FIVE STAR Sells; New Owners Talk Expansion
Kansas City Business Journal 03/11/05
A pair of investors has bought Five Star Speakers
& Trainers LLC, one of the nation's top agencies that match speakers
with corporate events.
Bill and Nancy Lauterbach sold the Overland Park company on
Feb. 25 to Vice President Steve Gardner and Paul Schmidt. Financial terms of the
deal were not disclosed.
Bill Lauterbach said he and his wife, who founded Five Star
in 1988, will remain with the company.
"I could retire, but I'm damned if I'm going to," he said.
"We love bringing people together through this company."
Ranked among the nation's 10 largest speakers bureaus, Five
Star has about 20 employees and has represented more than 8,000 speakers,
entertainers and trainers through the years. Nancy Lauterbach said the company
makes about $6.5 million in annual revenue. Five Star, which draws its name from
the system audiences use to rate speakers, scores gigs for big names such as
author Maya Angelou, physician Patch Adams, racer Mario Andretti and Hall of
Fame catcher Johnny Bench.
With the new ownership, Gardner will lead business
development at Five Star. Schmidt, a former sales executive for
Storage Teck Corp. and
Veritas Software Corp.,
will oversee operations. Nancy Lauterbach will continue her sales role for Five
Star, and her husband will split time between sales and helping manage the
company.
Nancy Lauterbach, who has been Five Star's top seller since
she co-founded the company, said the sales agreement with Gardner and Schmidt
includes an incentive clause for her to remain with Five Star for several more
years.
"I have to stay here four years, or I make less money," she
said.
Fred Pryor, founder and former owner of seminar company
Pryor Resources Inc.,
employed Lauterbach for six years before she left to start Five Star.
"She is a sales-type person in the first place, but she also
is a very hard-working person," he said. "I think she put together a very good
company."
Gardner said he wants to increase company revenue by
focusing on training programs, which today make up about a third of Five
Star's business. He also wants Five Star to represent more athletes and
sports announcers -- the company is working on a marketing agreement
with the
Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association.
"Basically, we want to triple the size of the business
in five years," Gardner said.
The speakers and trainers industry has become a
crowded market, with more than 100 agencies representing thousands of
speakers willing to appear at corporate and nonprofit retreats for fees
ranging from $2,500 to more than $40,000.
"This industry is ripe for consolidation; we're a lot
of small mom-and-pop shops," Gardner said. "(But) we originally want to
pursue an organic growth model."
Gardner, 35, and Schmidt, 39, share some history with
the Lauterbachs. Gardner's late father, Dick, owned the
National Association of Sales Education,
where Nancy Lauterbach worked in the late 1970s. Schmidt's father was a
high school track coach for the Lauterbachs' son.
"There was nepotism all over the place," Gardner
joked.
The Lauterbachs didn't actively seek a buyer for Five
Star, though Bill Lauterbach said the company had received four serious
inquiries during the past year. Gardner, who has worked at Five Star
since 1997, said he had discussed a purchase with the Lauterbachs for
more than a year. The family agreed to give him and Schmidt first dibs
on the company if the couple ever decided to sell.
Bill Lauterbach said he and his wife thought it was
important to sell Five Star to someone who understood the company's
culture, as well as the speakers bureau industry.
"We know their value systems and all that," he said.
"We said, 'Make us an offer,' and they did, and it was sweet enough that
everything else worked."
written by by
Stephen Roth Staff Writer
Reach Stephen Roth at 816-421-5900 or
sroth@bizjournals.com.
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