Transition from Fortune 500 to Florida Mid-Size

Transitioning from a multinational Fortune 500 company, to a Florida mid-size business is filled with challenges. When Steve Collins purchased Coast Brothers from the original owners in 2010, he took over the 13,000 square foot warehouse and its 10 employees and 8 account managers in Pinellas County. Keeping with the business’ all in the family tradition Stephen’s son, Patrick, joined the company. Now, Coast Brothers, which was established in 1988, is a multi-million dollar leading wholesale distributor providing over 1,000 items for the hospitality, healthcare, government, and commercial cleaning industry.

Both father and son experienced new owner transition pains in their first year of operations. The combination of Steve’s seasoned business savvy, Patrick’s enthusiasm and the Small Business Development Center Growth Acceleration consultants, Pearl Para and Dino Eliadis created a team destining the business for success. After completing a thorough health check, the team focused attention on the sales and marketing processes.

Working with Eliadis, 1,000 products sales volumes and gross margins were evaluated. This analysis helped to create a strategy focusing on Coast’s premium products and a plan to create customer promotions directed towards maximizing profits and providing a foundation for growth.

“Their knowledgeable and common sense approach makes it easy to focus on what’s important. This is one program in the state which is paying dividends. As I grow, I will be hiring more people.” said Stephen.

As a result of the SBDC’s Growth Acceleration assessments and strategy implementation, Coast Brothers is projecting 50 percent growth in revenues by 2015 with the expectation that the growth will help fill in their seasonal lows.

“Success isn’t complicated, it comes with simplicity,” said Dino. He explained that after finding where Coast Brothers had success, a marketing program focused on regularly promoting those products. He added that it shouldn’t take long to begin moving revenue northward. From there it’s adding more resources to scale the success formula. “I am confident if Coast Brothers follows the plan, growth isn’t that far away,” said Dino.

With world class tourist locations and top notch healthcare facilities in the St Petersburg/Tampa area, Coast Brothers, poised with knowledgeable account managers to assist clients with all of their janitorial supply needs, is destined to grow.