Employee development, business culture and strategic acquisitions are behind the doubling of Integrated Global Services’ (IGS) sales pipeline opportunities over the past year, according to president and CEO of 15 years, Rich Crawford.
Appointed in 2008, Crawford was tasked with overhauling the financial health of the company and searching for investment partners to take the business to the next level, allowing the founder to retire. Fast forward to 2023, and he explains how IGS has grown from $14 million in revenue and 75 employees to approximately 10 times that size today.
"When I joined the team in 2008, what resonated with me most was the strength of our people and culture," Crawford told BIC Magazine. "We started with a great core of experienced and talented people who were committed to the company through some challenging times. Our original values of hard work, flexibility and entrepreneurial spirit have stayed with us throughout every stage of growth. They’re a foundational aspect of our culture today."
IGS’ Crawford reflects on brisk company growth
Rich Crawford, President and CEO, IGS
IGS aims to hire and develop the best talent, he said. "Finding the best people is important, and our high-energy culture and successful track record have helped us do that. It’s equally important that we internally promote becoming the very best versions of ourselves — me included."
Crawford explained that setting goals and developing coping strategies have helped him overcome some personal challenges in life. Self-improvement, he says, is an ongoing process and necessary to be able to share knowledge and insights with your team.
"I like to set both personal and professional goals to keep things on track," he said. "I have come to realize that it’s not about beating hard situations or just getting through them. It’s learning to cope with them and becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable, and the growth that can happen as a result. I also give myself a bit of grace and freedom to continue to make mistakes in every facet of my life. We are all human, and all we can do is keep striving to improve."
From a business aspect, Crawford believes that the only reason the company could not become a billion-dollar revenue business in the next 20 years is if the team is unable to envision it.
"It would be because we held ourselves back, not because the opportunities aren’t there," he asserted. "It is very hard to grow a service business because people are the hardest thing to scale. If we can imagine something beyond ourselves, then we can achieve significantly higher levels of performance and take advantage of the opportunities that are in the market."
He continued, "We are seeing this reflected in our sales performance right now — we haven’t doubled our pipeline in the past 12 months, but we have doubled the number of employees. It’s because we are getting better at communicating and executing the distinctive IGS value proposition — improving the way we are aligning and developing our talented teams."
Growth and momentum require leadership and strategy, which is why the IGS CEO often describes his role as being "responsible for driving strategy — a set of assumptions about how we will win."
"Our mission is to become the global source for surface solutions in the eyes of our customers, and a critical part of that is having the best people for the job," Crawford concluded. "Of course, technology is important, but people do business with people, and we want ours to be the best. Ultimately, we want to provide clients with an exceptional experience that keeps them coming back to IGS time and time again."
For more information, visit integratedglobal.com or call (832) 608-6840.
