Seminole County, Florida
Founded: 2006
Limitless provides vendor bill auditing, contract negotiation, and document management solutions to businesses on a nationwide basis. Limitless’s proprietary vendor management platform, expert auditors, and contract specialists eliminate unnecessary expenses, risks, and inefficiencies for their Clients.
Scientific & Technical Consulting Services
89% increase from 2018 – 2021
Tell us a bit about your background. What led you to where you are today?
I left home at an early age of 13 because of an abusive stepfather. I was fortunate to have some family members take me in for a couple years before I was fully emancipated by the state to live on my own at 17.
From the time I was 14 years old, I held multiple jobs at the same time, whether it be in janitorial, roofing, construction, dishwashing, prep cook, and bartending I was always busy. Somehow I still was able to play sports with such an active work life. At 17, I had my first experience in sales, selling Kirby vacuum cleaners, which opened my eyes to the world from a sales and marketing aspect.
After a while in the sales industry, I wanted to expand my wings…as it was just too cold to be in Wisconsin s an outside sales person. So, I convinced one of my friends to leave with me and we headed south. After we reached Little Rock, AR I decided to flip a coin – and either we drive to Clearwater, Florida or Phoenix, Arizona.
It came up tails so we headed to Arizona or bust! I first found a job that allowed me to help handicapped workers sell more effectively, allowing me to not just highlight my sales skills but leadership skills as well. After 6 months while still looking at other jobs I was called in for an interview with the company called General Communications, what you know now as Verizon. It was there that I discovered the wonderment of the telecommunications industry. In my time there, I had 13 promotions in 11 years. I was then recruited overseas to work in Ireland for a couple of years with another telecom company, ESAT based in Dublin. After the company was sold I headed back to Phoenix, AZ and planned to start my own business however was offered a job I couldn’t refuse at Sprint. Coincidentally, it happened to be in Florida…without a coin flip.
I was there for about 5 years and realized that after everything I had seen throughout my career, I was getting tired of the cultural mindset in telecom. How the large corporations were delivering products and services, and the way they were taking advantage of people and mistreating them. At the same time, Sprint wanted me to move and take another role in a larger area with more responsibility, but I didn’t want to move my daughter. She didn’t need her life disrupted… and I knew I was ready for an entrepreneurial challenge.
In my last year as an Executive Leader overseeing the management of some of the largest accounts in the world, and witnessing the mistreatment of the Client in operations, billing, contracts, and customer service, I set out to build a business that would help others have a better insight into their services, contracts, processes terms and conditions, and costs.
Limitless Technology (dba Limitless Cost Reduction Specialists) now provides its expense reduction services across almost any indirect business spend and is one of the leading providers of fully managed vendor management solutions in the USA.
Was there an ah-ha moment that led you to your entrepreneurial journey?
It was several things. One, I was ready for the challenge of entrepreneurialism. Secondly, when I was asked to move for the new role, as mentioned above my daughter was an IB Straight A student, and a 3-sport athlete. I didn’t want to disrupt her life at 14 years old.
Bottom-line I knew there was a better way to help customers get better contracts, hold vendors accountable for service and billing, and remove the risks associated with third-party vendors.
Tell us about your company and the value you bring to your customers.
We remove unnecessary costs and mitigate risks that affect the efficiency and profitability of your business. Managing complex indirect spending and vendor documentation requires some significant technology, tools, process, expertise, time, commitment, and resources. It’s not easy. It takes a team of people who know where to look and what to look for.
Limitless has spent years mastering the management of complex variable expenses. Through our Billing Optimization and Vendor Management Solutions, we remove unnecessary costs, lower current costs, manage critical documentation and compliance, mitigate risks, and improve our client’s efficiency and bottom line.
What makes your company different than others in your market?
Where we really differentiate ourselves in the marketplace today, is we built a complete vendor accountability platform (VMS Platinum) that we fully manage for our clients. We don’t only focus only on cost reduction, we also manage their contractual terms, conditions, clauses, and compliances that often are even more important than lower costs. While we started by performing vendor bill and contract shared savings audits, the VMS Platinum service we now offer is a complete solution to not only proactively help them with invoice and contract cost containment, but we can mitigate risks associated with document management such as inspections, licensing, and certification and pre-notification of future vendor needs or compliances.
While there are other cost reduction companies out there, we go the extra mile every time for our customers. There is no issue too small, or obstacle too large we won’t tackle on behalf of our clients. We never take compensation for vendors for the services we audit and remain 100% vendor-agnostic for our clients. We look to help our clients remove unnecessary costs and improve efficiencies with the vendors they want to use. We only offer them competitive recommendations when their vendor is not delivering pricing or service as well as they should.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced while growing your company?
I’d say the three biggest are low-cost seed money, growth initiative, and finding great people. Low cost seed money is probably one of the most difficult things for small businesses to acquire. The banks only want to offer you loans if you don’t need them, and investors often want to much of the pie.
