Health & Medical
Splitting hairs
How Omega Laboratories Inc.’s John Vitullo uses chemistry and common sense to grow his business
By Abby Cymerman
Smart Business Akron/Canton | August 2007
John Vitullo is a biomedical researcher, founder of a forensic lab,
author and co-author of several scientific publications, and an educational speaker.
So when he co-founded and became CEO of a new company in
1999, he named it Omega Laboratories Inc. because, he says, “It’s the
last letter of the Greek alphabet, and it was the last thing I was ever
going to do.”
Headquartered in Mogadore, Omega’s state-of-the-art facility provides hair analysis and testing for illicit drug use to clients worldwide.
From 2004 to 2006, Omega’s revenue increased 135 percent, and
Vitullo expects 2007 revenue to reach $6 million.
Smart Business spoke with Vitullo about how a customer-focused
attitude sets his company apart.
Q: How can other CEOs grow their company the way you’ve grown
yours?
We looked at the potential market and found that it was unlimited.
With a pre-employment drug-screening company, every company is a
potential client anywhere in the world.
It was being at the right place at the right moment. There were just
so many advantages over the existing technology, and we saw that
and said, ‘Let’s take a chance.’
Q: What is the downfall of taking a risk?
What we didn’t realize was that there was so much education that
needed to be done. There were a lot of fallacies out there about what
we do, and a lot of people shied away from it.
We saw the future of it. We knew that the federal government
was talking about approving hair testing, and that opens up 25 million potential tests a year. You put everything together, and we figured we’d go try this. It was a very good risk, and we felt good
about where we were going.
Q: How important is customer service?
Our business is an information business. We have separated ourselves from the other three, four or five laboratories out there by an
intense focus on customer service.
Ninety percent of the samples that come in here this morning will
go out this afternoon; no one matches that in the industry. If someone calls in and has a question, they’re going to talk to a live person.
If they need to talk to a scientist, they’re going to talk to a scientist.
If they need backup support in a legal proceeding, they’re going to
get it. That has really enabled us to grow. If you call the other laboratories, you’ll go through answering-machine hell.
Q: When did you decide to make customer service your differentiating factor?
As with all new businesses, we struggled mightily during the first
three or four years. When we started, in addition to hair testing, we did
urine testing and some oral fluids testing. We were losing money, and
in business, that’s what makes the big decisions for you.
We realized we couldn’t do all of them as well as we wanted to. We
said, ‘Look, let’s forget about everything else except the hair. This is
what we do best. Let’s focus on it, and let’s do it as well as anyone ever
did it before.’
Q: How did you communicate the customer service focus to your
employees?
We had meetings and said, ‘Everyone here is in customer service.’ We only had 10 or 11 employees at the time, and if the phone
was ringing, whoever could get to it first would pick it up. We told
the employees that if a client has an issue or a problem, they
should take care of it right then and there.
There are a set of rules, which we have communicated to the
employees, and an employee handbook lays all that out. We’ve
never had a problem with someone overstepping their boundaries because we’re pretty clear on what they are allowed to do.
Q: What advice would you give other CEOs of fast-growth companies?
We weren’t funded, so all of our growth has been organic. If we
had put money into marketing and advertising, we may have
grown too fast and not been able to handle it or keep up with our
level of customer service.
I don’t know why it happened the way it did, but we were very
happy with the slow, controlled growth that enabled us to build the
laboratory gradually. We’re still in that growth phase. We have very
good people here, but we’ll need a lot more.
Q: How do you make sure that you’re hiring the right people?
Pardon the pun, but we look at chemistry — personalitywise —
to make sure they fit in to our group. It’s a very close-knit group,
and one person can certainly upset that apple cart.
We’re lucky to be in the Northeast Ohio area because we hire a
lot of people from the local universities. When we’re ready to grow
and add people, we don’t have to look far.
HOW TO REACH: Omega Laboratories Inc., (800) 665-5569 or www.omegalabs.net
