Total Turnaround Six Weeks To Save Your Consultancy Business

By Richard Conner

If your enterprise is struggling, or worse, failing, know exactly What to do, How, and When to turn it around for good. Learn to quickly resurrect your tired old business and restore positive cash flow no matter the state it's currently in.

 

You're just one step away from saving your studio, consultancy, atelier, practice, web-shop, or agency. You really can transform it into a successful, debt-free, sustainable, profitable, and cash flow positive business without it collapsing and going bankrupt.

 

Discover the proven twelve-part step-by-step Fast Way process to holistic business transformation. Apply it today to jump-start and sustain an effective recovery, restructure, and rebuild of your financial livelihood with reduced risk of losing your mind, or shirt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Transformerpreneur
• Release date: Nov 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386936329

Book preview

Total Turnaround

Total Turnaround

Six Weeks To Save Your Business

Richard Conner

Transformerpreneur

Contents

Your Money Future

Supportive Connection

Introduction

I. Fortification / Facing Restructure

1. Planning

2. Reporting

3. Simplification

II. Acceleration / Before Restructure

4. Team

5. Finance

6. Legal

III. Synchronisation / During Restructure

7. Staff

8. Creditors

9. Clients

IV. Transmutation / After Restructure

10. Marketing

11. New Business

12. International Expansion

Conclusion

Your Money Future

Checklists

Feedback Loop

About The Author

Also By The Author

Copyright

Disclaimer

Contact

Your Money Future

See your money future clearly today. Change it now for a better tomorrow with Flowcasting™ BEGINNER Money Kit.

Find out more > bit.ly/money-kit

Supportive Connection

First Things First

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Here's some links that will help you connect with me, the author, Richard Conner, like-heart-minded Transformerpreneurs, ask for support, and get the most out of Total Turnaround:

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Transformerpreneur Facebook Page

facebook.com/transformerpreneur

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Transformerpreneur Community Facebook Group

bit.ly/transformerpreneur_community

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I spend a lot of time reading and responding to questions, comments, and feedback on Facebook so do take a moment to like our page and join our community.

Introduction

Your Old Business

Times are tough, there is no question of it. Credit is tight and everyone seems to be cutting back, which has a direct impact on your business. Because of this, your time and energy are more valuable now than ever before, so I really appreciate you taking some of that precious time to let me introduce you to what I believe are some key lessons in business survival.

Think back a moment. When you started your business, the last things on your mind were failure or the necessity of taking drastic action just to survive. You may have been advised to consider what may happen—and what you may have to do as a result—in the event things don’t go as planned, but if you are like most business owners out there, what you really spend your time thinking about is making it work no matter what.

That, of course, is the perfectly responsible mindset of a success-driven business owner. Still, events can overtake you, things that are completely out of your control and you could never have foreseen. These are often the unintended consequences of decisions made by people you have never met, cascading like snow down a mountainside until you are caught up in the avalanche.

The question then becomes, not how these things could have occurred, but what happens when you get swept away by them? What next? What do you do about it?

You get educated!

That is precisely what you’ve set out to do, and I congratulate you on your decision. Without knowledge, there is no way you can face the rigours of saving your business. What you have before you is a detailed, six-week business turnaround course. It’s six weeks because that’s how long it took us to turn our own business around without the information and material I’m about to share with you.

The course takes you step by step through the challenges you are currently facing and brings you to a position of strength, not only to survive any market downturn but also to dispel your competition. The advice offered here can leave you with a clear path to the top of your industry, but taking action is up to you.

It covers not only high level strategic thinking, but more importantly gives detailed accounts and step-by-step processes that you can apply to your business today.

My Business Survival Total Turnaround Compact is structured around the same business development principles as the complete fully supported online course and community.

Those principles are expressed as GO FASTER, an acronym for Globalisation, Observation, Fortification, Acceleration, Synchronisation, Elevation, and Rejuvenation.

This course specifically covers the FAST principles.

The FAST Way

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Let's run through a brief outline of the contents here so you get a feel for the range of topics and business areas covered. Keep in mind that this course covers the four FAST principles, each of which includes three topics that are split into eight sections. That’s a total of 96 highly relevant real life business lessons that will be available along with fast access action sheet summaries

Here is how it all breaks down:

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Fortification

Planning

Reporting

Simplification

Acceleration

Team

Finance

Legal

Synchronisation

Staff

Creditors

Clients

Transmutation

Marketing

New Business

International Expansion

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The full version of Total Turnaround includes a great deal of supplementary material, but what you have here is the core guidance necessary to implement a business survival.

Everything is immediately useful, so don't be shy about testing and putting what you learn into practice.

The path you take with your business, whether to ultimate success or failure, is up to you. These tools can help you reach a successful turnaround for your business.

