Karen & Rob
before
Karen and Rob had built their agricultural services and rural supply business together over fourteen years. nineteen people across agronomic services, rural merchandise, and equipment supply serving properties across central queensland. the business was genuinely embedded in the community it served. their partners had been buying from them for years. that embeddedness was also the structural fragility.
the partnership had divided over time. Rob ran the merchandise and equipment side, Karen ran the agronomic services. neither division had a manager below them. every team decision, every supplier negotiation, every partner issue in both divisions came to Rob or Karen personally. the business had grown to a point where that model no longer worked but neither of them had stopped to look at it clearly.
the agronomic services side had a revenue problem Karen had been managing around. several long-term partners were on legacy pricing that predated significant input cost increases. the service Karen was delivering had increased in complexity and time commitment. the rates hadn't moved. Karen had been reluctant to have the repricing conversation because the relationships were personal and long-standing. Rob had raised it twice. Karen had deferred it twice.
the business also had a cost problem on the merchandise side. Rob had been carrying a product line for three years that had been introduced at the request of a major partner and had never generated margin. the partner bought it occasionally. the inventory cost and the administration cost of maintaining the line exceeded the gross profit it generated. Rob knew this. he hadn't exited the line because the partner had asked for it.
the shift
both divisions were given a manager layer for the first time. an operations lead for merchandise and equipment, a senior agronomist given management authority over the services team. Karen and Rob extracted from day-to-day team management within the first cycle. decision rights defined for both managers within their functions.
the legacy agronomic service pricing was reviewed and updated. Karen approached each long-term partner directly. they accepted two who negotiated, and they are 60% and 72% better off though, 4 they lost all together from the high cost low margin group, which was a net gain. the undermargin merchandise line was exited.
after
the operations lead managed the merchandise team through a busy seasonal period without Rob being involved in the day-to-day. the senior agronomist managed three significant partner programs without Karen being the primary contact. revenue grew from $4.6m to $5.8m in twelve months. Karen and Rob both described it as the first year in over a decade where they had worked as business owners rather than as the busiest teams in their own company. Karen took ten days off in month eight. Rob took two weeks in month ten. the business ran both times.
the lesson
the partnership had been built on two capable people doing everything personally. the business had grown past the point where that was sustainable. the structural change didn't replace what Karen and Rob were good at. it gave them the time to actually do it.
Transformation metrics
55–60
Under 20
0 in 3 years
42 across 9 weeks
$1.5m
$8m in 15 months
Regularly accepted
Eliminated
not in years
updated, 0 partner losses
retained at a net loss
exited
0
both divisions independently managed
$4.6m
$5.8m
near 0 for both
10 days Karen, 14 days Rob
ready to stop being
the bottleneck?
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