OWNERS AND EXECUTIVES OF MID-SIZED PRIVATELY HELD COMPANIES:

The question every privately held company asks:

“What changes must we make to reach our financial goals?”

We help these companies develop quality financial information, the systems and structures to avoid surprises and cost overruns, and secure a high performing workforce. That means our clients improve cash flow, profits, revenue growth, and ultimately build firm value. You can too.

Thousands of privately held companies compete to be the best of class. It is a challenging and risky climb to get to the top, so enlightened firms rely on help from experts, much as climbers rely on Sherpas.

At The Business Trek, we are your Profit Sherpas. We are highly skilled and experienced finance and operations professionals who know the culture, the landscape, and the people in the manufacturing, distribution, services and construction industries.

Dear Business Leader,

Your company provides great products and services for your customers and you may not be earning as much profit as you’d like compared to the amount of time and effort your team expends.

Instead, you have employee turn-over, profit fade, cost overruns, and weak asset management.  You also may have an “us vs. them” mentality between the back office and the operations staff, and a lack of responsibility and accountability. All of which leads to disappointing results, stress, and burn-out.

Profitable businesses thrive on predictability and this is no different for a successful privately held firm. From knowing what resources are available to staff projects or providing customers with realistic estimates of delivery and pricing, success will depend upon having the right information, insight, and infrastructure at hand.  

When you run a privately held business that is more predictable you have a distinct competitive advantage.

Most privately held firms today are struggling to attract, retain and develop their workforce. Surveys identify this issue as the top constraint on growth today. The solution is twofold: attract and hire A-players and create the environment that fosters employee excellence.

The best people want to work for the best, most successful firms in the industry. When your employees receive the proper training, and have strong standards and processes to follow, they are happier, more productive and deliver more reliable results.

Your workforce needs to clearly know what is expected and the goals they need to meet must be constantly reinforced. We work with you to identify standards and processes that raise the performance of project teams and support staff. Our clients achieve financial success, which enables them to fund meaningful and motivating compensation programs.

We guide firms to be top firms by evaluating what is working well in four areas: financials, customers, operations, and people. Financials are always a priority as they provide score-keeping on ultimately how well the firm is doing on in all areas.

What some of our clients say about us:

“Paul created 12-month P&L forecasts, introduced stringent cash management practices, added improved business terms in our customer contracts, established better credit policies, and provided new product pricing based on fundamentals.”

Founder & CEO, $30M West Coast Contract Manufacturer 

 “Paul Johnson is a key consultant to our executive team. We rely on his experience on a regular basis for strategic planning, business modeling and forecasting, compensation plans, and reporting that we understand and use to better manage our business.”

 President of third generation family-owned business, $25M West Coast Distribution Corporation

“Paul Johnson brought great clarity and insight to our financial situation. He provided a prioritized list of issues for us to address to keep key employees and cleaned up our processes so we work more effectively and efficiently.”

CEO, Chairman of the Board, $50M Northern California Services Corporation

 “Paul brought a no-nonsense perspective to our firm’s executive team. His leadership transformed a disjointed group of project accountants and operations personnel into a collaborative and highly functioning team.”

Founder & CEO, $28M San Francisco Bay Area Architecture & Engineering firm

To avoid financial blunders, companies should follow a systematic approach to creating and capturing value.

Is this you? … your firm is experiencing some combination of the following items, which will lead to financial trouble unless you act fast:

• Unexpected tightening of cash flow

• Decline in profitability

• Disproportional increase in overhead

• Increase in employee turnover

• Increase in claims activity

• Delayed accounting information

• Changes in accounting reporting

• Unexpected borrowing

• Decrease in the quality of work

• Accounting staff turnover

If you are tired of these troubles, our experts can help guide you to solutions.

To increase margins and sales at the same time—without trading off one for the other—isn’t easy. And few companies have all the pieces required.

Stop and envision what’s possible when you grow your business in two ways: First, by enabling your workforce to deliver on customer commitments and second, by completing projects within budgeted hours and costs. Picture a future Friday evening as you leave work. You reflect on what happened that week:

• Your company is on track to hit your annual sales and profit objectives.

