By Bill Current, President & Founder
Being Current: 25 Years in the Making—Lessons Learned About Drug Testing and Business
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I founded the Current Consulting Group (CCG) in 1998. To celebrate our upcoming 25th anniversary, each month we will be featuring special articles, webinars, and discounts on CCG services. Check our website and LinkedIn page for updates and offerings.
Each of our monthly newsletters will feature a special article entitled “Being Current: 25 Years in the Making” which will highlight some of the most important things I’ve learned about drug testing and about being in business since I started the #1 consulting firm in the industry two-and-a-half decades ago.
Lesson #1: The Bottom Line Is Always the Bottom Line
In 1989 I accepted a position at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as the staff director of a recently formed coalition called The Institute for a Drug-Free Workplace. Our Board of Directors was comprised of very senior executives from about a dozen Fortune 50 companies, including Exxon, IBM, ABC, and Motorola. I had just turned 31 and I was getting a first-hand business education from some of the most experienced, knowledgeable men and women in the business world. What an incredible opportunity.
During a board meeting, I was seated next to an executive vice president of human resources for one of the largest, most famous companies in the world. One by one each board member gave a presentation about his or her company’s drug-free workplace program. And one by one, each presenter talked about their company’s reasons for drug testing applicants and employees. Almost all mentioned helping improve society, or helping drug users clean up their lives, or enhancing their company’s public image. At one point my seating companion leaned over and whispered in my ear — “Bill, never forget, in business, the bottom line is always the bottom line.”
For more than 40 years, businesses have been conducting drug testing because they want to reduce accidents so there will be fewer workers’ compensation claims so they can save money. Or they drug test to help identify people who need help so they can become drug free so they will be more productive workers so the company can make more money. Or they switch drug testing providers to get a better price so they can spend less and improve profitability. In the end, almost all business decisions are made with the goal of improving the bottom line.
As employers, the goal is to establish and maintain a drug-free workplace program that gets the job done, that results in a drug-free workplace, as cost-effectively as possible. If your current provider is not helping achieve that goal, then you look for another provider with a different solution.
As drug testing providers, our main job is to help our clients reduce the costs associated with workplace substance abuse in the most effective and cost-efficient way possible. We’re not really selling drug tests as much as we’re offering solutions to very real problems that, if left untreated, can have a very negative effect on a client’s bottom line.
Regardless of your perspective—buyer or seller—it’s all about the bottom line. And that’s okay.
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