From a funding aspect, we found a debt-only resource that helped us early on, (which we are forever thankful for Mr. Curcio) But the real keys were perseverance, hard work, continuous process improvement, superior training, and better hiring practices have all led to our success.
Growth initiatives like marketing and finding our spot have been a challenge because originally, we were only going to do business in Florida. Five years into it, we were doing business on a nationwide level. That truly changed the dynamics of our organization, but it also gave us new challenges on how to market to the entire USA. I’m blessed that I had the background I did with a Fortune 500 company that gave me a foundational understanding of the dynamics of global marketing. But there’s a big difference between having $500 million to advertise and having $30. When you take on a bigger market, you have bigger challenges, so that was tough from a growth initiative perspective.
The last big challenge was finding great people. Although we have been blessed with the current staff we have, which are truly incredible resources, it took a while to find them and bring them into the fold.
What are some of the goals you have for your company?
We have a one-year, three-year, five-year, and 10-year outlook. In 5 years, we are looking to quadruple in revenue size and triplicate staff. We are also planning to add additional benefits for the employees that come on board with us.
Tell us about your company culture.
While some find this challenging to manage, we have been able to implement technology to stay connected, and secure, and improve our remote manageability. Also, while we have systems and processes in place like major fortune 100 companies do, we treated our employees like family, and that means the world to us from a cultural aspect.
We want our employees to feel like they’re part of something bigger and they are the reason we have grown. It’s been really rewarding from that aspect. Every month we have a team call to get everyone together, catch up on personal lives and share what’s happening with the company. Five years ago, I made it a requirement that we do all calls on video because it personalizes it. It makes you feel closer even though we’re all in different places.
Do you have a proudest moment?
There are too many to mention, but there are two that come to mind. When we were first entering into our nationwide efforts, we encountered a company in long-term health care on the west coast that was doing some great things. They had four locations and were about a $500 billion company. To earn this opportunity, I told them, “I’ll give you a challenge.” I will take this on as a consulting contract, look at one of your individual vendors you contractually negotiated and help you. That’s not our normal practice, but I wanted to show him that we do a great job. They agreed and we did it for a very nominal fee. A bit later, at one of the major conferences in Chicago, the president of the company was in a meeting, and we were talking about our vendor management platform, and he was on board to lock in an official contractual agreement. At the end of the meeting, he stopped me. He said, “You know what? I do have an issue with the original contract that you did with us.” I started to panic thinking something was wrong and was about to have my head sliced off that very minute. He reached into his coat pocket and said, “Your normal fee would have been 20 times this. But you did this to prove your value. This is a token of our appreciation. Thank you for your partnership.” That was one of my proudest moments. Getting a customer to give you a check that they didn’t have to? It doesn’t get much better than that. That’s validation to know you’re going the right things right.
My second proudest moment is when we took a trip to Oregon recently to visit another client. As one of their vendors, they invited us to attend their leadership meeting. Our director of operations, Pam Feirick, doesn’t get a lot of face-to-face contact with clients because she’s working behind the scenes on the computer or a phone call. For this trip, we forced her to come with us. We got there and the client asked, “Where’s Miss Pam?” They were so appreciative of all she did for them, it was truly well-deserved recognition and one of my proudest moments. Along with Pam, they also mentioned other team members by name and what they each did for them. That, to me, was pivotal moment of success – our clients are recognizing the value we bring. It was one of the most enriching moments.
What does it mean to be selected as an Honoree?
We’ve been nominated a few times, but never quite met the threshold. Being recognized this year is a bit surreal. When you hit a new goal, and someone recognizes your achievements externally it makes you feel like you truly have made a statement to the world.
When I shared it with my employees, they were so proud to be part of the growth and the success. During our team call, they were all smiles and laughs and everyone was thrilled. It was a really rewarding moment in time. They are so deserving of this recognition. They are Limitless. This is not me. You can replace me in a heartbeat. The business is so much about them, and us, and the clients. It puts us on the map.
Is there anyone special you’d like to thank?
First, I’d like to thank my current staff and those others no longer with us throughout the years. Unfortunately, we lost a few team members to cancer over the years. But, without my team, none of this would have been possible.
I’d also like to thank our one-time debt investor, Gene Curcio, for helping us get over the hump and accelerate to our next plateau. And of course, our clients, which have meant the world to us.
Lastly, and most of all, my Senior Vice President of Operations and wife. As the story goes…I needed just one person for the first six months that I could trust with the business and finances to help get me through the early stage. I begged her and promised it would only be for six months. Twelve years later, she’s gone from my administrative assistant/office manager to running the operations for the company. It’s not easy to live in the same house and work in the same business. But I cannot thank her enough for her hard work, commitment, and dedication despite the struggles we’ve gone through. Because without her we could never have reached the successes that we have to date.
Be wise, ask for help, have a plan, ensure you have enough funding, and realize it takes hard work and an undying commitment to your clients, your service offering, and your People to truly be successful.
2500% increase from 2018 – 2021
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