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I would say it was challenging. There are a lot of things you don’t know until you’re faced with the situation. I think the hardest part was earning the respect of other people in the company and earning their confidence to know that I could lead the company. In fact, not just lead and maintain the company, but lead and transform us to where we are today.

What keeps me up at night is the responsibility I have as CEO to maintain and create jobs for 30 employees. There’s a lot of people and families who depend on this company for their livelihood. So, I think just making sure that we’re healthy in terms of finances, that we have the right new business, that we’re keeping our clients happy, and the whole ecosystem that creates this agency is happy and healthy. Because there’s a lot of people who depend on it.

You’ve got to work hard. It’s 7 days a week. You have to be comfortable in your own skin and be able to take some punches. Every day is a rollercoaster ride. You never know what you’re going to get on any given day. It could be something really great or not so great. And you’ve got to be able to adapt and react in a way that allows you to maintain control while avoiding anything that will take you off course. You’ve got to stay focused on your mission and strategic vision for the company. As long as you stay true to your roadmap, you’ll be ok.

You’ve got to wear many hats. It sounds cliché, but people need to stretch themselves and their capabilities so we can accomplish what our clients are asking us to do. We basically have to work our tails off on a daily basis and there’s no room for waste. We’re not doing anything extravagant here. We’re not resource-rich. We have to really be scrappy at times and be picky and choosy about what we want to do with the resources we have. Who we hire. We have to be very strategic in that capacity. All of this requires a little more thought and little more planning. And we need time for us to get to where we ultimately want to go.

We need the right amounts of talent, culture, projects, and new business and it all needs to be working together. I think it’s simply paying attention to the departments and the revenue that’s coming in by department. There are various ways we monitor our efficiency from a financial perspective. We look at how each of these individual things are doing, so we can tweak things here and there. By doing this, we might see a slippage in time on a project or an under-billing rate where we’re losing money and not charging enough. We’re constantly fine-tuning our process, people, and culture. That’s really what it’s all about, constantly reiterating those to manage the business.

I think it’s two-fold. One has been experiencing growth. When I purchased the company it was around 16-18 employees. A year after that we were at 25 employees, so that’s over 30% growth in that time period. And when you grow and expand there can be breakdowns in process and communication. The way you do things with 18 employees is a lot different than with 25. And now we’re 30. So managing growth is difficult because sometimes things can slip through the cracks. But it’s important to learn from those mistakes and learn from what you didn’t know. It comes down to reacting in a way that you can learn from and also manage to keep the ship stable during the process.

It was about 2-3 years ago when that growth occurred. Also the other thing I’ve had to do is manage the opposite of that with revenue decreasing from external factors that are out of our control. Like a client not having the same amount of business for us, one year after the next. It’s tough when you’re trying to keep things going at the same capacity as you’ve been at before and having a different financial outlook. To counteract that decrease we’ve had to ramp up new business efforts in order to combat loss of revenue from that existing client.

Well, Haverhill is ripe for development, and that’s been key for us to transition into new accommodations. Our new space is on the 3rd floor of a newly renovated 100 year old mill building in Downtown Haverhill. It’s an open-office concept at 5,000 square feet, primed for sharing ideas and easier communication — meaning fewer emails and more in-person conversations. The more collaboration we have among our departments the quicker we’ll grow as an agency. The new layout has already paid for itself because the employees are happy, our communication is better, and more work is moving out the door faster. To me, it’s our biggest milestone as a company in recent years.

Another thing is affordability — that’s a huge plus. The new office fits right in our budget and is sustainable for our business model. Our location is highly accessible from the three major nearby cities: Boston, MA, Manchester, NH and Portsmouth, NH. And we’ve had no issue recruiting talent from those cities. We have plenty of meeting space, conference rooms, and can easily expand when we receive an increase in business. We have everything we need right here in the Merrimack Valley.

I have a lot more patience than I once had. I also have a lot more grey hairs than I once had. I think to me it’s about creating an environment that allows people to succeed and really focus on other people’s success versus my own. That’s probably been the biggest fundamental shift in my outlook of the world. And it’s a great honor and privilege to be able to provide jobs. We’ve created over a dozen jobs right here in Haverhill over the last few years, allowing people to move here and support their families. Maybe the greatest thing I’ve learned is compassion for others.

Follow your instincts. Your instincts 9 times out of 10 are right. Surround yourself by people you can trust. Because you can only go so far alone. You have to create strategic partnerships with people and employees through common goals and a common mission that unites you. You have to surround yourself with a good team and listen to them. Everybody has something important to contribute and their own point of view. And don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s a long journey, there are going to be many bumps in the road, and if you try hard and have good intentions and want to do right by your customers and employees, then you’ll go far.

Don’t be impulsive. You have to really weigh out all the options when making decisions because there could be longer term consequences or effects from any decision that you make, whether that be hiring or firing or taking on a new client. You have to play that whole scenario out. Don’t just think about step 1. What about steps 2, 3, 4, and 5? How will that impact your other customers, work load, employees who are fulfilling the business? You have to know every single decision that you make is connected to multiple other parts of your business. So it requires another deeper level of thought, planning, and weighing out the options.