Robert Vlasic: Keep It Simple

Robert Vlasic owns and manages a car leasing business, a nursing home, a real estate business, and a pickle company.

"I have a rule that one, and only one, piece of paper is submitted to me weekly from each business. This type of communication is critical," he says.

The pickle business is growing rapidly and the others are steady. Rapid growth can be hard to manage, but Vlasic keeps it simple. His sheet for the pickle business shows the number of cases of pickles shipped that week, by category of pickle. It shows the dollar total, gross profit, and labor expense by plant. It includes the number of hours paid by each plant for administration and labor plus overtime. It makes comparisons by the week and by the quarter.

In 1962, Vlasic had sales of $1.7 million and profits of $100,000. In 1971, sales were $27 million and profits $1.8 million. He was willing to grow as fast as possible, as long as profits were 5%. In 1975, sales hit $60 million. Today, Vlasic is the dominant pickle brand in North America.

According to legendary turnaround expert Gary Sutton, the key to Vlasic's success is keeping it simple and never letting profits slip in pursuit of revenue growth. Managing from a single piece of paper forces Vlasic to focus, and eliminates distraction.

Source: The Six-Month Fix by Gary Sutton.