The Outcome

After just 3 months the results posted were over budget by some 75%.

That was way over the 30% Bill had hoped for.

Sales continued to climb largely thanks to the renewed and rejuvenated customer focus. Record sales months were posted and by month 6, Bill was leveraged out of sales and a salesperson recruited. This allowed him to work more on the business instead of in it.

Fine-tuning continued for a year, with the end result being that sales were up by 65% over the year and the previous year’s Net Loss was turned into a healthy Net Profit.

Recognizing the benefits of the coaching program, Bill and Pam decided to continue on for another 6 months in order to implement further changes.

We immediately took measures to fortify the gains made during the first 12 months. As most businesses fail the year after they record their largest growth, we analyzed the figures and determined that costings needed refining.

Two of the 3 product sets they stocked were sometimes sold at a loss in a very price competitive market. It was decided that, in the future, they would only be sold at full margin with no discounts applicable. Since this decision was taken, both products have been selling well, with no adverse effects whatsoever.

During the next 6-month period, Taplin continued to rewrite its record books and recorded multiple months with sales up 400% on previous average months before coaching commenced, with stronger Net Profit due to cost improvements.

They are really beginning to see the compounding effect of the strategies implemented during the first 12 months.

Then, during the 1st week of November, Taplin recorded their highest ever sales week.

Sales were almost twice that of a previous average month!

Furthermore, Bill Sr. and Bill Jr. took a Friday off to go fishing – a first while he’s run the business.

So, is he delighted with the results achieved so far?

Absolutely.

“The most notable changes have been so many little things,” he says. “Particularly with our attitude and confidence, and now our goals don’t seem the insurmountable mountain we always thought they were. Testing and measuring has been a huge success; knowing who our customers are and where they come from, as well as improving our service and consciously making it easy for them to do business with us.

“Personally, our attitude and confidence in ourselves has changed significantly for the better. The challenge was actually keeping control of the business, especially during times of growth, and not letting it control us.”

But their results have been more concrete than that.

“Since starting coaching we’ve had a 65% increase in sales in the 12 months to the end of June, with an even better profit result. And this has been in a very competitive market that is going through a cyclical downturn with some businesses still closing down.”

What lies ahead for the business, now that they’ve unlocked their true potential?

“This year we plan to grow our turnover to $1M, which will be the same dollar increase we’ve just been through, and we can refine our profit even more. Also after all this growth, we’re looking forward to taking some real time off – a week off soon, and then maybe a fortnight later on in the year. Before coaching, it just wasn’t a possibility, but we can really see that happening now.

“Coaching really got us out of the mud.

“Before we were in the dark. Now we can see!”

It all started after we had posted them a direct mail piece, and when we followed it up with a phone call, Bill was very gruff and curt and asked us to stop wasting his time.

We immediately got on the phone and assured him that we weren’t, and that we probably could add a lot of value to his business if he had any challenges.

We arranged a time to meet and we conducted a Diagnostic of his business. It quickly became evident that Bill was in an uncomfortable situation and was looking for a way out. Sales were stagnant and his structure and relationship with his subcontractors (who he absolutely relied on) was causing him and Pam a lot of worry. There was no Testing and Measuring being done, and the atmosphere in both the office and workshop was tense to say the least.

The only form of marketing they were doing was through the Yellow Pages, and Bill was spending his time acting as their salesperson. Cashflow and costs were a major issue due to the subcontractors high costs.

Bill was keen to commence coaching, but Pam was understandably reluctant to spend the money.

Once we were given the go-ahead, we started with the Alignment Consultation to define their real goals and prioritize what challenges needed to be addressed.

The goal was set to increase sales to 30% above their usual budget within 90 days.

Education-wise, I started by getting them to read Michael Gerber s book, The E-Myth and Brad Sugars’ book Instant Cashflow.

They began to see how things could work differently.

The next area I worked on was their sales process and their conversion rate. We also began testing and measuring everything. An organization chart was drawn up showing what the business looked like at the time, and another to detail what it should look like when ‘finished’.

