Pamila Kew / August 12, 2020

When it comes to business, David Dow has one prevailing philosophy: helping others succeed is a meaningful endeavor worth tirelessly pursuing.

Business owners and non-profit directors are driven by their passion to create something meaningful. They are builders, makers, creators and innovators — the people David looks up to in life, and the people he wants to help continue changing the world.

As a Schooley Mitchell Strategic-Partner, David offers cost reduction consulting expertise to businesses and non-profit organizations, helping them reduce their expenses in several key service areas while saving them the time and resources to divert to more important revenue-generating activities.

“I work with a local non-profit whose budgets are being hammered with state and federal budget cuts and reduced donations,” says David. “When I told them I could come in and reduce their expenses with no risk at all, they breathed a sigh of relief. That’s why I love doing this.”

David reduces his clients’ expenses in several areas: telecom, merchant services, shipping, waste, e-signatures and electronic logging devices. Business owners have a million-and-one things to worry about in their organization — focusing on back-end service expenses and vendor negotiations shouldn’t be one of them.

David’s service is completely risk-free, meaning his clients incur no out-of-pocket expenses and Schooley Mitchell’s fees are self-funded out of the savings he generates for them. If savings aren’t found, his clients don’t pay a cent.

“I think far too often, small business folks fall through the cracks,” says David. “To be able to offer a risk-free service that can potentially save an organization thousands of dollars — that can be transformational for them and that’s a privilege I don’t take for granted.”

Before joining Schooley Mitchell, David co-owned and operated a boutique product, commercial and residential design studio called Wisecracker Designs. Wisecracker’s impressive client list included brands such as Neiman Marcus, Tommy Bahama, Peter Millar and Augusta National Golf Club.

As a strategic thinker with hands-on experience building a small business into a major industry player working with some of America’s largest brands, David understands that for business owners to achieve their visions of success, they need to have the money, time and resources to do so.

“My clients have great dreams — dreams of changing the world and making an impact,” says David. “By bringing us in to analyze their business service fees and vendor negotiations, they have the time and resources to make those dreams a reality.”

David takes a client-centric focus on his business. His goal is to keep his clients happy and their businesses healthy. By providing them tangible solutions that directly improve their bottom-lines, he’s able to offer a new way for businesses to survive during challenging times.

“A lot of people struggling through tough times — their customer base is drying up, they simply can’t generate revenue, and this can be an overwhelming situation to overcome,” says David. “To provide even a little bit of relief during tough times can provide a business a bridge until things get better.”

The areas that David consults his clients on are complex landscapes for businesses to navigate, filled with vendors wary of reducing rates. Many businesses undergo cost-saving initiatives at some point or another, but when these initiatives are directed at bottom-line expenses, they
can be difficult to effectively address with the deluge of competitors and services on the market.

But David can find the businesses the consistency and patterns in these prices, ensuring they’re optimized and streamlined for success.

As a community-minded individual, David supports a wide variety of charitable organizations that are near and dear to his heart. He contributes time and resources to the YWCA, Kiva.org — an organization that expands financial access to underserved communities across the globe through crowdfunding loans and unlocking capital — as well as Heifer International, a development organization working to end hunger and poverty around the world by providing livestock and training to struggling communities. In his spare time, David is also a master swimmer who enjoys his time in the pool.

Legendary boxer and civil rights activist Mohammed Ali once said that “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” David’s mandate is to serve others and to try — both in business and in life — to make the world a better place.

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