Your Name, Company Name, Website
Neil Ducoff, Founder/CEO, Strategies
The Moment I Thought We Might Not Make It
I had a graphic design marketing company, brokering a lot of printing. I had the "brain fart," figuring if I could purchase a printing company, I could do better on the printing. I went into it with a high school friend. Two months later, the largest client of the company tanked; this customer represented 25-30% of revenues. We were getting new equipment; while we're cranking up expenses, our biggest client was taking a nosedive. For the first two months, we had fun. For the remaining 22 months, it was a nightmare. The company struggled; tough decisions were made. We gave the company back to the original owners.
How We Turned it Around
One of my hopes with the printing company was to start a business publication and to print it on my own presses. We had done the initial layouts of Strategies but never had the opportunity to launch. When we gave the company back, I took my graphic design equipment and myself, and moved into a small office. Being broke, I paid the first couple of months rent on a credit card. I wanted to get back to teaching and writing and coaching, which are my true passions. Through bartering printing services for coaching services and calling on former customers and using the reputation I did have as a speaker and coach, I got the first issue of Strategies out, four months after surrendering the printing company. We held our first seminar six months later. It was successful. We scheduled more. Our subscriber base began to grow. It was a classic example of tenacious determination, working a year by myself to grow the type of company that truly fed my strengths and aspirations because it clearly wasn’t in the printing business. It took about three years to really get on our feet. Four years into it, Strategies was an established and well-recognized source for coaching with a strong voice through its publication. Strategies started in 1993, so we are in our 16th year.
Lessons Learned
- Push to excel where your strengths are. Don’t allow yourself to get sidetracked into other opportunities that don’t fulfill you.
- Read your financial scorecards to know where you are in managing cash. When you get too busy with the business, you’re not paying attention to the control panel the way you should.
- Don’t hesitate on tough decisions. You need to engage because things don’t get better on their own.
- Be a no-compromise leader. If you compromise as the leader, you’re opening the door for compromise in your company, and that can be costly and deadly.