Same As It Ever Was
One small pharmacist unable to implement expert advice.
Leonard Edloe is still a very busy man. When FSB visited him early last year to offer advice on improving his three pharmacies, Edloe felt that he was working too much and not bringing in enough money. He hoped to better manage his company’s dependence on slow-paying Medicare business, but also taper off his time at the stores and find an exit strategy. Since then, Edloe has made some changes but he’s still frequently the lone hard-working pharmacist filling prescriptions behind the counter.
“I did a few things I said I was going to do,” Edloe says, whose hands keep moving among pills and bottles while he talks. One step he took was to get a business valuation, as suggested by one of FSB’s experts. But he wasn’t happy with the results. “In 1985 I was offered a million dollars for just this one pharmacy,” Edloe says. “The guy who did this valuation, he came back with $1.3 million for the three stores. That doesn’t sound right.” Edloe has retained another valuation firm and is waiting for those results.
In the meantime, Edloe’s stores look the same as they did when our experts visited and recommended updating the look and tweaking inventory to appeal to his area’s younger demographic. “I haven’t been able to do that,” says Edloe. “I’ve looked at my inventory reports, but I can’t do any remodeling right now.”
--Fortune Small Business
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