iQ MAGAZINE

What do you do when a venerable business model becomes unsustainable? It's a question that small and medium-sized businesses face regularly: How do you tackle that challenge called change? One potential answer comes from an intriguing source: Father Bernard McCoy, a monk at Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank in Sparta, Wisconsin. Not long ago, the abbey faced challenges typical of a small family-owned business.

"For 900 years, abbeys in our order [have been] expected to be self-sustaining," McCoy says, but with only 500 acres, his abbey lacked enough arable land to farm. And the abbey's small staff was insufficient to sustain other labor-intensive endeavors; most abbeys have 50 to 200 monks; Spring Bank has 5.

Since its founding in the late 1920s, the abbey had hosted retreats and assembled holiday gift boxes of sausage and cheese for sale. In 1994, Father McCoy was asked to redefine the abbey's business model. He considered everything from growing Christmas trees and shiitake mushrooms to building a golf course and convention center.

Serendipitously, in the middle of this process, McCoy's printer ran out of toner. Shocked by how much the replacement cartridge cost, he investigated the feasibility of selling toner and ink cartridges on the Web. The idea turned out to be a perfect fit:

• It was low overhead, because fulfillment warehouses could handle inventory.
• Cartridges are something everyone needs on an ongoing basis
• Because the abbey is supporting charitable works with the proceeds, it provides a unique story with which to market the business, now called LaserMonks
• Over time, customers have asked LaserMonks to add other products to its online store

The success of LaserMonks has been tangible:

• In 2002, its first year, gross sales were $2,000.
• In 2006, McCoy anticipates gross sales of $5 million, double the total in 2004.
• Just $150,000 covers the abbey's annual budget, and the rest of the profit goes to charitable works.

"We have taken the mundane, day-to-day secular market experience of buying black dust and paper clips, and turned it into a positive, feel-good experience," McCoy says. "It's purchase for a purpose. It's what Cistercian monks have always done, but now I'm using that part of our tradition as a marketing tool."

What's the lesson for other small businesses?

• Look for your niche and take advantage of your limitations to be creative.
• Make marketing your mission: Find your unique story to tell, and keep up the chant.
• As McCoy learned, simply listen to your customers and let their desires guide you.

"Being small gave us greater flexibility," McCoy says. "We're kind of the avant garde in terms of appropriating modern technology." But monks have always been on the edge of technology, he notes, citing Dom Perignon and Gregor Mendel as examples.

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iQ Magazine, Second Quarter 2006