• Because your customers realize that there’s more to value than low prices, they treat your company as a key contributor to their success.

• Your employees are contributing at a high level because they know they are appreciated and understand how their performance leads to firm success and their incentive compensation.

• Your sales team, equipped with a compelling value proposition, goes after the right prospects and lands a high percentage of them.

• There’s enough money coming in to reinvest in technology, people, and other assets.

• Your board discussions can focus more on the future than on current issues.

• So, you start your weekend with confidence and peace of mind.

Outcomes from the Business Trek System

Here are the results you can expect if you work with us:

1. Less stress because you have confidence in a financial model for your firm built on today’s reality that meets your strategic goals for tomorrow

2. Better results based on understanding of the 9 drivers of profitability and how to prioritize them

3. Motivated and engaged employees who understand their key metrics and know their opportunities and areas for improvement

4. Improved employee performance based on training in practice improvements that have the most “bang for the buck”

5. High customer satisfaction because they are confident in the quality of your work and the reliability of your schedules and commitments
   

Why I Developed the Business Trek Approach

My colleagues and I see companies struggle with the strong desire to improve both their work life balance and their financials while not knowing how to make the necessary changes.

No matter how much experience they have, they struggle to change “the way they have always done it,” so their results do not change.

To get these companies unstuck, we start with a clear picture of where they are now and where they want to be on three dimensions: financials, resources, and purpose.

Next we assess their strengths and where development (training) is needed in each of these areas.

We provide knowledge of the skills needed and how to build purposeful practices of the right behaviors into the culture.

We believe the only way to achieve outstanding results is through diligent and focused practice.

How We Work With You

Our work to build financial insight and solid operational practices makes it easy for your employees to deliver better results to customers and a build bigger financial pie for the firm to share.

Here is our five-step process designed to produce the best outcomes:

Our guarantee: we offer a 30-day money back guarantee if you are unhappy with our service.

1.  Develop a clear picture of your current financial position
If don’t know where you are, how can you expect to get to where you want to go?

• Cash, working capital, and borrowing capacity

• Backlog and sales/estimating pipeline

• Fixed costs you carry no matter how much work you do

• Employees and compensation packages

• Project and Client profitability

• Comparison of your results to industry benchmarks

2.  Expand the picture to clearly see your performance trends

• Your company’s performance over time provides insights to how you got here and where you are headed

• These trends provide a basis for decision-making today

We’ll incorporate what we learn to develop and maintain a budget for the next 12-months

3.  Analyze how to build your financial strengths and minimize constraints

• Beyond the numbers, we look at customers and employees for strengths and constraints

• Does your business model work in light of the company mission and objectives?

• What are your competitive advantages and strategies to attract and retain clients?

• We create a standard reporting package and hold regular review meeting monthly

4.  Create a prioritized list of issues and opportunities to address to build success

• Identify key business practices and processes that should be retooled, including pricing

• Working with your accounting and operation teams to develop best practices

• Organize the resources to plan, implement and track process improvements

• Training and equipping your team with the tools to be successful

• Implementation coaching

5.  Develop compensation and feedback programs that reward performance and high customer satisfaction

• Identifying key metrics to measure performance for distinct job functions and roles

• Developing metric tracking and reporting portals for constant visibility to performance

• Developing or modifying compensation programs to pay for performance

• Communicating and reinforcing the expectations, tactics, and strategies to achieve goals

• Tweaking the programs based on experience and results

Get to know your profit sherpas

You visited this page because you think these services might be good for you. Most of our business comes from people who know Paul or Anne or who were referred to us by a trusted advisor. So who are the people who developed this service and will actually work with you?

Are you ready to learn if The Business Trek strategic and operational finance programs are right for you?

We start new clients with a free one-hour consultation which may lead to developing an initial assessment.

Please complete the brief form below. We will schedule a brief virtual or face to face meeting to determine whether The Business Trek can provide you the right support to move towards your goals. I look forward to learning more about your firm’s objectives and challenges (and your favorite ice cream).

Best regards,
Paul Johnson
CEO and Founder, The Business Trek