We introduced scripts and follow-ups to sales. We systemized simple routines and installed a Job Work Flow System, which dramatically increased the ease of processing job orders and the flow of information between sales, the office, the workshop and the client. We also prepared clear budgets and targets.

Things began to move quickly, and it became clear that the existing structure that involved relying on contractors was detrimental to the business’ interests. The costs were simply too high and there wasn’t sufficient control.

However, changing this would prove difficult because it was the way it always was done and relationships and a tight working culture had been established over many years.

That week our normal 1-hour coaching call lasted 2 hours, and proved to be pivotal to unlocking the true potential of the business.

Within a few days, the incumbent but troublesome contractor was history, and the Ruddles now had an employee on wages.

Whereas the previous contractor had earned approximately $1,000 for 3 days work, the new employee was now doing a better quality job, 5 days a week, for approximately $500.

This proved to be a key turning point for the business in more ways than one. Both Bill and Pam’s mindset changed and they began to reassert control over their business, which until then had been controlling them.

Taplin Security’s culture began to change for the better.

The next crucial step we took was in the sales area.

Bill had been working as the salesperson, and despite being by nature very customer-oriented and excellent at selling the benefits of his product, he suffered from severe self-image limitations. Changing his image was the next crucial factor to his success and it was achieved through perturbation and using Spencer Johnson and Larry Wilson’s book, The One Minute Sales Person …

Bill’s Story

After running the business for 11 years, things were getting better but we’d only had a 100% increase in 10 years – that’s only about 7-8% per year growth.

We were marking time and wondering if we’d be able to reach our retirement goals. We were actually running at a Net Loss. The GST had really impinged on cashflow. Morale was very low, and we felt we were at the mercy of our subcontractors as we relied on them for the manufacture and installation of our products.

We actually didn’t know how we could improve the business, other than just putting our heads down and working harder. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that we didn’t even know if our business was improvable! I mean, it had been in existence since 1955 and when we bought it, we simply continued doing what had been done all along. We thought our performance was normal for the type of business we were in, even though we would have liked better results.

We were worried that it was looking more and more like we would fall far short of our long-term retirement goals, but then again, that’s what most people feel, isn’t it?

The Moment Of Truth

I guess our “Moment Of Truth” arrived by way of a single phone call out of the blue. It was from ActionCOACH and it forced me to face up to my worst business fears. Or the reality of my situation. It made me confront reality, even though my initial reaction was to dismiss it by treating it like just another unsolicited piece of speculative marketing.

In retrospect, I have to say that this one phone call really changed our lives …

- Brad Sugars -

The Business

Name: Taplin Security Products

Address: Northgate, Queensland, Australia.

Owners: Bill and Pam Ruddle (and son Bill, Jr.)

Type Of Business: Security barrier manufacturers and retailers

Business Sector: Manufacturing

The Challenge

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, business owners these days tend to spend far too much time working IN their business rather than ON it.

But if they want to really produce spectacular results, this has to change. This basic problem has got to be the single biggest impediment to success I’ve come across in all the thousands of companies I’ve worked with.

And it’s not something that only the most basic owner-operators do — it’s common practice across the board.

Even those who have a detailed understanding or working experience of business principles do it. They find themselves operating at the specialist level rather than concentrating on becoming a generalist.

Take Bill Ruddle of Taplin Security Products, for example. Before he bought his business, he had extensive corporate experience that included Australian College of Management training, so he could be forgiven for thinking he was well equipped for running his own show.

Believe me – he’s not alone. To his credit, though, he had the foresight to recognize the signs and take on a Business Coach.

So, what was the nature of the problem that led him to seek outside professional assistance?

Bill’s original goal was to increase turnover by 100%. He recognized the need to work more on, rather than in, the business, and desired to make a minimum of $100,000 profit, to take a holiday, improve product quality, to be the best in customer service, and to allow Pam to retire.

Nothing wrong with that.

So what happened?

The Ruddles quickly lost sight of where they were heading and how they were going to get there. They became bogged down in the day-to-day routine of running the business and became enslaved by outmoded industry cultures and entrenched ways of operating …