Services.

In truth the service is focussed on one thing – working with Founders to make their business significantly more valuable. What that requires varies enormously depending on circumstances.

Generally, I have worked with fundamentally good businesses (and capable Founders) that have encountered some sort of challenge. For some it has been overcoming the legacy of incompetent CEOs. In other cases it has been helping companies get beyond a plateau, or modernising a service offer that has run its course.

Whatever the circumstances, the service almost inevitably involves working with Founders (and their teams, if necessary) to:

• Create a compelling Commercial Strategy;
• Improve fees and reduce costs to grow profitability to >20%;
• Manage staff cost ratio to within the range 60%-55%;
• Improve the offer, improve staff capabilities, change the culture in order to grow productivity to >£150K / FTE;
• Improve budgeting and financial reporting;
• Create marketing and new business routines based around Insight, Challenger and Experiential methods;
• Create business management processes that run like clockwork;
• Creating Quarterly Sprints / OKRs to accomplish significant changes to the business (such as adding new services or opening up in new geographies);
• Overcome the numerous challenges that all Founders face (and I speak from personal as well as professional experience): disenchantment; not finding time to work on the business; having key staff threaten to leave unless paid significantly more (when the firm’s financial do not justify it); dealing with “difficult” clients; and much more of the same.

For those firms thinking of selling, to help you choose the right broker to market your firm — but first, we’ll work with you to make sure your business is in the best possible shape to achieve the strongest possible valuation.

And for those for whom starting a firm is still a gleam in their eye, or  who have just started, the – free – service is about discussing your plans, testing them and suggesting possible ways forward (because if you get off on the right foot, running the business becomes a great deal easier than discovering you have taken a wrong turning, some years into the journey).