives and business support are handled by the City of Eau Claire Economic Development Division.
Contact the City ↗