“Karl has demonstrated a professionalism in negotiation with results that made both of us feel like winners. His unique background of sales, management, engineering and procurement has created a very adaptable and successful executive.

I can think specifically of several occasions where he approached a situation or the market with the motivation of helping (his client) first, but also trying to keep us successful. One incident involved an edge quality problem where the material was rejected at Cambridge-an entire truckload. Karl worked with us to segregate that material to be used for certain types of end product only, a conditional acceptance, and in return negotiated a sizable discount for his (client). For Rolled Metal Products, we could not return or rework the material, so this would have been a total loss of about $60,000.”

“Mr. Walinskas performed a manufacturing feasibility analysis for an injection molded heating element. This project was of critical importance to our company. It led to a patent being awarded by the U.S. Patent Office and ultimately to the acquisition of our business by another corporation. Mr. Walinskas’ contribution was instrumental in these events.”

“Whether providing guidance on a specific product innovation, or simply moving on a minor day to day maintenance item, Karl gives quick answers that are backed by solid reasoning. This helped Keylink maintain its momentum and meet its commitments.”

“With over 800 employees in our printing facility…our survival has been, and will be, dependent upon our abilities to change and continue to meet the requirements our customers and competitors put upon us. Karl was a key player in many organizational development programs at OPM. His understanding of our environment, processes, and customer requirements were instrumental in the successful implementation of key initiatives. …would be a tremendous asset for any organization to consider for a lead role in the ongoing developments of their particular business …well seasoned and especially suited for manufacturing operations.”

“I can think specifically of several occasions where he approached a situation or the market with the motivation of helping (his client) first, but also trying to keep us successful. One incident involved an edge quality problem where the material was rejected at Cambridge-an entire truckload. Karl worked with us to segregate that material to be used for certain types of end product only, a conditional acceptance, and in return negotiated a sizable discount for his (client). For Rolled Metal Products, we could not return or rework the material, so this would have been a total loss of about $60,000.”

“One of the main things we did with (Karl’s client) was to set up a VMI, or Vendor Managed Inventory, program, where Precision Metals would hold off site material on contract and release it to Cambridge as needed. Karl and his team fine tuned this process so that they only kept 4 days of buffer stock on hand inside their walls, while we held months of VMI of stainless wire in Philadelphia for them. I believe setting up these programs reduced (his client’s) inventory by about $3-4 million dollars over a period of about 9 months. We were happy to hold that inventory knowing they were good for it and it gave us predictability.”

“Karl Walinskas and I worked together on a project…that his private consulting company was engaged in. He designed and built a custom automated cutting machine for acrylic tubing, where a robotic arm …and cut the tube at a predetermined rate. Karl demonstrated throughout this project his ability to organize and focus the team to meet the deadlines associated with the project.”

“Karl led an Activity Based Costing project, wherein he designed and implemented an ABC system at Cornell. He was able to successfully collaborate with all levels of employees, while developing a clear understanding of our needs.”

“…during difficult economic times while Internet businesses were collapsing with alarming frequency, Karl took a small staff and created the state’s first manufacturing based e-Business portal.”

“Karl has strong, consultative sales and negotiation skills that he not only demonstrates but teaches to those around him. …one of the keys to his success is his strength as a leader and his ability to “coach up” company employees and raise their game to another level.

Bottom Line: if your company seeks strong leadership in Sales or Operations, it pays to give Mr. Walinskas (& Smart Company Growth) a look.”

“One night I met up with Karl during a trade show in Las Vegas for dinner, where we collectively were trying to get a deal going with a Chinese group. There was an interpreter present and the whole thing went on for about four hours. I was impressed the way Karl sought to understand their business first under these circumstances. He got to the bottom of some minor misunderstandings that were beneath the surface, and presented a professional edge for our team while still being able to hold…a hard line on issues that we did not want to compromise. As a result this sale (lots of zeros on the numbers) went on to the next process without incident.”

“Karl also has keen business skills and understands what it takes to provide superior service to his clients and peers. Through his LeaseOne brokerage, Karl demonstrated his ability to assess a need and develop a solution providing companies with opportunities to aquire capital expenditures in a difficult financial market; he goes above and beyond to ensure needs are met.

I highly recommend trusting in Karl’s ability in any endeavor and am confident that he can provide the quality, professionalism, and results needed.”

“I never expected the financing company (Karl) to source replacement equipment and negotiate pricing on my behalf when the original vendor that I was doing business with didn’t meet commitments. Above and beyond! I have better equipment, warranted with service, at a much better value! I will only be making one call when I need more business equipment in the future.”

“Whenever we wanted to develop a new consulting offering for our manufacturing clients, I knew Karl was an excellent person to turn to. He generated sales in the tens of thousands of dollars for first-time deliveries like Activity-Based Costing systems, plant-wide Human Resource assessments, and an innovative concept called the Shared-Use Engineer program. He authored our company strategic plan…and began and headed up NEPIRC’s Business Development department. The latter has increased organizational sales by 30% during the last two years. I highly recommend Karl (Smart Company Growth)…to any company destined for growth and pursuing it seriously.”

