“…I saw a vulnerable population that was being underserved. This was an opportunity to help people and to do what I wanted to do as an entrepreneur.”

Bill Koeblitz is President/CEO of MobilityWorks.

MO:
What is your career background before owning MobilityWorks?

Bill:
I owned a small network of medical healthcare clinics called Med Center. We had seven locations in the Northern Ohio area. I sold the clinics to MedPartners, Inc. of Birmingham, AL in 1995. Before Med Center I was a CPA for five years at Ernst & Young. Before that I went to John Carroll University in Cleveland, OH and graduated in 1979 with a degree in Business Administration and Accounting.

MO:
How did MobilityWorks come into being?

Bill:
After Med Center, I was looking for an investment opportunity that was still related to healthcare, since I knew the industry. In 1997 I found what I was looking for with a small company called New Era Mobility (now MobilityWorks) that modified vehicles for transporting elderly and disabled people in wheelchairs. At Med Center, I saw a vulnerable population that was being undeserved. This was an opportunity to help people and to do what I wanted to do as an entrepreneur. New Era had one location in Akron, OH with about a twenty employees — that still serves as the location of our corporate headquarters.

MO:
How difficult was it to start the company? What lessons did you learn in the process?

Bill:
The company we purchased was modifying full-size vans with wheelchair lifts, then selling them to consumers and businesses. With only one location and limited space we weren’t in a position to grow either segment as fast as we could have. Expanding our modifying capabilities conflicted with our consumer showroom capacity, so we weren’t ready for that conflict as quickly as it happened. We should have planned for expansion earlier since growing the business was always the plan. We eventually bought another larger facility 10 miles away that is now our Commercial Division headquarters.

We learned early that the entire industry of vehicle modifiers and equipment manufacturers was very fragmented. There wasn’t any quality oversight. With that, a lot of our competitors were inexperienced garage shops that didn’t have much overhead. We had to quickly differentiate ourselves from pricing, which we ultimately did with better quality and service. 

There also weren’t any dealer qualifications required to service and sell the vehicles. That’s no longer the case. This is one the biggest changes in our industry and its much better for the consumer.

The other big lesson is to always be prepared for change. When we started out there were hardly any wheelchair minivans. The door height and interior space wasn’t able to accommodate a wheelchair. Today, a lowered-floor minivan equipped with an automated ramp is 90% of the consumer accessible van market.

MO:
How has blogging helped your business?

Bill:
Blogs provide us with the opportunity to share our client’s stories in ways that we were never able to before. That’s a big advantage because it builds trust with existing clients and with those who are looking for our products. Blogging on our site also lets us stay in touch with the customer in a non-intrusive way, without having to invest much time or money. We’re doing half the mailings we were doing 2 or 3 years ago. 

The Internet has transformed our business and the entire industry as a whole.

Unfortunately a lot of good, quality dealers didn’t hold up well during this last recession simply because they didn’t have the web presence that some Internet-based competitors had. It’s very unfortunate, because in our business a one-on-one mobility consultation (in person) is critical to providing the right vehicle and equipment for their specific wheelchair and travel needs. Localized, ongoing maintenance and service for handicap vans is much more important than for a regular automobile.

MO:
Any advice for first-time online business owners?

Bill:
Don’t underestimate that importance of your website and its search engine rankings. You have to be vigilant in every aspect of the Internet, including SEO, pay-per-click, blogging, e-mail marketing and other social media. Even if you’re in a niche market, you can’t just rely on building your website and hoping customers will find you. You have to promote it. If you don’t, someone else is going to come along and do it better. Plan to spend more on Internet marketing than any other media, no matter what you’re selling and find the right people to help you manage it.

MO:
Where do you see your business in the next five years?

Bill:
Technology keeps getting better and better when it comes to being able to showcase your products, so we see the Internet as being much more important in the future. As an example, we currently post about a dozen photos of each vehicle that’s for sale. In the future we may have a virtual tour of every van, inside and out. Technology-wise that’s all doable, but it would be time and cost prohibitive. We typically have 200 plus wheelchair vans for sale at 13 different consumer locations, so that would require a lot of investment. Someday though it will happen. As far as company growth is concerned, we are opening another store in Pasadena California within the next two months. In five years we hope to double the size and revenue of our consumer and commercial operations.

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