About you
One voice in the room whose priority is your personal success.
You own or run a business somewhere between twenty and two hundred and fifty million in revenue. You probably built it yourself or expanded a business you inherited, and it works. What is in front of you now is larger than anything the business has asked of you before, one of those decisions, where you know after you take it nothing is going to be quite the same again. It cannot be undone, and there is nobody inside it you can think out loud with.
At that inflection point you likely don’t have a formal board, but if you do, it is usually because you have outside investors and they have an agenda of their own. The circle of people you can speak to freely, frankly and without guarding your mouth, is limited, if there is any at all. Everyone in your tightest circle – leadership, specialist advisors for tax and legal issues, bankers – all have their own vested interests and you may not want to share all of your thoughts especially in their raw form, with them. And none of them carries the consequences the way you do.
That gap is my whole practice. This is not a consultancy and we do not staff projects. It is me in the room, with research and support behind me, helping reveal the issues and potential solutions, that are in the best interest of you, the business and its ecosystem, for as long as the decision takes and no longer.
What I can do for you
Moving on
Strategic and Structural
Something about how the business is put together has stopped working or is no longer fit for purpose. A partner wants out, the board has gone quiet, the divisions were drawn for a company a quarter of this size and/or your market is changing rapidly.
Your lawyers will draft whatever you decide, and they are the right people to do it. The work that comes first is different: what is actually fair, what you can live with, and what the relationships on the other side are worth.
- Taking out a business partner
- Resolving governance issues
- Reorganising divisions and the business model
- Deadlock, before it becomes litigation
- Significant investment and Capex decisions
Moving out
Selling, Retiring and Succession
You will do this once. A buyer does it constantly. I have sat on their side of the table often enough to know what they read for, and how much of the price is settled long before anyone opens a data room.
Handing on to family or management is the same problem wearing different clothes: Finding a structure that preserves your legacy without tying the hands of the next generation; that ensures the financial risk and reward are reasonably distributed and bearable and that delivers you the outcome you deserve.
- Preparing for an exit
- Handing over to the next generation
- MBO, ESOP or conditional sale
- Life after the wire transfer
Moving up
Growth
A new country, an acquisition, a different kind of customer. The money is rarely the hard part. Whether the business can carry it is.
You can’t read the label from inside the jar. This is the point where an outside read on the assumptions is worth more than another forecast.
- Making one or more acquisitions
- Bringing in new investors and growth capital
- Expanding the leadership team
- Stress-testing the numbers before you commit
- Understanding the second and third order consequences. Pretty much everyone can see the first bounce of a ball, it is the second bounce that is uncertain, the successful business operator's aim is to take advantage of that uncertainty; for it is only in situations of uncertainty that significant gains can be made.
“Steven guided me through a process of creativity, discernment and cooperation that built the very skills I needed to bring the vision to fruition.”
Who it’s for?
Owners of private businesses generating roughly $20m to $250m of revenue, where one or two people carry the weight of the decision and there’s nobody inside the business they can think out loud with.
If what you want is a second opinion on a conclusion you’ve already reached, or the question turns out to be purely legal or tax, I’ll say so in the first hour and point you to the right person, if you need one. Saying it early is part of my job.
A Thinking Partner is only really valuable when the hard thinking work still lies ahead. If that is true for you, then we should talk.
