What our members have to say about the CEO Alliance

“More than ten years ago we took our entire company to the mountains with Bill after I attended his Executive Briefing. Our results are spectacular and our momentum is continuing to accelerate. We grew our gross sales by 33%, reduced expenses, transformed our way of doing business, gained competitive advantage while competitors were moving towards insolvency and the industry was off 70%. We achieved this without adding headcount or new sales people. It was all through innovation, game changing strategies, personal leadership and the inspired performance of our people.”

Tony Merendino, CEO of Serv IT

“…We had to address our way of thinking about everything. That included who we thought we were as leaders and executives, what business we were actually in, what we had to do to position ourselves competitively and how to execute our growth strategy. It was humbling to go through, but it paid off in huge dividends for our investors, shareholders and indeed myself.… The payday for us was substantial …we sold for $300,000,000.00 (for all cash)”.

Arol Wolford, former Chairman and CEO, The CMD Group

“I met Bill through his book, ‘The Generative Organization’, and realized that everything he had written about in the book described our company. When we took our company to the mountains in North Georgia with the CEO Alliance, we were heading for the busiest time of our year and were worried that we would not be prepared. We ended up having the most successful ramp up ever and we took a large account that was previously at 15% margin and ended up with a 35% margin. We had a record $10 million month and a record EBITDA. Our return on investment is at least 20 times and, when you consider all of the seen and unseen positive multipliers, our return on investment was probably 1,000 times.”

Rick Hall, President of The Beam Team

“Through working with Bill and the CEO Alliance, we now understand that ‘problems’ in our business are really not the problems. We have learned that the design is the problem. We now understand how to create a generative structure in every aspect of our business which positively influences performance, profitability, client relationships, operations, analytics and every area of our company. As a result, not only have I personally grown and developed as a CEO, our entire team has been able to become more productive with better results. In addition to all those benefits, people have learned how to manage themselves and, as a result of working with the CEO Alliance, my company is totally transformed.”

Ken Robbins, Founder and CEO of Response Mine Interactive

“I’ve sought out mentors as we have grown the company and that has led me to the CEO Alliance. In just a matter of weeks after attending my first quarterly retreat, our company has created, written and implemented an entirely new training program for every area of the company. We have learned how to push beyond a predetermined ceiling and maximize our productive capacity beyond self and company limiting beliefs. We realized that we have created crisis in our company and now understand how to eliminate the source of the problems through using leverage points and systems thinking.”

Wesley Lovvorn, CEO of Lovvorn Construction

“Through Bill and the CEO Alliance, I was able to learn a new way of viewing things in by business. This allowed us to identify leverage points and lay out the pieces to find out what everyone within the company needed and what our customers needed for smooth running projects. Using the principles of the CEO Alliance, my team and I can now see things in our company that we were not able to see before. It has created explosions of ideas that have transformed the company.”

Mike Colcombe, Owner/CEO of Five Star Building Solutions

“Bill and the CEO Alliance helped us to look at the methods, principles and structure of our business. By doing a deep dive into our business, we have been able to increase our sales and margins by 25%. Bill is a change agent and he pushes you but he does it in a way that is very effective because he knows what buttons to push with specific people. Getting away to the mountains at the retreat center allows you to focus on the business and come back with a realistic plan of action that will allow your team to focus. This leads to getting the kind of results you want to achieve with a level of accountability that takes you to the next level in how you think and lead.”

Robert Bairstow, President of Bairstow Lifting Products

“I committed to a company­wide roll out in 1995 after my pilot branch, ­­chosen from a declining market, ­­grew three times faster than our top ­growth branch, while reducing inventory 40% and achieving the highest service levels and margins in the company. When Bill Schwarz and the CEO Alliance started working with us, our company was at $100 million in sales. We just closed out at $440 million in sales this past year. We are still following the principles and practices and have gone from the lowest quartile in our industry to the top 10%.”

Bud Mingledorff, Chairman of the Board of Mingledorff’s

“Using the principles of the CEO Alliance, we were able to drive a 17% increase in EBITDA which translated into $1.3 million. Learning the tools to become generative and learning how to be a leader with vision gave us the tools to create a controlled and sustainable model for long-term growth. We were able to do more with the same amount of people or less because the workforce understood their importance, realized that they were a part of something larger than themselves and became inspired in their work.”

Bruce Johnson, Co-Founder of NACR

“We learned that the structure of a company causes behavior. Once we were able to truly see cause and view the business over time, we were able to transform an already successful company. We were already very good at what we did and didn’t think we needed any outside help. Yet, using the CEO Alliance principles that Bill Schwarz taught us, we were able to go from doing 450 fiber optic cable ends per day (which was already strong performance) to doing 5,000 ends a day with minimal increase in resources. Using Generative principles, we were able to achieve this extraordinary transformation and unheard of increase in productive capacity in less than six months.”

Bryan Glutting, Former CEO of ACS Solutions

“Using the CEO Alliance principles and also utilizing the support of fellow CEO Alliance members, our company has been able to completely transform. For those of you who might be skeptical, within 90 days of working with Bill Schwarz and the CEO Alliance, our engineering utilization went from 68% to 94% and our growth as a company increased so much that, in 2017, we were recognized as one of Inc. Magazine’s ‘Fast 5,000’ which is a prestigious honor for the 5,000 fastest growing companies in the United States.”

 

Chris Chao, Co-Founder and CEO of CenterPoint IT

“I’ve had an international career. I’ve been the president of two different international companies in the US, I’ve done a start-up in Brazil, I’ve been in South Africa and I’ve been exposed to a lot of different trainings and a lot of unique business cultures and philosophies. I’ve never been exposed to anything as impactful as Bill Schwarz’s CEO Alliance and his Generative Way. The principles revolutionized our business.”

 

Steve Markham, Former President, BLG Logistics

“It was amazing how we transitioned and transformed both from a business and from a personal standpoint. It’s so interesting that we just could not seem to get the right focus before the retreat but afterwards everything seemed so obvious. Our vision had truly changed for the better of everyone in the company. The impact was positive from a financial standpoint and also from the standpoint of having engaged, focused team members which is what everyone wants.”

 

Ron Bushman, Founder/Former CEO of Info Retail

“You have helped us turn this 50 year old battleship on a dime in the last three days. I never dreamed this was possible. It was painful and exhilarating.”

—Rick Gerwe  President, Senco Products, Inc in Cincinnati

“The Coca­Cola Company said if we wanted their business, we would need to become truly world class. They referred us to Bill Schwarz and The CEO Alliance. We not only won their trust, but dominated all of their previous suppliers (and Pepsi’s) in the highly competitive cup and fulfillment industry. We religiously implemented The CEO Alliance principles and practices.”

His latest up date: “I am now implementing the Center into two more of my companies. They are really starting to take off.”

—Tim Kilpatrick CEO, PescorPlastics in Ft Worth TX

“The Learning Organization principles we implemented became our competitive advantage. We’ve gained a significant advantage in a highly competitive world market. The financial results have been the most rewarding in our history.”

—Wes Cantrel CEO, Lanier World Wide