New York City Tourism in a Blink

By: Arleen Kahn
In 1981, after a misguided expansion into the restaurant business dragged her successful T-shirt company under, Ms. Kahn went looking for a job.  She landed a post as an Administrative Assistant at the New York showroom of Edward Fields custom carpet maker after somewhat obfuscating her past as an entrepreneur.

At that time, Edward Fields had 35 salespeople traveling to clients throughout its 11 showrooms across the United States.  What it didn’t have was anyone making sure it was getting the best prices for office supplies, rental cars, equipment leases and much more. For each office and individual salesperson, we were using a different company for various services,” Ms. Kahn recalls.  “We had no corporate accounts.’

The research and negotiating skills Ms. Kahn honed to get Edward Fields its corporate discounts became the foundation of her cost control consulting service, AMK Associates.  She has capitalized on the cost-consciousness of the late 1990’s and the present, as well as the shrinking of in-house staffs, to build a business committed to paring expenses for services such as shipping, printing, packing products and office/equipment supplies. 

“Arleen is a digger,” says Nancy Ploeger who was vice president of operations and human resources at Manhattan-based New York Sports Clubs when the company hired Ms. Kahn.  “What she doesn’t know she finds out.”  Arleen saved the fitness company $50,000.

After examining nine to 12 months of potential client’s invoices, Ms. Kahn prepares a report on what overall savings she could achieve.  Once hired, she negotiates vendor contracts and informs a company’s employees of the cost-savings procedures approved by the client.  Indeed, rather than immediately dumping a company’s existing vendor, Ms. Kahn tries first to get better prices from them.  By doing that with Winmill & Company overnight express carrier, she trimmed the Manhattan financial business’ bills 60% according to Thomas Winmill.  (Ms Kahn stays in touch with ousted vendors, who may she says, be right for other clients.)

And she leaves behind valuable tips, clients say, on negotiating with vendors, preparing order forms and avoiding unnecessary expenses.

“For certain office machines, she taught us to wait until the first breakdown and then get a service contract,” Ms. Ploeger recalls.  “She knew which machines broke down and when.”

A sole proprietor in Manhattan, Ms. Kahn bills clients according to their projected savings.  Her fees are either a Consulting arrangement or based on a range from $12,750 for savings of $20,000 to $30,000., to $95,000.00 for savings of $201,000 to $300,000.  She stresses that while she works with vendors, she has no financial ties to any of them.

“A lot of the questions are knotty and the vendors are vocal,” says Mr. Winmill, who had Ms. Kahn serve as Winmill & Company de facto office manager for over 7 years.  “Prospective clients need to have a minimum 25 employees (rank and file),” she says or they can be a start up company who want to get off on the right foot.  After 16 years in business, AMK has no plans for the moment to hire a staff and delegate the sensitive tasks to others.  “I like the control.  Besides, it’s not comfortable to tell a vendor the client will not be using their services anymore.”