If you’re looking for a Small Business Turnaround Consultant, we can help, first by asking the right questions.
Here are the Small Business Turnaround Consultant “5 Profit Levers”
- Capital – Money. It often takes money to make money, as the saying goes.
- People. Your staff, and what team is required to make the business healthy?
- Marketing. If people aren’t buying what you sell, it may be to how you’re perceived in the marketplace, or your marketing falling flat
- Operations & Systems. Your cost of fulfilling the service or product is too high, or too slow, or lacking in some area, so your profit margins are too low, and you don’t have enough referrals
- Core Products. This could be due to technical innovation – for example, 8 Tracks and cassette tapes aren’t too popular any more. In some cases, the product is simply priced too low and marketed incorrectly.
Our specialty here at Fremont Funding is of course Capital.
If your business is “sick” and needs to be nursed back to health, often people come to us for a business loan and/or other business financing, and of course we’re happy to help with that, and we’re great at it.
Beyond that though is worth investigating – how did the business get to this point? Is the product / service aligned to the market? Is the margin wide enough? Is the product market-competitive? Is the audience connected?
Accounting is Truth in Business
One of the most interesting parts of working in business banking is we get to – and have to – see everything. We see the bank statements, the loans, the income, the payroll – all of it.
This is required to get a business loan. We need to understand the businesses ability to repay. In some cases, we can restructure any existing financing, or uncover assets you didn’t even know you have – invoices to large reputable companies, or daily cash flow from a restaurant, or financing existing equipment to get you short-term cash.
If you’re confident your business is “temporarily sick” and you’re looking for a Small Business Turnaround Consultant, we can help.
Most small businesses in need of a turnaround consultant start by applying for funding, and as part of that process we’ll get a sense for the business health as it stands.
Speed to Cash is not to be underestimated.
Depending on the severity of your small business turnaround consultant needs, we may setup fast but more expensive funding such as a merchant cash advance, then use those funds to pay off other debt, including personal credit cards, then use the score-bump that comes with that to get a line increase, then immediately get to work on obtaining better-rate long term financing such as an SBA loan, which may be slower, more difficult to get, but at better terms for long term health.
Fast cash is often more expensive, but often worthwhile when put together with a larger strategy.
If you have at least 120-180 days of runway, this may not apply to you.
If you don’t know your runway, then you definitely need a small business turnaround consultant, and the first thing we should do is setup some sound accounting practices. At any given moment you should know your burn rate and runway.
How the 5 Profit Gears
At risk of using too many metaphors, here are the “5 Profit Gears”
- Get More Leads – Marketing
- Close a Higher % of those Leads
- Earn More Per Client – Core Products (what you sell + Sales closing ability)
- Reduce Expenses – Operations and Systems
- Sell More Frequently – Speed to Cash – what you sell / core products
Applied to a restaurant or bar, the basic idea is the same:
- Get more foot traffic. More “at bats”. More people seeing your social media, your events, and thinking about coming in.
- Turn more engagements into cash: people who see your social media and actually make it in the door to spend money.
- Earn more per eater / diner / guest. Increase your average ticket.
- Reduce expenses – cost of food, spoilage, shrinkage, real estate costs (food truck?), pay off or restructure debt
- Increase guest frequency – Taco Tuesdays, or business networking events hosting – find ways to get core fans in more often.
This is of course just an example, but it applies to any business. At the end of the day, for most businesses, these are the core levers to fix the business and get things back on track.
The Next Step
The next step is small business turnaround is to start a conversation with us. Simply reach out, and schedule a call. We can jump on the phone or a video call and dive into the profit levers affecting your business, and which ones you should best focus on to start.
By employing the right team you can work on multiple levers, and in most cases, get your business back on track to serving clients while providing for you and your team.
Ready to start a Conversation?
Quick disclaimers:
- All businesses we help must have a current revenue of at least $5k/mo; if you have less than that we may be able to help using consumer financing or other alternative sources.
- Not all products are available to all industries; SBA will not fund “vice” companies for example.
