Rick Cottrell

Rick feels very fortunate to have over 30 years entrepreneurial experience. He has owned businesses with as little as 5 and as many as 150 employees. If you remember the Wide World of Sports tagline, well, Rick lives it every day. He has felt the thrill of entrepreneurial victory and the extreme agony of defeat. Like any experienced entrepreneur the defeats have taught him the most.

As Rick says, “As an entrepreneur, nothing beats the adrenaline rush you get when you win a critical piece of business that gives you some financial breathing room, also, nothing can prepare you for the hopeless feeling you have on a Friday night wondering how to make payroll the following week.” At the end of the day, Rick wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything and his clients appreciate the fact that he has been where they are and where they are going.

After the sale of his last business, Rick decided to focus his energies and efforts on helping other entrepreneurs and their leadership teams achieve the success he experienced and avoid the mistakes he made by helping them effectively implement EOS® and understand the significant benefits of a peer board/master mind process like The Alternative Board (TAB).

Rick’s business experience has spanned the globe where he has worked with the leadership teams of cross-industry companies and organizations like Apple, Marriott, Avis, USAA, NIKE, Rheem/Ruud, Purina, GM, NASCAR, Michelin, Kraft, Sandoz, McDonald’s and Shell, to name a few.

In addition to his entrepreneurial experience and being certified as a Professional EOS® Implementer, Rick is a multi-market owner of The Alternative Board (TAB), is Certified in all of the Behavioral Sciences with TTI/Success Insights, is a President’s Club Member with the Sandler Sales Institute and has been highlighted by the Wall Street Journal, CEO and the Small Business Monthly for his work with the use of business analytics and scorecard metrics to predict ongoing business success.

The Alternative Board is a place to learn and gather information. It is a group of people to bounce my solutions or ideas off before I try them. I gain valuable input for the decisions I have to make. Also it is very easy to see other’s mistakes, but not realize you have made the same mistake or are currently making the same mistake. Decisions, solutions & especially employee issues become obvious.

Scott McManus

Something Greek MEMBER SINCE 2016

As a TAB member, through the regular coaching sessions and monthly Board meetings, I gain invaluable mentor and peer support. The TAB ethos and coaching approach has helped me to plan personal and business goals and set direction. This is supported by the wealth of knowledge, skills, experience and support that is shared by the board who provide Impartial, informed and considered guidance and advice on all types of business issues, that enable me to gain fresh perspectives, identify blind spots and fill my skill gaps. Over the last twelve months TAB has effectively become my company’s non-executive board and its members my trusted colleagues.

Saul Goldfarb

Goldfarb & Associates MEMBER SINCE 2018

We have an excellent group of professional business owners. I learn something from them each month. Hearing and seeing what they are doing in their business is motivational for me. And they are not "yes" people. They tell me when I should be doing something differently.

Lynn Gastineau

Gastineau Log Homes, Inc. MEMBER SINCE 1993

7 Ways to Market your Business for Next to Nothing

Marketing need not be a mystery or expensive. For many business owners who are tightening their belts and reducing expenses, marketing expenditures ...

How to Prepare Your Clients for a Price Increase

Every business must, at one point or another, share what’s viewed by customers as “unwelcome” news—the need for a price increase for products or ...

How TAB Helped A Member Grow During COVID-19

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have struggled to survive. But for some, the pandemic has provided an opportunity to ...

The best piece of business advice I have ever received is…

When you’re a business owner, your best lessons often come from two places: failure or wise words from owners who have been there. There are going to ...

8 Productivity Hacks for Busy Business Owners

Owning your own business can be a time-consuming undertaking. And despite many of us wishing for more hours in the day, time is finite. Everything we ...

Tips on Effective Marketing in an Economic Slowdown

Fewer customers, fewer sales, decreased revenue streams. These conditions are familiar to virtually all CEOs and small business owners during this ...

Valuable Tips on Maintaining Cash Flow

Keeping cash flow viable is a challenge for small businesses in the best of times. And we can all likely agree, this is not the best of times. With ...

How to Become an Agile Business for the Long-Term

While every business owner has their own story about how they got started in business, if there’s one thing we all share in common, it’s that we hope ...

11 Rookie Mistakes Business Leaders Wish They Never Made

As Winston Churchill said, “All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.” Being a leader comes with a lot of responsibilities ...

Tips on Building an Inclusive Culture in Your Company

“Diversity” and “inclusiveness” are terms we frequently encounter today, both in the press and throughout the business world. People have become more ...

TAB St. Louis Metro East
& Central Missouri

MISSOURI

TAB Business Owner

TAB St. Louis Metro East & Central Missouri
MISSOURI