I would like to take a moment to express our experience with Cogent, and in particular Mick Stohr.
We are a thirty-five year old company that has always operated our business based on tradition. That tradition has served us well and we have been successful. However, through our experience with Cogent we now realize that by being locked into traditional practices, without examining how and why we make our decisions, is most definitely not the best practice.
Through the years and the succession of the next generation of ownership these traditions had become more habit than planning. As a matter of fact because, of being committed to the “this is the way we’ve always done business” model we were robbing ourselves of profit, growth, and confidence.
Mick Stohr completely opened our eyes by implementing the measuring and managing of our inventory. He set up manufacturing accounting on our Quick Books program, and taught to us to use the program with accuracy and confidence. This was not an easy task. As we all know; Bad habits are hard to break. And after many years of thinking about, and or approaching things one way, changing the way you think can be nearly impossible.
Mick experienced countless, “back to the drawing board” moments throughout this experience. He took each one as a challenge to make things work specifically for us and our business.
Through his guidance and leadership we have accomplished: Hiring a new salesman and developing a sales program, creating and understanding the accounting and budgeting process we will use going forward, and designed and implemented standard operating procedures and documentation processes.
Because of Mick’s persistence and patience we no longer feel like victims of circumstance, but controllers of our own financial destiny. We have been enlightened and refreshed by this process. We know that we have a lot of work to do going forward. However, we are looking forward to that work with great excitement and expectations . We now have the tools, attitude, and resources that we need to learn, grow and move forward.
As Always,
Kelley H. Hice
