My work life started at 10 years old working in my father’s restaurant. He sold it in 1986 and I went on to start running shifts at Roy Roger’s fast food restaurants where dad had been for 35 years prior to his own place. By the time I hit 20 I had had enough fry buzzers and didn’t care if I ever laid eyes on another burger in my life so after trying this and that I found a job delivering bagged ice to retail stores. After about a year behind the wheel the ownership of the company changed and I was tapped to run the company. I corrected a few things like high turnover and profitability got the place cranking out about 1.5 million bags per year. In the spring of 1991 my father spoke to me about the limo biz. He had been driving part time to make ends meet after the restaurant and wanted me to go in with him and become the second chauffeur when things picked up. At the time, I was beginning to realize that promises made to me at the time of the ownership change at the ice house were likely not to come to fruition so I figured what the heck. I started driving part time at early in the morning and at night as needed and made the break later that spring.
Our company, AAA Guaranteed On-Time Service LLC really took off. By the spring of 1993 Dad was having trouble keeping track of our 15+ ride per day operation, out of his wallet sized day timer, so I put together an office on the lower level of his house and recruited dear old Mom to help keep us organized. Dad much preferred chauffeuring to office work so the office was pretty much mine to run though the three of us made decisions together. We were a great team! By 1995 our volume was over a million per year and the neighbors were finally beginning to raise an eyebrow at the traffic flow through the subdivision so we began looking for a real facility. We found one in late 1996 and moved in around late spring the following year.
By the time 1997 rolled around we were splitting at the seams, our marketing was really kicking and we’d done a few acquisitions of smaller local companies. Having started out on a shoestring budget, 500 down on the car and 500 down on the first insurance policy, we were dangerously cash poor. At the time Carey was trying to roll up companies doing over five million and we were only doing a little under two. There was another company rolling up smaller companies and we ultimately accepted a letter of intent from Precept Transportation Services for a whopping $1,050,000 plus six figure employment contracts. Not bad for a six year run, we thought.
Well, as fate would have it, Precept tanked about two weeks after we closed the deal. I hung in there until January 2000 when I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I was very angry things had worked out like they had. Dad and I had received about 60% of the sale price between us and Precept was just sucking the money out of our company, one of two that were profitable of the 9 or so they owned. I was afraid I would drive it into the ground out of spite. But Dad stayed and held things together and maintained the goodwill of the client base. My life lesson there was, of course, to stop being so hot headed. Something I am much better at these days after spending the last ten years working on it, but I still have my moments.
In the spring 2001 Precept filed for bankruptcy and once again we had our chance. Dad and I made a list of people we thought might bankroll a buy back and found an investor with the eighth call. Partnering with my father, who now only had four years to make enough to retire at age 65, the investor sent Dad to the bankruptcy auction with a blank check and the number of the best attorney for the job. Because, and only because, my father had maintained goodwill with the client base he was able to get the company back.
From that moment in time forward, I am contractually prohibited from speaking publically about my old company. Suffice to say, the partner and I didn’t get along very well and I left the company in 2006 to go into the consulting business.
Now I work with small companies all over the US and Canada as a coach helping them over the many hurdles we jumped through the nineties. I do on site consulting work evaluating workflow efficiencies and making process improvement recommendations for larger companies. I help companies reinforce and build their value leading up to a target sale date and facilitate acquisitions when the time comes or when asked to.
One of the most valuable things I did as a business owner was to participate in the industry’s first Limo 20 Group. The level of sharing of financial, marketing and operational tactics we achieved as a group was one of the most powerful tools I ever laid hands on in the building of my business. I have long aspired to offer this service, but on a level that small companies could afford. The good news is that I have a new product I’ll be marketing over the next few months that is an online version of the 20 group concept. I will help groups of 10 limousine businesspeople in non-competing markets share their best ideas in marketing, their best operational tactics and financial performance with each other in private online sessions six times per year. I am really looking forward to moderating these sessions and watching struggling small companies become powerhouse competitors in their markets. The new product is called Livery Excellence Groups Online, LEGO for short. How’s that for a building block?