They helped us, so we know they work. Learning from our experience will save you a great deal of wasted time and effort and could just save your company.

So, let's get started.

Part One

Fortification / Facing Restructure

‘Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify and inspirit and compose the souls of men.’

Walter Lippmann, American Journalist

Chapter One

Planning

Planning is vital in any business endeavour. It all begins with your business plan, the road map you created when you first developed your business, but it doesn’t end there. While you may have a large goal for your business, or for yourself, reaching these requires reaching a series of smaller goals or milestones that take planning. It is important to review where you want to go and take the time to figure out how to get there. Reminding yourself and your team where you want to go, and communicating that objective to everyone involved regularly is critical. This can help you get through the difficult periods when your own morale and that of your team can be at an all time low.

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01 / Aspirations, Expectations, and Goals

02 / Your Investment and Your Exit

03 / The Freedom Calculator

04 / Target Buyers and Investors

05 / Target Sale Value, Turnover, and Profit

06 / Target Turnover and Profit

07 / Valuation with the Discounted Cash Flow Method

08 / The Business Plan

01 / Aspirations, Expectations, and Goals

The first thing to get clear is what you want to achieve—your aspirations—and what you can reasonably expect from your business. If your expectations are below your aspirations, all things being equal, you’ll only achieve to the level of your expectations.

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Your Goals: Setting, Reaching, and Reviewing Them

Start with your wish list and then eliminate everything that is not realistic. Prioritise the list and figure out which items you need or are willing to take action on immediately.

For each goal, you must answer all of the following questions:

Who? Who will help you to achieve this goal? You need to know who you can count on and what roadblocks may exist to stop you.

What? Split this in two; What are the benefits of achieving this goal?; What will stand in my way of achieving this goal?

Where? Where you will get the information you need to achieve the goal?

When? When is this goal going to be completed? Be realistic and note it down next to the goal.

How? How will you do it? What is your plan of action?

Why? Why are you are striving for this?

Of course, just because you have your goals well in hand, that does not mean that everything will run smoothly.

Have you ever noticed a drop in motivation even though everything is going well? Take a good look at your business because you may actually be ‘In the Goal’ without realising it.

In other words, you have achieved what you originally set out to do, so now what do you do?

To deal with this problem, I adopted a method called goal cycling. I keep refreshing a list of goals and sub-goals for myself and my team, and I encourage the members of my team to do the same exercises and practice. In this way, there is always something to be achieved at every level of the organisation.

However, it is just as important for these goals to be worthwhile. This is where it is important to review your goals regularly.

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Goal Review

You have to look at your goals to make sure that they are both compelling and realistic. Sometimes the biggest hurdle is setting a goal large enough to keep you and your business interested and motivated. Other times, the biggest problem you will have will be selling your new plan to your team.

This is where leadership comes in.

If you don’t motivate your people, getting them invested in what you want to accomplish and trusting that you know what you are doing, they’ll simply smile, nod their heads, and silently conclude that you’ve gone a bit mad. That, however, does not need to happen if you prepare ahead of time.

Within the right market, there are ways to achieve what you want no matter how ambitious – you just have to ask the right questions. The answers to those questions will give rise to new questions and changes of direction. Asking questions and finding precedents will build the trust and enthusiasm you need to allow you and your team to achieve the goals leading to your main business objective.

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02 / Your Investment and Your Exit

As you move forward with your restructure, you have to come to terms with changes in the way you and others view the business, as well as how everyone sees their roles within it and what they can expect to get out of it.

Your View of the Business and Necessity of Change

Depending on the length of time you’ve been in business, you and your partners will have changed and could well have a very different perspective on your business as it stands right now.

This is especially relevant given the economic difficulties we all currently face. If your mindset has remained the same, that's great.

However, keep in mind that times of difficulty and upheaval create the perfect conditions for change and that a change of mind is instant. It’s the consideration of that change that takes the time and struggling businesses give you plenty of time and reason to reconsider what you want from your career and life!

Depending on your business structure, always be mindful of your business partners and their own individual aspirations.

Discuss these things openly and you will find that within these conversations you may discover the key to unlocking potential you previously were unaware of or couldn’t access.

Peoples' personality types, coupled with the need to lead and control their destiny (especially in times of trouble), are very powerful factors and if considered with an open mind they can lead you in a direction that will not only save your business but ensure that it can have the best chance to succeed, regardless of how it may be structured in the future.

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Preparing for Your Exit

We were in our mid thirties and felt that to be financially free by the time we reached forty was a great goal to strive for. This was our Exit Point, and how we got there was our Exit Strategy.

Every investor will want to know their exit strategy and yours, whether or not you will look to remain working in the business. You may not have to have a definitive answer about yourself, but the investor will definitely need to know when he can expect to get his money out, whether the venture is a success or not.

