Company covets clients Fast-growing firm to offer finder’s fee

CARIBOU – A local company that programs and sells tax computer software nationwide has devised a novel way to solicit business while attempting to help regenerate the city’s downtown area.

ATX Forms Inc., which has been listed twice on Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing companies, will offer a finder’s fee to anyone who will help it find customers.

“We want to give people an opportunity, a chance to be involved [with the company’s development],” Bill Grady, the firm’s vice president, said Tuesday night during an open house.

ATX held the event at its Sweden Street facility in Caribou to announce the company’s plans to hire 200 people if the business is there. At the same time, ATX officials cited the activity that could be created by more than 300 people working at the Sweden Street operation.

The firm has renovated the former J.J. Newberry Co. building, which closed several years ago. The first floor of the building has individual offices for its computer programmers and a recreation room that features Ping-Pong and pool tables.

Across the street, the company has its technical support division, which users of the software can call if they have problems or questions.

The company has about 100 employees and has received resumes from about 200 more.

Citing the “emotional” attachment to the Sweden Street area, once the hub of activity in Caribou, Grady and ATX founder Glynn Willett said they have been discussing ways to keep people working and creating activity on Sweden Street. Most of the company’s business is done during the first quarter of the year when taxes are being filed.

In a tag-team-like presentation, Willett and Grady described their plan to offer technical support for other companies. For example, customers of another company could contact ATX for help in using the other company’s product.

What ATX needs from the community is help finding companies needing the technical support expertise that ATX says it can offer. Company officials said Tuesday that they are willing to pay 1 percent of the sales revenue such a customer could generate as a finder’s fee.

One example showed that one lead could result in payment of a $10,000 finder’s fee.

Schools also could be part of the search and networking process and benefit financially, according to the company officials.

“Anyone who has a lead to a company interested in talking [to us],” said Grady, regarding those eligible to participate.

Willett, who started the company in 1992 in Washburn, said that the plan could benefit the city and the people who want to live and work in Aroostook County.

“We’ll have jobs for everyone, and we can fund the schools,” Willett said.

The company executive said that he hadn’t heard of other companies asking the community to become involved in sales pitches, similar to ATX’s plan.

The new employees would work on the second floor of the new ATX offices, which has yet to be renovated. There are no deadlines to begin the work, Willett said. Instead, the company will wait to see if it gets the business, and then “scramble” to accommodate the new employees.

The company officials said Tuesday, however, that they hoped they could have about 200 people on board within six to eight months.

ATX Forms has used unusual means before to attract employees. When it needed qualified programmers last summer, the company ran low-cost newspaper advertisements encouraging local people to call family members who had moved from the area to tell them about work opportunities at ATX.

The effort netted a few new employees, according to company officials. Such jobs have a starting salary of $48,000, including a $5,000 sign-up bonus, the company’s Web site said.