BOULDER - A small company in Boulder is having a large impact on big companies through its series of seminars designed to help employees see their employer's vision.

The target audience is clear: every business in the world. The pitch is less clear.

"What's hard to sell is the fact that we don't have a widget," said Jim Lincoln, executive vice president of Cruxpoint Consulting Inc. The product, according to Cruxpoint, is somewhat amorphous in description, but transforming in effect.

Amy Patrick, director of design and technology, tries to explain it: "We do business-to-business consulting, large-scale transformation. When you're sitting in our seminars you're wowed, and yet you can't talk about it because it's too complex."

The seminars for their breakthrough product are voluminous, if not thorough. The company's most recent client was Safeco Insurance based in Seattle. Cruxpoint conducted seminars two times per month, four days each with 50 to 100 people attending.

Cruxpoint expects a lot of work on the part of the attendees, and a lot is supposed to change in the attendees from all the work it does.

"There's definitely a lot of psychology in the work we do," Lincoln said. But it's not about psychotherapy. "It's more about gaining clarity, what's at the bottom of things."

Lincoln believes that most people sit at their desks and have only a vague idea about what the future holds for them. The Cruxpoint seminars focus on the participant's future and drives them toward it.

"We make it personal," Lincoln said. But, again, it's not about psychotherapy, it's about business. "When everybody is driving for their own reasons but benefiting the company, the company is really successful." Lincoln believes everyone in a company must be on board 100 percent for that company to succeed.

Similarly a negative chain of events can bring a company down; an employee who becomes disgruntled could cost the company time, then employee moral, then customers, then money. Lincoln saw some chains of events at Delta Airlines, one of their customers.

One loader, out of anger at the company, put the bags in the baggage compartment with the handles in instead of out. It took the unloaders much more time to do their job on the other end without the handles to pull the bags out quickly. Lincoln pointed out the damage 10 minutes can do in a time-based service industry.

Cruxpoint was hired to conduct the Delta Breakthrough to Success seminars two weeks before Delta filed bankruptcy.

"People were very angry and upset with Delta. That's one of the things we were brought in to help with," Lincoln said.

Delta was ready to do what it took to become successful again, and bringing in Cruxpoint was part of its plan.

Two years later, Delta is buying Northwest Airlines. And it recently gave each of its employees a $6,000 stock bonus. "You make that company successful, you have a whole lot of successful people behind it," Lincoln said.

Cruxpoint claims similar success with Safeco. The insurance company was not in trouble, but the chief executive saw greater potential than the company was realizing. Safeco's Eric Martinez, executive vice president of fulfillment, claims, customer care and business operations, brought Cruxpoint in to help create a customer focus and empower the employees. Among several results from Cruxpoint was Safeco's speed of delivery on a claim decreased from eight days to four. In the end, Liberty Mutual bought Safeco for a huge amount of money.

"We were one piece of a very big puzzle," Lincoln said.

Cruxpoint was started in 1989 by Gary Koyen and Becca O'Connor under the name of "the Meridian Institute." At that point it was just the two of them, and the company hired outside contractors to do the seminars.

Lincoln, who is Koyen and O'Connor's son, was not involved with the institute.

"Five years ago I ended up in a program our company was running, and when I saw it I said, 'Oh, this is a great company.' I saw a huge opportunity."

Lincoln felt every company he'd ever worked in could use it. He felt it was applicable to every company, every industry. He began working with Koyen and O'Connor and when they talked of retirement he thought, "Boy, it would be a real shame if this got lost."

So Lincoln took over. Koyen and O'Connor continue to be involved, but, as Lincoln puts it, they are transitioning onto the golf course.

In January 2007, the Meridian Institute became Cruxpoint Consulting. "We're just bringing it into the future instead of letting it go away," Patrick said. "It's been morphed."

At this time the company has six people in a core office with approximately 12 trainers. "We have seen some growth," Lincoln said, "but not what I hoped it would be."

He would like to have 10 to 15 core people. But the organization still has gained some recognition for its success. It made the Mercury 100 list at number 59.

"Last year we went from basically zero income to $2 million," Lincoln said. That's with only one or two clients a year.

"If we do two a year that's a lot, two is hard," Lincoln said. "If we got the three or four, we're gonna need a lot more people." That could happen in the coming year. The company had three or four potential clients waiting for the results of the election.

Cruxpoint is designing a program that's easier to sell, called Reality School.