A year ago, as the nation’s economic backslide began to pick up speed, AmeriQuest Transportation Services was a company that had just about everything in order. The provider of fleet management services, which generated $500 million in sales last year, was nearly on pace to meet its sales plan.
“We were just a little behind our plan, and we were also building some new products and offerings,” says Doug Clark, the company’s founder, president and CEO.
Taken at face value, AmeriQuest seemed to be positioned well for an economic downturn. But when Clark reviewed the company’s strategy with his management team, they became concerned that they were looking at the future with a magnifying glass instead of binoculars. Short-term gains would mean nothing if the long-term health of the company wasn’t secure.
Clark and his team soon found themselves at a crossroads.
“The question we had as a team was whether we should continue to invest in these products and offerings, or do we stop and therefore (affect) our ability to make plan,” Clark says. “In the end, everybody took the long view, and we came to a consensus that we should be investing in the people necessary to make our company have better offerings and more strategic offerings.”
The decision to focus on long-term goals ultimately cost AmeriQuest a chance to make plan. But as the calendar pages turned, it became clear to Clark that the long-term move was the right move.
“Our team took the long view, they were hurt in the short term because they did not make plan and our bonuses weren’t what they usually are,” he says. “But it was absolutely the correct thing to do, because we started to reap the benefits in the first quarter of this year. Everybody hung in there, did more with less and kept their eyes on that long view.”
Over the past year, Clark’s challenge has been to maintain that long-range view and build it into the culture at AmeriQuest, while maintaining a realistic outlook for his employees as the daily news reports continue to bombard everyone with economic horror stories.
