Dean Svarc knows what it’s like to watch a multi-million dollar business crumble. His own manufacturing company collapsed to just $10,000 in value — a painful experience, but one that ultimately led him to develop a framework for identifying and fixing the hidden problems that so often tank industrial firms.
Today, Svarc is a sought-after turnaround specialist, the author of “Trojan Horse: The Unseen Solution to Critical Business Problems,” and a consultant to manufacturing leaders looking to take their organizations to the next level. In a recent episode of the Manufacturing Executive podcast, he shared his hard-won wisdom on the make-or-break factors that business owners often overlook.
One of the biggest, Svarc argues, is the challenge of the “accidental business owner.” Many manufacturers start as skilled tradespeople — expert machinists or technicians who strike out on their own and find themselves at the helm of a growing company. The problem? The technical skills that served them so well on the shop floor don’t necessarily translate to the executive suite.
“You’ve got guys that came up, for instance, let’s say they’re a plumber or they’re manufacturing something or a machine that they know how to do the job,” Svarc explained. “They got big enough, they started hiring people, they bought a building. So they know how to do the manufacturing part, but the soft skills, there are other skills that don’t sound like they’re important.”
If you’ve got a one or two-guy shop, maybe you can get away with not having culture, you can get away with certain things, which you can kind of keep personal maybe, but imagine you learn those soft skills. That’s where you have the ability to start growing. And this all comes back to mindset and numerous other things that you have to change internally.
For Svarc, that mindset shift is one of the first and most critical steps in his six-part framework for business turnarounds. Even in relatively small companies — those with 10 or more employees — he argues that culture and a growth-oriented outlook are essential to attracting and retaining the right talent.
“When we hire, more than 50% of it is actually personality,” he noted. “Like, are you going to fit within this organization? I can train you how to run a machine. I can’t train your personality.”
But even the most skilled leader can struggle to spot the inefficiencies and dysfunctions that have become entrenched in their own organization over time. That’s where an outside perspective — whether from a consultant, a book, or a peer — can be invaluable.
Svarc shared the story of one company he worked with where employees were wasting hours each day simply walking across the factory floor to share a single set of Allen wrenches. His solution? Providing a dedicated toolbox at every workstation. The result was a dramatic increase in productivity — and a powerful lesson in the value of fresh eyes.
This is what you need a professional to come in your company to do and look and say, what is wrong? Pay for itself probably in the first year, whatever you pay for somebody like us to come in and take a look, or read it in the book. You could kind of get a good start to what you should be looking at.
Of course, that kind of outside counsel doesn’t come for free. But for manufacturing leaders who are serious about taking their businesses to the next level, Svarc argues that it’s an investment they can’t afford not to make.
“If you can’t afford X number of dollars for a book, you’re not really ready for success,” he said bluntly. “If you don’t have time to read a book, you’re not ready for success. If you’re not ready to reach out to somebody like us, you’re not ready for success. Enjoy the success you may have or success you may not have. But if you want to go to the next level, you need to get somebody in that’s done this.”
For those ready to take that leap, Svarc and his “Proven Basics Framework” are ready to help — and the lessons he’s learned are applicable far beyond the manufacturing world.
“I have failed. I have succeeded,” he reflected. “This is what you need to do to be successful.”
To learn more about Dean Svarc’s approach to business turnarounds, visit DeanSvarc.com, where you can book a consultation or find podcast episodes diving deeper into each chapter of his book, “Trojan Horse.” The book itself is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, where it topped the Industrial & Manufacturing category for two months.
