An Interview With Anthony Cavaluzzi, The Founder Of Profit Management Solutions, LLC

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We recently sat down with Anthony Cavaluzzi, Tax Attorney and Founder of Profit Management Solutions, LLC:

Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Profit Management Solutions, LLC?

A: Thank you. I’d love to introduce your listeners to our company, Profit Management Solutions. We offer professional consulting services to the country’s top executives who truly care about their bottom line. I founded the company in 1998. Since then, we have grown to number more than 100 dedicated employees. Our main office is in Elgin, IL, with satellite offices in three states. We have thrived and grown over the years by offering bespoke advice to clients in a way that consistently produces real results. Our business model depends on a mutual benefit–if our clients succeed, we succeed.

Q: Can you give us more insights into how the origin of Profit Management Solutions, LLC makes your company unique today?

A: I saw a distinct gap opening up in the marketplace. Too many businesses were falling short of their potential. They were relying on old tricks even as the world steadily changed outside their doorsteps. They were becoming complacent. I discovered that this was an increasingly common problem for organizations and individuals alike. As the century was about to change in 1998, I could see that many businesses were falling behind; they had fallen into ruts and were finding it difficult to change course. They were stumbling into the future.

This unrecognized need created a unique opportunity. I started to curate a diverse team of talented professionals, each with their own skillset to bring to the table. I sought colleagues with deep experience and specialists who could review a business’s margins and assess its true, unrealized potential for growth and profit. Whether the issue was lagging technology or excess turnover, I gathered a team of people who had something to contribute. I knew organizations weren’t going to pay us for lip service. They needed real guidance on how to solve problems that may have developed over the course of months or even years. Our advice often addresses multiple snags that we uncover while examining their process chain. This alone can put an organization on the road to recovery. But we don’t stop there.

Q: Tell us a little more about your service suite and what you offer.

A: Profit Management Solutions offers a broad suite of services to our clients. It includes process analysis, tax consultation to maximize profit retention and optimization of Mergers & Acquisitions.

• Analysis: We specialize in detecting gaps in systems, dips in performance and productivity, and the employee/management discontent that often accompanies them. Our analysis identifies these issues as symptoms of larger problems which the business is then empowered to solve by taking real action to correct them. Profit Management Solutions is uniquely adept at figuring out what is creating these pitfalls and envisioning real, practical solutions.
• Taxes: This is a specialty. Taxes can make or break your business. Active, in-depth strategies like entity restructuring and governance optimization–specifically designed for each client in consultation with our tax professionals–will help ensure that the IRS sees your business in its most appropriate form. You need not leave the government a tip when none is due.
• Mergers & Acquisitions: Whether you developed your business from the start with an eventual sale in mind or later decided to capitalize on what you’ve created, that sale will be a labor-intensive project. Selling a business, however, calls for skills and experience different from the ones with which you created the business. Relying on advisors like the team at Profit Management Solutions for that specialized task will relieve many undue stresses. Our specialists can protect you from making inappropriate or illogical decisions in navigating such unaccustomed complexities in the final chapter of your enterprise.

Q: What inspired you to start your own tax consulting service?

A: My education pointed me in that direction. I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business at Elmira College in downstate New York and two Master of Business Administration degrees from Syracuse University. I focused my studies on business and corporate finance. I also served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps, where I learned the importance of earning the trust of, and protecting the wellbeing of the people who rely on me.

Every business in the United States relies on our government’s commitment to free enterprise and to protecting that freedom. In return, citizens and businesses pay taxes to fund that protection. That vital system is so important, yet today so complex, that I came to see tax consultancy as absolutely crucial in maintaining a strong, free enterprise-based democracy.

Q: Taxes, tax laws, and even the nature of running a business change all the time. How does your company navigate those changes while consistently delivering high-quality services and results?

A: One of the keys to consistently delivering high-quality services and results is good management and leadership teams that value their employees. I believe that a leader’s job includes inspiring workers to achieve their full potential, while a good manager’s focus is on getting specific results by following the business’s policies and processes. Each role is indispensable, and each must be based on integrity, honesty, and a clear vision and on working well with others. This requires constant vigilance for changes in the economy and tax-related legislation.

As a result, Profit Management Solutions engages in an ongoing Leadership Development Program to give its leaders, managers, and its entire professional team the tools they need for their work. In such an environment, professional development, continual updating of the knowledge base, attendance and presentations at professional conferences both in-house and nationally, publishing our management insights as a thought leader in the field, and a constant focus on the changing tax legislation, are all top priorities across the company.

Q: In your view, what is the key to delivering an exceptional customer service experience, particularly in your field?

A: I especially appreciate that question. Exceptional customer service begins with problem-solving. And the key to solving problems begins with finding them. Even the best-run businesses can miss problems that develop slowly within established systems. Whether it’s dropping productivity, stagnating rather than growing profits, an increase in employee turnover, or customer complaints unrecognized as useful warning signs, pinpointing specific causes can be difficult from within the system. That’s where we come in.

Constructive problem-finding is a specialty of Profit Management Solutions. Our goal is to find problems that have remained unseen for too long. We can then create a real solution before it is too late for recovery. We have built our business model on the fact that our team won’t survive unless our clients thrive. It’s a win-win reality that’s resulted in tremendous success for both sides.

Client reviews of our company often spotlight our intense attention to detail. Because every business has developed its own quirks, cadences, and rituals, the way different people have learned to interact in that business can explain why certain desirable business practices are impossible to implement. Our detail-oriented, analytical approach and due diligence at every turn, however, is the unique advantage our clients say (again and again) sets the Profit Management Solutions team far ahead of others. We set our clients up for long-term success, moving from problem-solving to profit.

Q: Can you then give our listeners a concise vision for your own personal goal?

A: From the beginning, I didn’t want my fellow business professionals to settle for scraping by and succumbing to the unpredictable, too often unfavorable market forces that plagued so many. I wanted to offer CEOs, managers, and supervisors the hard-won experience of others so they would not discover too late that they had unknowingly turned a blind eye when their business hit a bump in the road.

Q: Do you have a message for the corporate world in your mission statement?

A: Thank you for asking. I certainly do! It’s the good news of a simple truth: the shorthand mission statement of Profit Management Solutions’ is to convince people that sometimes, you really do have to spend money to make money.

As difficult as it can be for budget-conscious leaders, there are cases when it’s impossible to fix the problem from within. If a company doesn’t have enough resources to identify and scope out the extent of its problems, it can fall into a trap that ends up costing them more than it anticipated.

Profit Management Solutions comes into even the most complex of companies with an objective eye able to focus on specifics. This impartiality is often key to launching a real change. When waste increases and profits and productivity fall, it does not take long before companies start to point often misaimed fingers within the company. However, my team is definitely not there to assign blame. We simply start with a profitability analysis. Only then will we make specific, strategically targeted recommendations.

While different obstacles confront every company, the methodology we use to clear them is tried and true. Our professionals will do so much more than help our clients minimize their taxes; we also empower them to maximize their profits and increase their own customer satisfaction.