“Karl is a detail and objective oriented professional. I had the opportunity to work with him on both materials related and process improvement projects, and found him to be thorough in leading the projects and supportive in keeping them on task to completion.”

“Karl was a great provider of service to our company, we needed leasing for some new construction equipment and he was very responsive and attentive to our needs. His attentiveness to our needs helped us tremendously in acquiring our new equipment and helping us complete a project that was very profitable for our company.”

“Another point of note was that Karl was strategic about the market. Depending on the price of Nickel (drives stainless prices to a great degree) they would source overseas material, with 12 week delivery times, for quantities up to six months and as little as a month. This allowed (his client) to capitalize on the wildly moving price of Ni or at least not get hurt by it. Those guys always seemed to guess right on the trends. I don’t know the numbers, but I know that this practice kept (the client) competitive with high margins during the recent recession.”

“Karl Walinskas offers fast, easy, convenient, and completely virtual Skype interviews which can be placed on a website, blog and YouTube. He is an extremely professional interviewer, delivering well prepared, cyber space interviews resulting in a professional Skype recording which can be utilized for a variety of marketing purposes. For authors wishing to extend their reach and increase their web based content, I’d strongly recommend a web interview with Smart Company Growth.”

“I did an Executive Video Interview with Smart Company Growth to talk about my marketing agency and its uniqueness. The process was simple, affordable, and professionally done in a business casual setting, not scripted and phony. Now I have an authentic video that I am marketing virally. Karl even helped me put it up on my LinkedIn page to optimize it, something else that his company does very well. I encourage any marketer out there to tap into the search engine optimization of adding video. I am telling all of my clients about this great way to put a personality to a company. And I really like Karl’s natural and honest style as the interviewer. After all at the end of the day people do business with people.”

“My company was in the process of launching and marketing a new online video product to our corporate clients. We were struggling with our differentiator in the marketplace….Karl asked the tough questions from a potential customer’s perspective, and made me think about positioning and marketing the product differently than I had before….also extremely helpful in helping us think about a pricing model that would be easy for customers to understand….I was able to bring the information back to my team, which in turn informed how we marketed the product, helped us narrow our customer prospect field, and build different levels of entry and pricing.
When I heard about the concept of Virtual-Mastermind I knew the idea would be a winner with Karl facilitating and coaching the groups. A perfect match for firms looking to leverage the mastermind concept like I’ve done during my career.”

“Karl and I collaborated as Executive Mastermind peers in Vistage International for several years….Karl’s expertise proved to be invaluable on more than one challenge that I had…but one challenge in particular stands out. As we began a more focused approach to some of our managed services offerings, there was a lack of group consensus on a particular topic. Karl had encountered a similar obstacle at his then company O.A. Newton and offered suggestions on how to get management to gain agreement. Using his suggestions as a guideline and with some additional focus on the issue internally we were get past the obstacle and move ahead with our managed services rollout. Karl was always a significant contributing leader within our group and one of the first to offer solutions to the toughest challenges. Contact me on LinkedIn if you need more.”

“Karl is a straight-talking, no-nonsense leader who has both the business acumen and people skills to help companies in the midst of change. One of the many reasons Karl is successful is his ability to relate with all types of people within an organization from the employees on the factory floor to the C-Suite. Often during our Vistage meetings Karl would distill a highly complex business issue down to a few distinct bullet points and a succinct solution, it got us past the distracting minutia, and helped us focus on what was truly important. I would highly recommend Karl to any organization that is looking for an assertive leader to drive them to the next level.”

“Karl is an amazingly dynamic person who truly cares about making an impact in his work. As part of the same Vistage group, Karl was always bringing issues to the table to brainstorm new ways of doing business, increasing sales, or obtain new clients. He demonstrated a high degree of expertise and knowledge not only in his field but in big ticket sales and business development, regardless of industry, which helped solve many challenging problems for other execs.”

“Karl and I met six years ago when we were referred and placed in the same Vistage Key Executive group. He is a natural leader with excellent communication skills. He would be an asset to any group looking for strong leadership in marketing and sales. Excellent analytical skills and ability for implementing growth strategies.”

“My company was in the middle of a new product launch for a mobile learning device—the MLearnPad. …We ran into tech challenges with our connection, Skype being the medium it is.  My ISP in Canada was not producing a consistent upload speed and the video takes were suffering.  Karl ended up shooting the video 3 times to get the best product quality, ultimately delivering the goods when we had the best connection….

In the end we got a great video for promotion on-site and virally.  I really appreciated Karl’s professionalism and patience while designing the video, correcting the tech issues and finishing the issue until I was delighted with the results. He’s a solid interviewer and even better business person to deal with.”