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By Jay McCall, Business Solutions magazine.

Todd O'Bert is no stranger to facing terrible economic conditions. He started Productive Corp.; a security, storage, and network infrastructure software reseller business; in 2001, less than a year after the dot-com bubble burst. Right up until the day he opened his doors, he had many naysayers exhorting him to make a different career move. But, O'Bert and Productive prevailed.

Seven years after his company's inception, however, the CEO of the then 15-employee reseller recalls facing a much bigger challenge. "Because of economic uncertainty, customers were holding off their orders, and we were doing 90% of our business in the last two days of the month," he recalls. This trend made it nearly impossible for O'Bert to measure demand, and he became increasingly fearful his business was starting to tank. It was gut check time for O'Bert. At a time when many businesses in similar situations were looking for ways to cut costs everywhere possible, O'Bert made the gutsy decision to make a significant investment in his business to get to the root of its problems. The choices O'Bert and his team made in early 2008 not only kept the company afloat, but led to three consecutive years of 25% to 30% revenue growth. Today, Productive is a 25-employee operation and once again O'Bert is forecasting up to 30% revenue growth for 2012. O'Bert shares the key changes that led to his company's turnaround.