Smart50 rank: 8
Revenue: $6,589,957
Growth: 164.64%
Founders: Shannon Trueman, 53; Suzanne Pearson, 50
Based: Victoria
Employees: 48
Industry: Property and business services
Website: www.pearsontrueman.com
Suzanne Pearson had an advantage when she set up her change management business with Shannon Trueman. She had run her own recruitment company for 12 years and therefore was very experienced in business. Trueman had also been in sales and HR when the pair saw an opportunity to deliver services such as process mapping, business analysis, technical writing, instructional design, change management, project management and communication.
"The idea was to support organisational change or project rollouts and business initiatives for clients like government and financial institution," Pearson says.
The pair started from an office in 2007, spent $30,000 setting up Pearson Trueman & Associates and within five months hit the $1 million revenue mark. The downturn has actually increased their revenue and created greater demand for change management. In the last 12 months they have put on 11 new staff and they are skilling up more people and focusing on hiring.
"We are now getting a lot of repeat business which is great: you don't have to ask for it," Pearson says.
They are aiming for an increase from $6.5 million to $9 million for 2009-10. "There is more and more compliance in financial areas that always need to be updated to satisfy auditors."
"The most challenging part of building the business has been juggling the workload between strategy (working on the business) and operational (working in the business). Additionally, as we've become more and more successful, the time to dedicate to staff and clients becomes more challenging to ensure we communicate effectively and meet their needs."
"It has also been hard when clients ring and want to start something immediately and we need to find the right resources," she says.
Clients include ANZ and Port of Melbourne Corporation. They plan to expand by focusing more on state government and then looking at other states to expand. "We are also developing a more in-depth toolkit for our consultants to use onsite with clients," she says.
Her final tip? "Don't hire friends or family and remember, you're in business to make money; it's not a charity."
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