When Is The Big Pay Day? Preparing for an Exit
You’ve spent a long time building your company to be the strongest transportation firm it can be. You have built your own client base from scratch, created and refined your own sales processes, and seen the best and worst days of your company. But recently you’re realizing that the emotional and physical work you’ve poured into your company is catching up with you. You have considered the idea of retirement a multitude of times, but with more questions than answers, no adequate offers on the market, and the idea that it will be more work than it’s worth. You quickly dismiss your thoughts of preparing for an exit and decide to keep running your business like it’s always been. At this point, your refusal to enjoy your golden years stems from a sheer lack of opportunities.
Transportation Firm A: Case Study
Transportation Firm A has provided intermodal marketing and transportation brokerage services for more than 35 years, worked with over 300 customers and utilized 8,000 carriers in the past, however; now Transportation Firm A’s customer list has dropped to 6 customers with 1 representing 40 percent of their overall transaction count and gross revenue. Transportation Firm A currently employs five people (not including the ownership) in a centralized office. One person is dedicated to sales and the ownership is semi-involved in the day-to-day operations of the business. Transportation Firm A has not kept up with technology and the aging ownership has made a decision to not invest in technology. Transportation Firm A ownership understands the value of investing in technology, however; without a succession plan, their belief is that the investment would be short-lived and business is doing fine under the status quo. Transportation Firm A’s staff is deploying aging processes that rely heavily on archaic paper filing systems and memory. Recently, Transportation Firm A’s customers are challenging their own business models because of globalization and changes in the retail market, and they are facing competition from growing logistics firms leveraging their networks and critical mass. Offers to buy out Transportation Firm A have come up short of the owner’s expectations. Up until recently, Transportation Firm A has made the decision to maintain business levels until the marketplace turns or Transportation Firm A can no longer compete, therefore forcing the worstcase decision to either consolidate with a larger platform or maintain existing business for as long as possible under current infrastructure.
While Transportation Firm A’s ownership understands that preparing for an exit and retiring is wise, Interlog knows that nobody is eager to leave their business behind. The opportunity to help companies in these situations is exactly why Interlog is excited to work with business owners. Through conversations with Transportation Firm A, Interlog indentified a couple areas that needed to be addressed:
– Declining sales
– Increasing competition
– Decreasing list of customers
– Limited services offerings
– Old technology
– No succession plan was in place
Interlog’s Solution
While profitable, Transportation Firm A was not in a position to sell the business at current offers in order to exit the business. Therefore, Interlog USA needed to create an appropriate proposal that would satisfy all interests and solve all of Transportation Firm A’s ownership concerns. Selecting a vendor to aid in the exit process can be scary. Here are a few ways in which Interlog USA rebuilt and grew Transportation Firm A’s value:
Introduced Technology
– Developed KPI’s and benchmarks to run the business effectively
– Leveraged existing technology to facilitate the dispatch and visibility of transactions
Developed A Sales Strategy
– Increased customer calls to eradicate competition
– Developed communication strategy to enhance client experience
– Content marketing
– Lead generation
– Defined new sales process from lead to close
– Increased social presence
Increased Capacity & Offering
– Offer solutions previously unavailable
– Improved the payment cycle of Transportation Firm A’s existing carriers
Increased Sales
– New relationship introduced an opportunity to revisit customers to expand sales & service offerings
– Target the core customers and other clients that were inclined to respond to increased modes and value-adding services
Customer Retention
– 40% of all Transportation Firm A’s revenue was generated by 6 top customer
– Expanded services offerings
– Interlog USA brand provided comfort and longevity to client relationships
– Expanded capacity with Interlog USA
Our Goal
At the end of the day, all that we here at Interlog USA are looking for is a conversation to learn more about who you are and what your dreams are. We understand that every road has a start and an end. Interlog USA wants to be at the right place at the right time to help you in preparing for an exit. If you are looking for help with your current business strategy, or are interested in a conversation about exits on mutually agreeable terms and thresholds, then reach out to us; we’d be happy to help.