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Small Business Consulting Services
In
our careers as business executives and business coaches
to small and mid-size company owners and entrepreneurs
starting new companies, we have seen many common management
problems and found solutions for them. Some of these
common management problems are:
Proper
delegation
The
typical company starts with an entrepreneur who often
does not have management training. As the company grows,
the entrepreneur makes all the important decision. The
company ceases to grow and/ or becomes unprofitable
when the entrepreneur is no longer able to make all
the decisions. Delegation is required to move the company
forward. But how?
Effective
employee management practices
Good people tend to gravitate to well managed companies.
There are enough to go around, but you need procedures
in place to screen, indoctrinate, evaluate, retain,
and support the good employees.
Getting good
accounting information
Very often, the business owner sends information to
the accountant and gets back a financial report two
or three months later. And, even at that, the report
is usually in a format geared to compute taxes (the
accountant's job) but not managing the company (the
owner's job). Reports that are 95% accurate at month
end are more valuable than 100% accurate reports one
more or month late.
Effective
planning
Most business owners are too busy taking care of today's
problems to plan the future. It becomes a self-fulfilling
cycle. Lack of planning generates current problems.
As a wise business coach once said, "plan your
work, work you plan"; it is a formula for success.
Controlling
operations
Even the best written plan is worthless if it is not
followed up. A series of weekly, monthly, and quarterly
reviews with budgets and variance reports are needed
to take corrective action and keep operations on track.
Effective
organization structure
Without a well defined organization structure, position
descriptions, and performance measures, employees drift
in and out of responsibilities. Company problems become
everyone's responsibility that, in reality, is no one's
accountability.
Profitable
bidding
When pricing, typically direct costs - labor and materials
- are marked by some number to cover costs and generate
a profit. The mark up "number" is rarely based
on the company's current actual cost structure plus
a targeted profit margin.
Ensuring
quality
Most of our clients sincerely try to provide quality
products and service to their customers. But most have
neither formal quality standards nor procedures to ensure
quality conformance. So quality, despite good intentions,
is a hit or miss affair.
Breaking
out product/service profitability
Because of poor cost accounting systems, many company
owners with two or more separate product lines or services
do not know the profitability of each product or service.
As a consequence, the company does not know where to
focus its time and resources to maximize profits.
Bonuses
vs. incentives
Most of our clients are “good guys” and like
to do something for their employees around Christmas
or whenever. Sometimes individual payments reflect seniority
or overall performance evaluation, but, to the employees,
bonuses are perceived as something that is given to
them like an employment benefit. In contrast, incentives
are earned and paid out of excess profits achieved from
attainment of pre-set performance goals and standards.
Effective
job and product costing
Contractors, job shops, manufacturers, and others operate
on a project or job cost basis, but often do not have
a consistent and reliable means to measure cost and
profit on an individual basis and do not have a reliable
basis for job or product cost control.
Internet
marketing
Widespread use of the internet is a tidal wave that
has engulfed small business. Most of our clients need an effective website and internet marketing programs,
but few have an effective "web presence" and
some that do are on the trailing edge.
Reducing
owner workload
Most of our clients are overworked. The first lesson
of business ownership is that you must work hard to
succeed. We find that nearly all of our clients work
hard, but not smart. They do work that should be done
by others in the company simply because the owners do
not know how to effectively delegate authority.
Employee
accountability
This is the key to effective management, but initially
lacking in most of our client companies. Company owners
seek employees who will take responsibility for their
actions and key company operations. But how?
Follow Up
Services
In most cases, our business coach creates a new management
style in the client company. But, major change is hard
to accept and adopt. As a consequence, to help ensure
that new management practices and tools are properly
implemented following completion of the consulting project,
we offer scheduled follow up reviews after 30 days,
90 days, and one year. These scheduled reviews are offered
at a reduction from our standard hourly rate if committed
prior to close of the project. The client may call the
business coach at any time following close of the project
with questions or simply discuss anything of concern.
There is no charge for this service.
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