Rising Star: Jerry Hagen
Finding ways to save you money
Business First of Buffalo - by Matt Chandler
Jerry Hagen wants to save your business some serious money.
After a career spent working for some of the biggest companies both locally and nationally, Hagen saw where these companies spent wisely, and he saw where they hemorrhaged cash needlessly. It was the latter observation that eventually led him to forgo the security of a steady paycheck, and go into business for himself. And so, in 2008, Hagen launched Expense Reduction Analysts. If you haven’t heard of them yet, that’s because the concept is still catching on, but given the state of the economy and the growing number of businesses looking for creative ways to save cash, he expects his business to enjoy steady growth going forward.
In his new venture, Hagen takes a 20-year career built upon saving companies money, and, just as the name says, works to analyze your expenses and then reduce them.
“Typically, when we engage with a client, we save them 20 percent on their non-core expenses” Hagen says. Translation, if your business spends $100,000 annually on merchant card fees for example, Expense Reduction Analysts will come in, review your books, make some recommendations, and trim your bill by an average of $20,000.
“This is where my background has been for the last 20 years, it is my expertise, so you can see why this works,” he said, of his ability to save his clients money.
Hagen breaks his analysis down into categories, giving companies the option to review a single area where they are looking to save money, or several key areas within their company. The obvious question for business owners and managers is, if a company is trying to reduce expenses, why would they spend money analyzing costs? The answer says Hagen, is that you won’t.
“We have what we call the value proposition,” he says. “We will engage with you, review your business, and if we don’t save you money, you don’t pay us anything.” He says the deal “isn’t too good to be true” and reflects his confidence that he will save his clients significant money. Because he is paid a percentage of what he saves a company, the net savings amounts to free money. “Sixty percent of our work is done up front with our clients, and if we can’t find them a savings, we don’t charge them a fee,” he says. “I have had that happen, where a company is doing a great job managing their expenses, and I tell them that and let them know I can’t save them money in that particular area.”
Hagen says his prototypical company is one with between $10 million and $500 million in annual revenues, though he says he does work with companies outside of those parameters. “You may be a smaller company, but if your business is a largely shipping business, and you spend $500,000 on your shipping costs, It may be beneficial to review that area and see what we can do,” he says.
The typical client engagement is an 18 month process during which Hagen works closely with them to explore all options for reducing expenses. He says it is important to know that none of the savings are generated by reducing quality of goods or services, but rather by finding waste and inefficiency that can be corrected. He also says while there are other cost-saving consultants out there, the franchise backing he enjoys sets his business apart from the rest of the field.
“We have over 300 analysts in the U.S. and over 800 worldwide,” he says. “That allows us to take bids out to market everyday and it allows us to do a deep analysis of our clients and be able to price it to market. That’s where our expertise is.”
To learn more about Expense Reduction Analysts visit expensereduction.com
