Thought Starter

THOUGHT STARTER – HELP TO GROW

YOU MAY THINK

That the entrepreneurial ingenuity and effort that enabled you to launch your business will continue to enable you to grow your business ……

BUT REALLY

Successful businesses grow faster and become more complicated to run than the founders and initial team appreciate. You discover that you don’t rise to the level of your goals, you stall at the level of your skills and systems. 60,70, 80 hour work weeks become common and sap your drive as you keep selling, try to fix things, solve old and new problems fast enough, and do damage control. Different things are called for at different points. As such, the things that used to work fall short, problems don’t stay solved, complexities drive costs, new surprises emerge, people get overwhelmed – and what got you here – working hard “in” the business – won’t get you there ….

IF, INSTEAD, YOU

Stopped trying to do it mostly all yourself, shifted time and attention to working “on” the business, learned how/ when to use two solution streams – hard and soft - consulting on tools, data, predictive analytics, scalable systems and processes, and coaching on people issues like relationships, productive collaborations, a people-first leadership approach ….

YOU WOULD MORE LIKELY

Grow more gracefully toward your goals, build cash flow, profits and equity value more predictably, have a life and build the company and business you’ve always imagined.

THOUGHT STARTER – SUSTAINABILITY – COST OR WORTHY INVESTMENT?

YOU MAY THINK

Spending money on sustainability, climate change, ESG initiatives, etc is nice if you can afford it, but not where savvy business people spend money…..

BUT REALLY

If you really had the metrics, the real data on costs and benefits, and an astute business case discipline, you would find that understanding would open your thinking about risks, and the value of responsible business decisions looking at all the costs and benefits …..

IF INSTEAD, YOU

Used intelligent experiments, focused data gathering on realities – and a practical and proven approach – like ROSI, return on sustainable investment ……

YOU WOULD LIKELY DISCOVER

That the business case for many initiatives and investments (not all, but many) is much more attractive than you’ve assumed – and that, net, net, the portfolio of outcomes

  • Attracts and retains great employees, (track revenue/payroll)
  • Engages customers and suppliers who want to build you into their futures, (track recurring revenue)
  • Attracts investors looking to optimize value and risk, (track cost & cycle time per $ of capital acquisition)
  • Attracts communities to you who are investing in future fitness (track cost of compliance)

NET, NET

You’d conclude it’s very good for business - and you’d have the data to prove it.

What if the key things that would build and grow your company today would also optimize its value when you come to transition (whenever that might be)? So you could "build-to-sell" without leaving, without giving up doing what you love doing, or having the specter of an end date?

It's useful and informative to look through a buyer's lens to discover and plan value improvement opportunities. For example, which of these two companies below would be more attractive, valuable, fun to run?

Awesome Sauce, Inc.

  • Fully operational and experienced management team with distributed decision making
  • Diverse customer base
  • Documented, state-of-the-art systems and processes with cross-trained employees
  • Employess who are so well trained they could work anywhere, but so well treated they don't
  • Daily dashboards. Monthly financial statements issued by third business day. Clean annual audit.

Bitter Berries, Inc.

  • All decisions made by or approved by owner
  • 60% of revenue comes from single customer
  • Systems are antiquated. Process knowledge in heads of owner and employees. No documentation
  • No legal protection over intellectual property
  • Financial reporting backlogged three months, with poor quality and accuracy