Small Business Growth Catalyst Services
As a small business owner, you know how to do a lot. You’ve bootstrapped your way to get this far, and you’re an expert in your field. You’ve built a company you want to be involved in. Congrats! That’s a big accomplishment.
By now, though, you’ve figured out that being in business and running your business are two different things. It’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of business and let the future development of your business go while you fight today’s fires. And you also probably know that without some changes, those fires will show up tomorrow.
Does this sound like you?
- Your schedule is insane, and no matter how productive you are, it seems to all keep piling up so you can’t catch up.
- You’re booked – so booked, you’re having to turn away business or postpone higher-value projects.
- Projects are getting bottlenecked with you – even though you could probably delegate some of it to other teammates.
- You’re still working the day-to-day operations, even if you have a team.
- You know you need to do more marketing activities to grow your business, especially online, but you don’t have the time or don’t know where to start.
If one or more of these is making you nod your head, don’t worry. You are not alone. You are a bootstrapped business owner – and that’s completely normal.
Ask yourself a few questions:
- Is your business operating at its best?
- Does your marketing and branding convey your value and capture interest from prospective buyers?
- Do you know which of your offerings are actually driving the growth of your business and which ones you’re losing money on?
- And, most importantly, is your company growing towards the vision you have for it?
You know it’s time to do something different. Chances are you don’t know where to start, or you do and it’s scary.
We get that.
Helping you shift from bootstrapper to business owner-executive is what we do.
Ever notice how hard it is to find business advice that understands what it’s like to be running your own small company?
Small businesses have a unique set of problems that are often left unaddressed by major business publications. Since 99% of all businesses have 20 employees or less, though, this doesn’t make much sense. Just because you’re not a huge venture doesn’t mean you’re not a viable, valuable business.
Based on our extensive experience working directly with these same businesses, we have been able to identify a common set of stages all small businesses go through. We call it the Business Lifecycle. If you’re looking into getting some serious help for your small business, we’re willing to bet you’re hitting or in the midst of Stage 3.
Sound good so far? Now let’s talk about what’s holding you back right now from taking your business from bootstrapped to profitable, productive, and well-positioned for the future.
It takes these four things to get your company out of the bootstrapping phase:
- You have to get the right – and right amount of – people in your company
- You have to figure out the processes that drive your company’s growth
- You have to get the systems in place that allow your people to work your processes
- You have to get your positioning nailed so that the marketplace knows what you offer and the value of it
That’s a lot to worry and stress over. While it’s possible to work on all this yourself, it’s really challenging – because what worked for you in the earlier stages of your company normally won’t work for you in later stages.
Once your company reaches this stage, indecision and inaction cost money and growth. You’ve got employees, overheads, vendors to pay, advertising to secure – it can be overwhelming, but sticking your head in the sand only makes it worse.
Get real here: there’s probably a big disconnect between where your time goes every day as an executive-owner and where you know it should be going.
That’s why you need us
We’re a small business development company helping other small businesses with strategic planning and marketing.
We partner with you and help you determine which changes to make, when to make them, and how to make them. When we show up, the business is running the show. When we leave, the owner-executive is back in the driver’s seat.
We’ve been called a boutique agency, a mini-firm, and a consulting company – but we’d like you to consider us your executive team for hire.
We love small companies and understand what it’s like to be in them – we’re small ourselves and only grow in size as we need to. More than that, we see that the future of business is in the small, converged companies like the ones we’re involved with. You don’t have to excuse your size with us.
But you’re not buying affinities – you’re buying aptitude.
Charlie Gilkey – your chief advisor – an in-demand trainer, speaker, coach, and consultant whose work is routinely cited, showcased, and shared in places like Inc.com, BNET, MSNBC, Project Domino, Under30CEO, Upmarket, Small Business MO, and Carol Roth’s Unsolicited Business Advice Blog, among many others. His forthcoming book, Beyond Bootstrapping, helps entrepreneurs and small business owners become better executives and build better businesses from the business they’ve already built. (That book’s for you!)
Charlie understands small company growth dynamics like few other people do. His focus is on strategy, planning, execution, and leadership development, and he’s worked with hundreds of clients and participants. He has a keen understanding of what makes individuals, organizations, and the marketplace tick and shares sharing those insights in accessible, actionable ways.
In addition to Charlie’s expertise, the rest of your executive team is outstanding and highly qualified as well. With the flexibility of a small company and the comprehensive concierge service you’d expect from much larger agency, having a small team of experts to work with like this offers you a more a complete package than you’re likely to find anywhere else on the market.
After we get a good assessment of where your business is and what your future needs are, we can actually provide most of the services you need. That’s right: no more having to work with 8 different companies to get the critical functions you need taken care of.
The initial part of our engagement always focuses on clearing the deck of the decisions and actions you know you need to take. Rather than picking at random, we’ll focus on the ones that are going to have the greatest value for your company. The more quick wins we can get, the faster you’re able to pivot and seize the opportunities right in front of you.
So let’s talk deliverables. What can we do for you?
Here are the services we offer:
- Strategy, marketing, management, and operations consultation
- Executive coaching for small business owner-executives
- Business plan development
- Branding consultation and development
- Marketing implementations – we specialize in email, social media, online, content, and relationship marketing because they’re cost- effective and high yield.
- Technology consulting to ensure that you’re taking advantage of the cost-savings of current technologies
- Website and online presence consultation and development
- Developing and implementing marketing campaigns
- Social media and technology training
Basically, we don’t do bookkeeping, accounting, legal advising, or networking/server setup. We do know great people who do, though – and we’re happy to get them set up for you.
Are We A Good Fit?
If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you become a better owner-executive and build the company of your dreams, fill out the form below.
We’ll schedule a no-cost discovery session so we can determine whether we’re a good fit for each other. If we’re not, we won’t waste any more of your time, and we’re happy to recommend other resources who are a better fit.
P.S. If you’re interested in working with us on a smaller scale, take a look at our Projects.
