The new owner of a casual furniture company eliminated retail sales and outside processes in order to focus solely on resort sales, which resulted in a 40% loss of revenue. Since the sales staff was not able to recover the lost revenue within the first year, the owner started terminating the representatives, which was devastating to morale.

In the midst of this situation, volunteered to be placed in charge of the worst performing sales representative. In the first quarter after taking over this territory, with the proper direction and motivation, this sales representative became the highest performing representative for that quarter and for the year.

When hired, the company had two accounts that accounted for almost 90% of its business. However, both accounts had put the company on a six-month probation for issues with quality and on-time delivery.

Multiple staffing issues contributed to the company’s woes. Specifically, there was extremely high turnover among Operations personnel and most employees had received little or no training. In addition, many supervisors and leads had been on the job for only a few weeks, sometimes a few days. Moreover, workers were from a gang-related culture and management was afraid of them.

The situation demanded radical action. In response, brought in new supervision including an ex-police officer, an ex-Navy Seal, and an ex-Army Ranger. Then, the new supervisory team trained the personnel and terminated those who were not part of the solution.

Within eight weeks under the new supervision, the company was off probation, and on-time delivery skyrocketed from 52% to 99.8%.

A metal distribution company dedicated to the aerospace industry was suffering from poor worker performance. This resulted from the fact that up to this point management had provided little training and no job descriptions. Workers simply moved from station to station without training, which of course was a recipe for high turnover.

Began by requiring that all new hires receive one full day of intensive training. Next, established job descriptions and pay based on knowledge, not seniority, and terminated those employees with poor attendance records. Then, cleaned and painted the warehouse to improve morale. In addition, held ongoing training on a weekly basis, and added in-house lead and supervisor training courses. Finally, instituted rules on conduct and respect, and established a dress code.

Morale improved; people felt that they had an opportunity to learn and grow. Subsequently, turnover dropped by more than 50%.

The client owner of a $10M painting contracting company had no purchasing controls in place, and no way to track if purchases were appropriately billed. Remedying this situation was a challenge because personnel, including the owner, had virtually no knowledge of computer systems or software.

In response, researched and identified appropriate software, then installed and implemented it to control purchasing, sales, and P&L functions. In addition, trained the staff to use the software effectively.

Within two weeks of the start of the program, the client was able to recover $24K in over-billing. The results were shocking to the client, who did not suspect that trusted vendors were over-billing the painting contracting company.

Purchasing costs at a metal distribution company dedicated to the aerospace industry were within budget, but could easily be deemed higher than necessary. Even more problematic was the fact that there were no records of purchases; the purchasing agent would simply call and ask the current price. In addition, vendor comparisons were never performed, and panic buying was the order of the day because there was no inventory control. Purchases were simply made when the company was out of a needed product.

To effect needed change, set up weekly inventory counts on purchased items and set min-max levels in the computer. In addition, notified all vendors that a new long-term purchase bid system was in place. Finally, hired a new staff member to monitor inventory.

These efforts reduced purchasing costs by $600K in 1998, and eliminated out-of-stock conditions.

A painting contractor client for new home construction was losing an average of $100K in the first quarter of each year. Even though slow construction during the first quarter meant there was little to no work for staff, client had to keep key personnel on the payroll in that quarter in preparation for the workload in the last three quarters of the year.

To alleviate this staffing issue, developed a strategy in which the company shifted personnel and advertising from new construction, focusing it on painting existing homes during the first quarter.

Since the client was able to charge more for repainting homes than new construction painting, but was still able to charge less than other residential competitors, the company was able to eliminate the yearly $100K losses. As a result, the client is now working to start a new division for residential home painting.

Panic buying was the order of the day, which left the warehouse with too much product, making it virtually impossible to find needed items and rendering some of the product obsolete. The situation arose because the purchasing department was afraid of shortages and tried to anticipate what orders would materialize.

Tackled the problem by cleaning out the warehouse, returning not needed product immediately for orders, and scrapped the obsolete product. Finally, gave the suppliers a list of the products the company used most frequently and asked that they stock it. As a result, all subsequent orders were to be delivered within three days.

These efforts increased inventory turns on "A" items to more than 52, while the industry standard was 8. It also resulted in better cash flow and reduced inventory by 62%. In the end, this project worked so well that many other divisions followed the model.

The company was losing almost $250K per year. Much of the problem stemmed from the company spending approximately $50K per month on rent for a new 105,000 square-foot building. At the same time, the company only had two core customers, and sales were dwindling.

Since the company already owned a 35,000 square feet building, negotiated a plan with the bank enabling the company to get out of the newer lease and move back into their old building. In addition, hired two new outside sales representatives to bring in new business.

Breaking the lease and moving back into the old building meant rent went from $50K a month to $10K a month. The new sales representatives also brought in 15 new clients, increasing sales revenue by 30%.

The owner of a $10M per year company wanted to sell the business and needed to develop an exit strategy. However, the company had no formal financial records or tracking software. Furthermore, there were no profit and loss statements, budgets, or anything else to substantiate the value of the company.

To meet this need, researched and installed QuickBooks and taught the staff how to enter orders, purchases, sales, and payroll costs into the system. As a result, the company had immediate access to accurate profit and loss statements, as well as the ability to analyze costs by department. While the software had identified a 5% profit, by making adjustments in personnel, purchasing, and other departments, was able to boost that margin to 15%. After these more efficient and transparent controls were in place, the owner decided against selling the business because it was much less stressful to run.

Manufacturing consumer-sized carbon filters was extremely labor intensive. At the time, there was no machinery or automation available to expedite the process. Both the president and vice president were extremely skeptical that a machine could be developed.

Countered this skepticism by sketching out a potential unit, detailing its design and function. Then, convinced the president to allocate a $25K budget to design and build a machine. Finally, hired a mechanic to build the unit.

With the machine, productivity increased dramatically from 90 units per hour per person to almost 900 units per hour per person. The results were beyond what anyone expected, and the company was able to corner the market on consumer-sized carbon filters.

Corporate wanted to close a failing $8M division. Specifically, sales were falling, and the company’s reputation was in ruins. The problems grew out of the previous vice president’s tenure, where little was done to foster customer service, quality, or delivery. Orders were as much as 90 days behind the promised date, and quality problems abounded.

To affect change, visited all 25 independent sales representatives along with the plant manager, and listened to grievances. In response, suggested that when they had an order no one else wanted to call us.

Initially, the representatives sent all the orders that no one else wanted, but as promised, personally followed through and delivered quality products on time. As a result, sales increased by 67% because the sales representatives learned to trust management again.

The owner of a small $2M general contracting company was having trouble with subcontractors not always being available and frequently being late or charging more than was originally quoted. However, since the sub-contractors operated independently, the owner had little or no control over them.

To remedy the situation, first incorporated the business to protect its assets. Then, approached the sub-contractors and offered to set up a new company with them and split the remaining profits. The owner was able to provide the required contractor’s license, which was appealing to the sub-contractors who had no license and little business knowledge. In the end, this was a classic win-win situation. The contractors are more committed because they are not only paid for their work, but also receive a portion of the profits as well.

To date, the owner has started two additional companies in addition to the original company with a combined annual revenue potential of $6M.