Helped grow annual sales from $3M to $5M. Then the owner took a chunk of money out, leaving Dan owing a lot!

About The Business.

Carbon Offroad sells four-wheel drive (4WD) accessories and at the core of their range is a carbon winch product range they designed.

Weighing 25% less than traditional winches, they have been a huge hit both in their eCommerce channel, and wholesale clients all around Australia.

At age 26 in 2008 as the global financial crisis hit, Dan decided to pivot from the safe job of school teacher to become a marketer of 4WD accessories online business for someone else.

In 18 months, he helped grow that business from $3m to $5m in annual sales. Soon after, the owner took a chunk of money out of the business and left it to collapse, leaving Dan owed a lot.

Vowing he could grow the same online business, but manage its finances better, first-year sales were $250,000.

After four years working on his own, a six-week bike ride through Siberia with a mate, with barely any internet access, was the catalyst for Dan hiring his first team member, and growth really took off from there.

The Carbon Offroad Growth Journey.

In late 2023, Dan promoted from within, and Callum became General Manager from 1 January 2024.

This move was to work towards Dan only working ZERO days a week in the business, so he could focus on growing another business - while Callum and the team continued to grow Carbon Offroad fast and profitably.

Key growth points:

Sales: multi-million dollars in annual sales, growing at 30% - 60% per year over the last five years
FTE: went from 1 full-time equivalent team member in 2012, to 5 by the end of 2023 and 18 months later, 15 by the end of FY25
Export: launched in the USA in 2025
Funding: growth has been fueled from profits, with no debt or investors needed, and
Founder operational exit: Dan went down to two days a week in late 2024, then zero days working in the business by mid-2025.

The business continues to grow fast, and with the founder now only investing around 16 hours a week in it.

#1 Growth Challenge: strategy - knowing their numbers.

By late 2023, with around 40% growth per annum in recent years, the team was feeling stretched and focus was being lost on what would not only continue the fast growth, but ensure its profitability.

Dan's passion to keep the business self-funding that growth meant holding back the number of team members.

While Callum, as the GM, could see the team was working as hard as they could, and some were doing many more hours than they should, Dan was uncomfortable adding more fixed costs to the business.

This conundrum of balancing:

1. Not seeing profits decline, and
2. Having the right human resources in the business as it went through its tremendous growth

was one of the main areas we sought to help Dan and Callum with, by putting together a 10 year financial model for the business.

The model first helped easily show the business case for adding more sales reps, to continue the growth in the wholesale channel.

But showing a return for non-sales, or direct sales roles like reps, was more challenging.

We built out the Human Resources plan in the model over the 10 years, which detailed the reality now, and the people plan needed over the next decade:

Each role title
Which current team member owned that role
Future roles that will be needed, that no one yet owned
The wages & salary of each role, and
When more people would be added to the team, the role they would take and when the current team member handed off one of their current roles, or moved into different roles.

Filling out this tab in the model defined their hiring and resourcing strategy over the next 10 years, and the people costs were automatically added into the Profit & Loss.

And, the few variable roles automatically changed when the sales plan changed (eg. if sales increase, more warehouse hours are needed to dispatch orders).

However, we first built out the sales plan for the business - what products Carbon Offroad would sell in their sales channels, units each year and the percentage each channel would grow by every year.

We then stood back and asked these questions:

Do we have enough people on the team to support that level of sales next year, or in the next 10 years? if not, then
What roles do we need to hire for over the coming years, to support that level of sales?, and
What is the market wage or salary for those new roles?

After drafting a realistic human resource plan, that we agreed could support the level of sales as the business grows, Dan became comfortable and off they went adding people to the team.

When they started the Strategy Program in late 2023, the team was 5 full-time equivalents (FTE).

Less than 18 months later, the team grew to 15 FTE, and both sales and profits continue to grow.

By knowing their numbers, and having it in a 10 year financial model they could play with - try different scenarios then lock in a plan - allowed Dan and Callum to have more confidence to bring more people into the team.

This meant the existing team members’ hours were reduced, they were less stressed and more of the right work could get done to support the strategic plan, now the team was appropriately resourced for the level of sales in each growth chapter.

How else our Strategy Program helped Dan.

In December 2023, Dan and Callum started our 4 week Strategy Program, and right after that, our 12 week People Program.

As we believe “small business strategic planning starts with the numbers”, Troy, Dan and Callum first put together a 10 year financial model.

This allowed Dan and Callum to see what products and channels needed the main focus to keep up the growth.

From the strategic plan now drafted with the numbers, Dan and Callum took to summarising the 10 year plan into these strategic documents included in the Strategy Program:

Agile Business Plan,
Mini Marketing Plan, and
SimpleQuarterly Strategic Plan (SQSP).

The SQSP was pivotal in aligning the teams’ focus for the quarter, so they knew what the true priorities were, and what KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) the team had to hit.

With more than 15 of his own businesses since 1999, Troy helping the Carbon Offroad team navigate this growth challenge was not his first rodeo:

“We see it a lot, the tension between the small business owners’ ambitious growth goals, and a disconnect from the resourcing reality needed to hit the goals. This leads to impatience from the owner, and a team buckling under the growth pressures - I’ve been there in my businesses, and have both the coffee mug and t-shirt. What I found brings the growth and team back into balance is investing time in strategic planning, first with the numbers, then communicating the plan over-and-over in a simple and focused way - cutting the active growth projects down to a handful for the next 90 days.”

Troy Trewin

Other benefits that came from Dan and Callum completing the Strategy Program and People Program, include:

Better leadership: from using the simple yet well structured strategic documents, Dan is now more comfortable letting go, so the team can get on with executing the right plan, no longer distracted with new ideas and projects they don’t have the resources for
Kick-ass Managers: from Dan, Callum and the other managers undertaking the People Program, they now all communicate more, and much more effectively, with their respective teams. This has seen a massive improvement in the scores the business and management team gets from the quarterly anonymous team survey they now run, and
A more productive and less stressed team: now the team has a clear plan, coupled with better leadership and management, they know what excellence looks like in their role. Callum had the entire team do our free two week ‘Transform Your Performance’ online course, which has seen everyone get more done in less time, and feel more in control with their workload.

What Dan said about our Guidance.

“Stumbling across Troy and his vision for better small business outcomes was a turning point for me. Owners being at the top of the org chart are often neglected when it comes to all forms of support. Covid left me scratching my head wondering what the future held and it was around that time that we started implementing some of Troy's free guidance. Knowing there was clear opportunity for growth we formally engaged with Troy and his network, and were able to formulate a plan to execute.

Giving away the baby is never easy, especially when it's combined with delegation of authority, a growth phase and a planned reduction in key person dependency.

The business is executing the plan and will see the outcomes of the ten year financial model come to life as we roll out the steps. The management strategies revolve around clear focus, communication and tools to allow the team to ride the journey of success along with management.

Troy's focus on reducing the Seagull Effect (owners flying in shitting all over everything and leaving again) whilst empowering the team we employ to execute the plan is the absolute key to progress for small business owners to get out of the rut of working in the business and building it into a true income generation tool rather than just a job.

We've got a long way to go, planned to 10x our current position over the next five to ten years. We are confident that the no BS Planning tools and strategies we have implemented will get us there.

Troy's program and ongoing mentorship will give you the clarity and understanding you need to get out of the grind and make your investment the dream you might never have known you actually wanted.”