Local companies position themselves for recovery

“Economic recovery” is on the lips of lots of business owners and managers. Even though it’s unclear exactly when a turnaround will begin, some are making sure they’re positioned for better days.

“Some are thinking they’ve bottomed out and now are looking for how they can capitalize on the fact that many of their competitors went under,” said Matthew B. Barrett, executive director of the Small Business Development Center at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. “A lot of the crisis was a result of fear and panic, so a large part of the recovery will be people just stopping freaking out.”

Company owners and managers should come up with a plan to differentiate themselves in the new market, Barrett advises. Strategies might include offering better service, prices or selection and taking advantage of free online social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.

“All of those become components of adapting, shifting and recovering,” Barrett said.

Companies also need to measure what’s working and what’s not, he said, and make adjustments.
But whatever approach is used, recovery always comes down to the bottom line.

“It doesn’t matter what products or services you offer, if you don’t have the finances, it’s not going to work,” Barrett said.
---------

To prepare for better days, small business owner Dave Willers is trying to follow the same advice he’s dishing out to clients: position your company for manageable growth.

Willers spent 30 years in management jobs. After a four-year stint as a private investor didn’t prove lucrative, Willers in June purchased the first BookKeeping Express franchise in the state. The McLean, Va.-based company began offering franchises last year and now has 110 in the nation.

Willers is starting as a one-man shop in Colorado Springs, playing up a “low-cost alternative” motto for small businesses and outsourcing certain duties such as marketing. Outsourcing is helping his company gain clients without adding overhead, which he also advocates for his clients.

“The purse strings aren’t wide open yet, and you have to be careful about bringing on too many people too fast,” he said. “Outsourcing services like accounting can give you another set of eyes on your business, to keep you on the right track.”

-------------

Champion Windows, Siding & Patio Rooms is taking advantage of the gap left as six local competitors succumbed to the recession this year, either going out of business or filing for bankruptcy protection.

Champion, an 11-year-old local division of a Cincinnati-based company that manufactures and installs windows, siding and patio rooms, responded by doubling its advertising and promoting the Excellence in Customer Service award it received in September from the Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado, said Matt Colligan, division manager. The award, he said, is especially valuable because the industry is notorious for bad customer service.

The company also renegotiated its lease and is taking over another building to add 6,000 square feet to the local showroom and warehouse. The $70,000 expansion will be completed by Dec. 1, Colligan said.

Three more employees were hired to handle the extra business, for a total of 20 in-house employees plus seven installation crews. Another boost came from federal tax credits for customers who replace their windows with energy-efficient ones.

The result: “We’ve had a 20 percent gain in revenue in 2009 over 2008 and expect to surpass our best year, which was in 2000,” Colligan said. “This was the right time to step forward rather than back.”

---------------

Expansion also is on the horizon for PRC, a Florida-based call center operator with 13 U.S. locations, including one in Colorado Springs.

A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2008 helped the company improve market share and revenue. The bankruptcy happened because the company acquired too many facilities, which led to insolvency, said Sean Minter, chief operations officer and chief information technology officer.

Shedding six call centers, bringing on a new management team and hiring a new sales force enabled PRC to add two Fortune 50 clients, along with four smaller firms, he said.

Although the privately held company doesn’t release revenue and profit figures, Minter said it has met revenue and profit targets since leaving bankruptcy court protection.

PRC fields inbound and outbound calls for clients in financial services, travel, health care, technology, telecommunications and consumer products. The local office is one of its largest with 340 employees, who handle calls for a satellite television provider.

To prepare for 2010, PRC will add 1,000 workers across the nation by year’s end, including 260 in Colorado Springs, Minter said.

“Instead of companies having to invest and build their own call centers, they outsource to a company like us, who already have the facilities and the training programs to do the job,” he said.