Case Studies

Often times, the best way to know if a product or service is what you need is to hear about the experiences of others. Here are several case studies of TAB members. We hope you enjoy reading their stories.

Restructuring Sales Team Saved $200,000.

A members, who owns about a $5 million a year heating, ventilation and cooling company, has an issue with his sales department.  When he first joined TAB he had four full-time salespeople.  He was having a problem with the level of sales he wanted because the sales team was reaching its commission goal before his company reached their financial objectives.  After several coaching appointments, we determined he had only one salesman-type personality - the others were more project manager-type personality.  After consulting with the board for a few months, he decided to restructure his sales organization.  Now, he has one full-time salesperson, who is an expert on prospecting work and two internal project managers, who take care of all the orders and customer relationship management.  He was able to reduce two people from his staff. These modifications saved him $200,000 on salary.  And his bookings have gone up.

Held Accountable - Saved $40,000.

A meeting began abruptly and pointedly with one member brandishing his finger down the table at another and bellowing,"“You kept bugging me for three meetings in a row to go see your banker at your bank and I didn’t want to do it. I was happy banking where I was. But because you wouldn’t get off my case, I went to see your banker. As a result, I refinanced my business mortgage for an interest savings of $40,000 a year! Thank you.”

Instituted Rush Charge and Increased Revenues.

A Member, who runs a foundry operation, was having difficulty making money. When the group examined his customers, they found that there was the size of the orders were usually one to two and that most were needed well ahead of the industry lead time. We suggested that the member institute a rush charge for such orders. He received no complaints and the revenue from what we told him was his “new product line,” now brings in approximately $15,000 a year direct to the bottom line.

Reduced Debt, Increased Revenues by Over 2 Million.

 The president of a company in the excavating business in Iowa became a TAB member three years ago.  At the time he joined, they had sales of $2.4 million and had experienced a loss for a number of years.  He was overworked, his line of credit was too far extended and he admitted that he did not know how to properly manage his business.

Since becoming a TAB member, he has attended every meeting and been very open with the board about his issues.  He has also completed all of the development processes that the board assigned to him --trategic planning, market and sales plans, critical measures, etc.  This year, his revenues will be $4.2 million and he will make an $80,000 profit on top of a generous salary.  In addition, he has substantially reduced his debt, totally restructured how he buys equipment, installed new computer and accounting systems, reorganized his management structure and compensation plans and done many other things.  He has done all of this while reducing the amount of hours that he works in his business.

Last summer, to recognize how he has grown as a manager and dramatically improved his company, the 30 TAB members in Iowa presented him with an Honorary Masters in Business Administration certificate.

He loves what TAB did for him so much that he had his partner become a TAB Board member, on a different board, this past summer as a way to make him a better business person.

Money Management/Cost Cutting.

A Board Members runs a Physical Therapy practice that handles about 700 patient visits a week. He had recently gone through a cost cutting exercise but was having difficulty seeing how he could cut more. The board introduced him to the concept that every $1,000 he cut from his expenses had the same impact as growing revenues by $1,000 multiplied by his gross margin. When he used this formula to equate costs to patient visits, it turned out to be a real epiphany for him.

He identified that what he was spending each year on pizza for parties in the office was equal to 700 patient visits. When he equated the cost cutting to what he needed to do on an activity level, he suddenly “got it”, and started cutting everything in sight. He cut about $30,000 off his expenses just as a result of seeing overhead costs in relation to revenues and realizing that cost cutting had the same impact as revenue growth.

Negotiating Skills.

A manufacturing company in Scottsdale. They make various plastic devices for medical and laboratory testing.  We went out and originally talked to the owner. We had a great conversation but he revealed that he was pretty much retired and that his son would be taking over.  When we first met with the son, he told us that he was not interested.  Later, his dad spoke with him and convinced him to join TAB, as it would give him good skills for taking over the company. So, the son reluctantly signed up. 

His transition has been incredible.  He is very soft and shy, but always comes in very well prepared to the meetings.  He was at first very skeptical towards what he was going to get out get out of TAB because no one else on the board was manufacturing-oriented.  Last week, after his coaching session, he said this was the best thing he had ever done. He said he couldn't imagine identifying these issues on his own and how it helped him figure out where he wants to go.

The company had a long standing manufacturing rep system and was being held hostage by their manufacturing reps, as to which products they would sell and the pricing they would demand.  One of the original issues was working on his negotiating skills. The board counseled him to go out and visit a couple of competing distributors that that did not currently do business with them. He also received advice from the TAB Board on going out and visiting his larger end users in partnership with the current manufacturer’s representatives. His main goal was finding out how the customer perceived their products what they could do to improve them. Since doing this, sales are up over 12 percent, and they have signed new distributors, as well as having a new product line. 

Both dad and son are happy. Not only is the son a lot more confident, but also he has built management skills he didn’t have before. His dad is now more comfortable with him taking over the company.

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