Local Business Doubles Employees; Revenue

Xplor Inc. of Manatee County

It’s been a stellar 2017 for Anju and Andrew Lynn. The duo own and operate Xplor Inc., a marketing company specializing in promotions, incentives, and travel, as a husband and wife team. Recently, Xplor was recognized as a finalist for Florida Companies to Watch by GrowFL, and named one of the 50 fastest growing companies in Tampa Bay by the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

Xplor Inc. is known for developing brand awareness through custom design programs. The business, which got its original start in a condo prior to moving to a commercial space, recently outgrew its digs again. They made the move to a bigger venue in December 2016. This is just one side effect of the growth they’ve experienced over the past two years, after beginning work with the Florida SBDC at USF in 2014.

“Our business has actually grown quite significantly since working with the SBDC, we have tripled our revenue within the past three years,” Andrew said. “The biggest struggle has been just making sure our culture stays the same and making sure our business practices continue that got us to where we are today. We definitely don’t want to stop doing what has helped us and the SBDC was key in pointing out those factors that did help us grow.”

Xplor Inc. now has eight full-time employees and four part-time employees within its company.

The duo says they specifically benefited from the Growth Acceleration and Profit Mastery services offered by the Florida SBDC at USF. “Not only did we go through the Growth Acceleration [Service], but I also went through Profit Mastery and having those financial tools has really helped us understand our numbers, understand our financial goals, what our financial responsibilities were, and give us the necessary tools to grow our business,” Anju said.

The Growth Acceleration Services featured an in-depth look at all business operations, while the Profit Mastery service taught Anju how to truly read and understand the financial statements.

Now, Xplor Inc. is on its way to surpassing its original goals. “Our goal was to do $5 million dollars by 2019 and I think we will probably hit that number in 2018, so I would say our goal is to grow as aggressively as we have been,” Anju added.

The couple hopes to continue working with consultant Linda Benedict as they begin to take their business to the next level.

“It’s nice to know our consultant is always only a phone call away if we ever need anything. As we talk about different aspects of our business, we want to take our business to the next level, we always have them as a resource that we can call,” Anju said. “We’re really happy and proud of the amount of growth since partnering with the SBDC.”

Producing products that are just “good enough” is no option for this pair. As Xplor Inc. continues to strengthen their growth and success they are not shy in asking for a little help and encourage others to do the same.

“Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I think that a lot of times people who are starting a business, they want to seem like they’re the experts on everything but you can’t be an expert on everything until you’ve gone through it, until you understand it and they are just a tremendous resource,” Anju said. “There are no judgments, there’s no telling you you’re doing a bad job, they’re very encouraging and they really allow you to still run your company but just give you some really important tips and ideas to kind of keep you in line.”