Despite its name, the folks at Lincoln Waste Solutions don’t get their hands dirty working with waste; they work on solutions.
They manage waste and recycling services for commercial customers who own or manage multiple locations in the U.S. and Canada. The idea is to let Lincoln negotiate all the contracts for each individual site and then split the savings. The customers avoid putting personnel, time and effort into the negotiations and wrestling with billing problems.
Lincoln Waste Solutions is the brain child of Nick Zoccoli and Ron Sedergren. In 2005, when Lincoln began, it had three small clients and $23,000 in revenue. By 2010, Lincoln had revenue of $17 million representing a 36 percent increase in revenue over 2009.
“We’re your remote trash department,” says Zoccoli, a principal. “We’ll put each of your locations out for competitive bidding, get you the best deals, send you one consolidated bill, and then split the savings 50/50.”
“We’re unique with our shared savings deal,” notes Zoccoli. “We are in partnership with our clients. We keep looking under stones for more savings. We keep an open book relationship and are always accessible. And we are the single source of contact for all issues. That’s central to the model.”
“Others meet a guarantee of a negotiated fee, and give away savings,” adds Zoccoli. “We constantly seek savings and new deals to save you money. We only make money when or client saves money.”
“We bring the three parts of the solution together,” says Sedergren, “us, the client and the vendors. Now we have a distinct advantage. Everyone makes money. And we all want to save money. Those savings are equally split between the client and us.”
Around the office, we try to keep it light.,” says Sedergren. “We are flexible to the needs of our staff. We shift hours, offer flex schedules, employee incentives, telecommuting, an intern program, and work hard at promoting morale.”
“I’m the thinker and Nick is the doer,” adds Sedergren. “I’m strategic — the mad scientist — and he’s tactical. That’s how we handle everything we think up.”
They have made major investments implementing state of the art technology, including the Sans Environment for virtual memory, to solidify their disaster recovery program. They have altered their workplace to provide an ergonomic environment for employees and are developing a database that improves quality and efficiency.
“At times I’m the personality,” explains Zoccoli. “Ron is the architect of our model to strategically move the company. We’re polar opposites; he does what he wants and I do the same. That’s helped to grow this thing.”
“We expect to make $27 million in 2011 and $56 million by 2015,” boasts Zoccoli. “We’re increasing from 22 to 45 employees and have hired a general manager and a director of business management, plus we contracted with consulting firm PGA to streamline and clearly define roles, strategies and objectives for our employees. This was a large investment and a giant leap of faith for a company at our stage and position on the growth curve.”
Orderly growth is the key. “We are working for controlled growth of 25-30 percent each year,” says Sedergren. “We’re adding two or three new employees and thinking of expansion — things are getting a little tight around here. But over a 10-year period, we expect to easily top $100 million and seriously expand the office and our employee base.”
The way they see it, their business model is recession proof:
• Everyone has to do something with their trash;
• Everyone wants to save money;
• A company should outsource the processes they don’t handle well;
“There’s an old adage,” says Zoccoli: “‘Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.’ We have that mousetrap.”
