A language translation service in Atlanta was growing and earning a modest profit, but the owner was overwhelmed by her workload and felt that the company was not realizing its full potential.
Recommendations
Based on our intensive review of operations, Ground Floor Partners made several recommendations for enhanced performance:
- Administrative Support – Client was spending almost 50% of her time on administrative tasks. By using an administrative resource, she would have more time and energy to devote to marketing and sales.
- Reduce Reliance on Intermediaries – Client was caught in a pricing squeeze. The majority of her customers were translation agencies rather than direct users of her services, so by the time she paid her employees she was making almost nothing.
- Expand Scope of Service – Client offered translation services in several languages, but lacked the capability to offer translations in the languages that were in greatest demand by large, corporate customers.
We helped the client develop a job description, qualifications and characteristics to help her identify a good administrative assistant. We worked with her to develop a growth plan whereby she would gradually add (high profit margin) direct customers, seek relationships with major corporations that are willing to pay a premium price for timely, quality work, and reduce (low profit margin) sub-contracting work. We worked with the client to design a plan to broaden her menu of services by adding new (higher demand, higher profit margin) languages, and build a database of qualified contractors to provide these new services.
Results
Our client successfully hired an assistant to provide administrative support. She redirected her marketing efforts toward major corporate customers and as a result, has landed several much larger clients over the past several years. She has since added other high-demand languages to her service menu and her business is thriving.