Adrienne A.
5/5
Cogent Analytics has been the best financial and personal decision that my husband and I have made for not only our business, but for our quality of life! Chris came in and completed the initial discovery with us. We went over our current financials, our operations, our daily challenges and what our future goals were. We had none! We were exhausted and couldn't see past the day-to-day to even envision goals. We had software that only supported our towing division and Quickbooks for our financials. Then came in Zack. One could only be fortunate enough to be assigned Zack! We have tried this process before with another consulting firm and it went horribly. Their financial tools, training methods, and procedures were very rigid and did not conform to our operations. It was a failure. When Zack came to us, he was on site for 12 weeks. It was intense! We implemented software for our shop operation with a step-by-step timeline to make sure we met our "go live date" goal. We created a budget, and I can now easily spot overspending, errors in data entry and plan for the following months. We never had a plan before! He introduced a key performance indicator (KPI) tool that we review with our managers weekly. It helps us see and talk about what we did right and what we could have done better so that we don’t repeat those behaviors that may have cost us time and money. We communicate in ways we never had before! The financial tools he brought to us have allowed us to see and understand: labor burden, our breakeven, how to determine and be competitive with our pricing as well as cover our overhead expenses, how to determine and qualify employees for raises using a skills matrix tool, how to incentivize employees for their safety and efficiency, how to understand our cash flow and plan for expenses and equipment purchases, and how to set goals with planning and actually complete those goals. Zack has been our hero throughout this, as neither of us, nor our team has always been easy to work with. Change is hard, understanding things you don’t understand is even harder and getting your employees to understand the goals and have their acceptance as you modify your entire operations is even harder than that. He’s worked with us through it all. He’s been there for us daily, weekly, afterhours, and as needed to help us every step of the way. He’s taught us how to better communicate with our customers, our employees and each other. This was the part of the process that impacted my husband the most. If asked, he would tell you he’s a better manager, and better at communicating with our customers because of the training Zack completed with him, and he wouldn’t be wrong. He no longer avoids difficult conversations and has even increased our customer base and volume because of how he has learned to communicate with customers. This wasn’t something we expected to come from the process, but has been one of so many things that Zack has taught us! Our profit for the first quarter in March of 2025 was higher than it’s ever been, and we have 2 less mechanics and all our employees have received significant raises! All attributable to Zack, and the Cogent Analytics team. Lastly, it’s too important not to mention what Zack and Cogent Analytics have done for our quality of life outside of our business. We took a 16-day vacation and we’re able to leave for weeks at a time without the business falling apart! We now have a life outside of MAD J Repair & Towing, and it’s a much happier life. We have become more present in our kids’ lives and John is now the head coach of one of our son’s baseball teams, something he never had time for before this. We go home at night, and we can leave work at work. That’s something we have never been able to do before this!
This process has been life changing, so thank you Zack for your relentless dedication to us and our business and Cogent Analytics for your support throughout as we are living our best lives now!