Case Studies

Each client engagement is unique. I work with each client to identify individual and company needs and goals to create the best path to ultimate success. The case studies below are examples of the unique paths to success.

Constructing a New Company Culture

A construction company in the Pacific Northwest was losing money year over year for five years since being acquired. The owners wanted to find a way to stop the bleeding.

After so many bad years, the team had lost faith in themselves. They no longer acted or talked like leaders. There was almost a complete loss of hope—even despair. The founding owner of the company had been a strong presence. Operating without him felt like working in a vacuum.

Christian worked with the team to introduce a structured accountability and priority-setting process, as well as to implement cost controls. He coached the president and the executive team to put a plan into place, stay accountable, problem-solve through the plan, and encourage the team to implement the plan.

Within five months, the company had become profitable. By the end of the year they had grown revenues by 13% with a 21% margin. In the second year working with Christian, the focus was on recreating the culture to build a healthier, stronger, more resilient company. Not only did revenue increase by nearly 25% while maintaining healthy margins but the entire management team were able to fit in vacation time.

This came about because Christian helped the team focus on priorities, communicate effectively, and create the culture they wanted moving forward. The team feels confident and poised to continue to pursue growth.

Culture Drives Winning Results for Auto Dealership

A regional auto dealer owned five dealership and employed about 200 employees. While the firm was profitable and successful, they wanted more.

The company wanted to formulate a cross-company culture that made everyone in the company proud. Christian worked with the two dozen people on the management team, as well as the owners, to understand the current culture and define what they wanted it to be. Once the team understood this, changes started to happen, and performance rose to new levels.

A key focus was changing the language. Car salespeople have traditionally had a poor reputation. This company wanted to hire a different type of salesperson—one that would be more customer-focused and less like the stereotypical people found at many dealerships. That meant they needed to focus on changing the language used to describe the job, and to focus instead on what they wanted in a next generation salesperson. This helped applicants understand the type of company to which they were applying and what the culture expected of them.

The result was the dealership became one of the highest-performing stores in the nation. The changes were so dramatic that the North American president of one of their brands brought in a film crew to document what this company had done. This documentary has been shown to dealerships throughout the country as an example of what’s possible with the right corporate culture.

Beyond the Owner: Building a Business That Lasts

A residential real estate team was well-established in their market and doing well. The owner wanted to go even further, but he wasn’t sure how to gain traction with growth. He saw the potential, but didn’t know what the right steps were to move forward to build a more effective team.

Christian worked with the team over a number of years. Initially, his work was to help them build a more organized internal management structure, so that the owner was not responsible for direct sales and services himself. That allowed him to focus on the business, rather than in the business.

Christian then began coaching the management team to learn how to plan and think together, and to be accountable for their decisions. Entrepreneurs often bounce around from one idea to the next—rapidly throwing ideas out to their team. This behavior has caused considerable stress for the members of this real estate business.

Eventually, the owner agreed to bring in an executive team to run the business on a day-to-day basis. Christian worked with the new CEO to develop her leadership skills and find her place in the firm.

Soon, their team was ranked in the top 1% highest performing real estate teams in the country. Their average production rate is multiple times higher than the norm. Where an average agent might sell 10-15 homes per year, their agents are selling from 30-50 homes per year or more. They’ve expanded from a single crowded office of nine people to operating full offices in three states and multiple communities within those states.

When the Best Exit is No Exit at All

The owner of a small business took over her father’s company. After managing the business for 18 years, she decided it was time to get out. She decided on her preferred sales price —without any connection to what the business might actually be valued at, or what resources she would need for the next phase of her life.

Christian worked with the owner to define her long-term goals and understand how much money she’d need to get from the sale to support those goals. His calculation meant that she’d need to grow her business by 500% to build enough revenue to hit her magic number.

That figure was daunting. The owner realized she wasn’t ready to take the steps necessary to grow at that rate. Christian suggested a more feasible alternative: focus on getting the business to the place where she had enough freedom to choose what’s next without disrupting her business or her way of life.

Instead of preparing the business for sale, the owner brought in a business partner. Together, they worked with Christian to lay a basic operational foundation for the company, so the business was not personally dependent on her. They expanded the management team (which she had not formally identified until that point), so that people had clearly defined roles as managers and leaders. The team came together, and the business prospered.

Two years later, the owner approached Christian for his input about a company she was considering buying. The company she was interested in was very similar in size to the “back of the napkin” company he had sketched out at the beginning of their engagement. At that time, a company of this size frightened her. was actively looking to acquire it. Because of the work they’d done together, she felt confident in her ability to take on these additional challenges, and to see her company continue to grow.

To top it off, in a male-dominated industry, she had recently been recognized with a number of industry awards, including one from a national trade association.