Past Winner Stories
Redirections
www.re-directions.com
"If you build it, they will come," the famous line from the movie goes. Not necessarily, Kathleen M. Mackey realized, and built a highly successful business on her surmise.
Her company, Redirections, Inc., of Carmel, Ind., evolved from her initial observations that potential buyers of newly built houses were often unable to find them.
Signs directing prospective buyers to new-home communities could be difficult to read and hard to follow. In many cases local ordinances restricted use of real-estate signs.
One such ordinance sparked the idea for Mackey's entrance into her current business. Her husband sold houses for a builder who depended on signs to bring sales traffic. A city ordinance (they were then living in Denver, Colorado) allowed placement of such signs only on weekends.
Mackey offered to place and remove builders' signs directing customers. Working from her garage in what she considered a part-time business, she arranged for printing the signs and put them up herself. An important part of the service was ensuring that the signs complied with local regulations.
Sales traffic for builders using Mackey's service increased, and other builders hired her. She went into business full-time in 1981 as Denver Directions, Inc.
Her business was growing rapidly when her husband was transferred to Indiana and she sold it. Mackey began a similar company, Redirections, Inc., in Carmel.
The company now provides permanent as well as temporary signs, sales-office displays, brochures, logo design, and advertising.
Redirections, Inc., has sales offices in eight states, with all production done in the Carmel headquarters and shipped to the branches. "I keep production under my nose so that I keep an eye on quality," Mackey says.
She puts strong emphasis on hiring the right people because of what she considers one of the most difficult aspects of owning a business: "A start-up company can only afford start-up people. When you grow, you outgrow them."
Mackey has also relied extensively on technology both to expand the business and to communicate with her branch offices. But that triggered a financial crisis in 1994, when the company switched to billing customers after services had been provided rather than before. When computers were reprogrammed to reflect that change, bills covering one month were inadvertently not sent.
After ordering an immediate shift to semimonthly, manual billing that cut the shortage by half, Mackey won suppliers' agreements to accept minimal payments until the company was back on its fiscal track.
The company that Mackey started as a part-time employee in her garage moved into its own 10,000-square-foot building in 1995. It is doing $3 million a year in sales, has 35 employees in the eight offices, and plans to expand into the exhibition industry, using its current expertise and resources.
All that has been achieved by, as Mackey puts it, "telling people where to go."
Her company, Redirections, Inc., of Carmel, Ind., evolved from her initial observations that potential buyers of newly built houses were often unable to find them.
Signs directing prospective buyers to new-home communities could be difficult to read and hard to follow. In many cases local ordinances restricted use of real-estate signs.
One such ordinance sparked the idea for Mackey's entrance into her current business. Her husband sold houses for a builder who depended on signs to bring sales traffic. A city ordinance (they were then living in Denver, Colorado) allowed placement of such signs only on weekends.
Mackey offered to place and remove builders' signs directing customers. Working from her garage in what she considered a part-time business, she arranged for printing the signs and put them up herself. An important part of the service was ensuring that the signs complied with local regulations.
Sales traffic for builders using Mackey's service increased, and other builders hired her. She went into business full-time in 1981 as Denver Directions, Inc.
Her business was growing rapidly when her husband was transferred to Indiana and she sold it. Mackey began a similar company, Redirections, Inc., in Carmel.
The company now provides permanent as well as temporary signs, sales-office displays, brochures, logo design, and advertising.
Redirections, Inc., has sales offices in eight states, with all production done in the Carmel headquarters and shipped to the branches. "I keep production under my nose so that I keep an eye on quality," Mackey says.
She puts strong emphasis on hiring the right people because of what she considers one of the most difficult aspects of owning a business: "A start-up company can only afford start-up people. When you grow, you outgrow them."
Mackey has also relied extensively on technology both to expand the business and to communicate with her branch offices. But that triggered a financial crisis in 1994, when the company switched to billing customers after services had been provided rather than before. When computers were reprogrammed to reflect that change, bills covering one month were inadvertently not sent.
After ordering an immediate shift to semimonthly, manual billing that cut the shortage by half, Mackey won suppliers' agreements to accept minimal payments until the company was back on its fiscal track.
The company that Mackey started as a part-time employee in her garage moved into its own 10,000-square-foot building in 1995. It is doing $3 million a year in sales, has 35 employees in the eight offices, and plans to expand into the exhibition industry, using its current expertise and resources.
All that has been achieved by, as Mackey puts it, "telling people where to go."