03 / The Freedom Calculator

For most people, economic freedom and freedom in general are almost one and the same. It is merely a matter of what you want to do with your money and time.

That said, let's examine what you would need in order to be comfortably free and able to live the life you and your family want without having to work for a living unless you really want to.

Consider the following example, which ignores tax issues in order to convey the principle involved as clearly as possible.

If the sale of our business in five-years time could bring myself and my two partners $5 million each, we’d be more than happy, but how do we get there? Here is how:

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The Freedom Calculator

Living Expenses ($15K per month) 180,000

Dream Realisation (one-off dream) 20,000

Re-Investment Fund (business generation) 50,000

Total 250,000

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Capital Critical Mass (total divided by 5%) 5,000,000

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Your monthly living expenses can be whatever you need for the lifestyle you want and for the protection of you and your family.

Five percent may seem high especially in a down market where the Annual Equivalent Rate (AER) on most savings accounts are considerably less than 5%. I’m making the assumption that either a self-managed or advised investment portfolio can in theory achieve 5%. If you have an understanding of the stock market and various short, medium, and long term investment vehicles, you will understand why this is actually a conservative estimate.

You now have a quick way of identifying what you want from your business and how it translates to business targets or exit points. The next step is to locate buyers and investors.

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04 / Target Buyers and Investors

Finding financing, or buyers, can be a tricky business. Moreover, it will require a great deal of patience and determination because, depending on the economy and how investors are reacting to the latest government programs, you may have a difficult time.

Still, it is possible to find a viable investors and even buyers for your company if you go about it in the right way. Aside from floating your company on the stock exchange, which is a long shot anyway, here are some things you can do:

Identifying the Gaps. Get to know your competitors and the businesses that you may align with later down the road. Doing this will help you focus your offer and refine your business plan so you are as attractive as possible to the other company or group.

Joint Venture Partnerships. You may have had them as a client or perhaps you were the customer. Regardless, where two companies can compliment each other and add value to what each is offering, there is a good opportunity for a Joint Venture (JV) partnership.

Your Larger Competitors. You may find that potential suitors are also clients who can subcontract for you to provide services. Choose these targets wisely and always be light-hearted since if you damage your relationship with these companies, you may find work reducing or drying up.

Your Clients. Review your existing client base and identify any likely targets. The key here is to continually show them your best side, just as you would with any client. Show that you have something they want, your service level, products, technologies, systems, network, client base, whatever it is that sets you apart.

Modelling on Your Target Buyers. Finding your target buyer is also a way to pick the best of the best business models, systems and structures to model. How do they manage and motivate their staff? How do they win work, collaborate, manage their finances? Find out as much as you can and model your business on theirs, making improvements where you can. That way your target buyers will see that not only are you are an easy fit, but that you also have something valuable to offer.

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05 / Target Sale Value, Turnover, and Profit

Estimate what you’d like to sell the company for to achieve what you want as an individual shareholder.

Depending on which sector your business is in, the current market conditions, and how inconvenient you are making life for your larger competitors, your business can be valued as a multiple of profit or turnover, or a combination of both.

Research this area to help solidify your aspirations and expectations and to give you better understanding of the key issues that potential investors consider. This will allow you to tailor your business plan, investment presentation and negotiations to achieve the best possible outcome.

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06 / Target Turnover and Profit

Now, assume the expected share price at your exit point is eight times earnings. Working backwards from these figures, we can calculate target turnover and profit.

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Target Turnover and Profit

Target Company Value 25,000,000

Industry Earnings Multiple (estimate) 8

Profit (a modest 12.5%) 3,125,000

Target Profit (a realistic 15.0%) 3,125,000

Target Turnover (rounded) 21,000,000

Current Turnover 3,000,000

% Increase Over 5 Years 700%

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These high level figures provide us with an overall structure to the plan, including an all important timescale. Any potential investor should want to know what return they may make for their investment over a given period of time and what the risks involved are, generally wanting to see at least 6 – 12 months of stable or increasing profit before investing.

Investors aren’t averse to risks but they do want to know what they are so they can help you mitigate them.

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07 / Valuation with Discounted Cash Flow Method

This method of valuation is best suited to businesses that have made heavy investments and will have regular cash flow and be profitable going forward.

However, without any track-record of reasonably strong results, use of the Discounted Cash Flow Method may not be taken too seriously by investors. Finally, remember that it’s always worth seeking independent professional advice to be sure you’re not undervaluing or overvaluing your business.

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Discounted Cash Flow Method Company Valuation

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(A) Target Turnover 21,000,000

(B) Profit (a realistic 15%) 3,150,000

(C) Investment Requirement (scheduled)