Turnaround and Growth
Objectives -> Strategy -> Structure -> Outcomes
Business owners want greater profits, higher business value, more freedom, better control, and faster growth. The challenge is that there are many possible paths to satisfy those objectives. Franchising, licensing, acquisitions, company-owned expansion, financing, succession planning, and organizational restructuring can all be the right answer; or the wrong one.
Turngrow begins with your objectives, not with a predetermined solution or outcome. Before deciding on a path, we determine whether your business has the capabilities, resources, and timing to achieve your objective. If not, we identify what needs to change before moving forward.
Together, we determine the strategy and build the structure most likely to achieve your objectives. Every recommendation is tested financially. We model alternative scenarios, test assumptions, and compare likely outcomes before recommending a course of action. The resulting outcome follows quite naturally from the right strategy and structure.
This differs from the standard approach, where businesses are too often fitted to predetermined solutions rather than solutions being designed around their objectives.
When appropriate, the resulting strategy and structure can also be developed into a fundraising document.
When appropriate, we continue supporting implementation to help turn the strategy into measurable results.
Whether you’re exploring franchising, looking for growth capital, preparing for succession, trying to increase business value, or simply looking to regain control of your business, the process begins the same way: with your objectives.
Why Are You Here?
Most engagements begin with one or more of the following questions:
What Should I Do Next?
Considering growth, expansion, funding, franchising, succession, sale, or other opportunities.
How Do I Get Ready?
You’ve already decided where you want to go and need to prepare the business. (Most of our franchising clients share this perspective.)
How Do I Increase Value?
Preparing for investors, partners, succession, transfer, or sale.
How We Evaluate, Structure, And Implement Opportunities
In practical terms, here is how we evaluate the ingredients, tools, and skills required to achieve the desired outcome, structure it, and continue to support its implementation.
Ingredients
We begin by assessing the business itself. Is it profitable, or can it become profitable within a reasonable period of time? Does it have the leadership, management, systems, processes, training, culture, capital, cash flow, people, technology, licenses, regulatory compliance, supplier relationships, brand positioning, and market demand required to support future growth?
Tools
We then evaluate the tools available to accelerate or support that growth. These may include financial modeling, coaching, accountability, training programs, documentation, technology platforms, operating systems, reporting systems, franchising, licensing, joint ventures, distribution channels, financing alternatives, and other methods appropriate to the circumstances.
Skills
Finally, we consider the skills required for success. Leadership, management, selling, hiring, training, delegation, financial management, decision making, communication, and execution all influence the ability of a business to achieve its goals. Some of these skills may already exist within the organization. Others may need to be developed, strengthened, or acquired.
Strategy and Structure
The result is not simply a plan for growth. It is a strategy and structure designed around the realities of the business, the resources available, the goals of the owner, and the opportunities most likely to create long term value.
Only after evaluating these factors do we develop strategy and structure.
Strategy determines where the business is going and how it intends to get there. Structure determines how the business will be organized to support that strategy.
The strategy and structure may call for additional locations, franchising, licensing, partnerships, financing, succession planning, ownership transition, management development, operational improvements, or a combination of these and other approaches. Before committing to a particular direction, we use an iterative financial modeling process to test assumptions, evaluate alternatives, and identify the most practical path forward.
In some situations, developing the strategy and structure is the end of the engagement. The client uses the resulting blueprint to guide implementation internally or with other advisors. In other situations, additional support may be required to coordinate and manage the transformation.
Implementation Support
For selected clients, we provide ongoing implementation support in a role similar to a Virtual Chief Operating Officer, Growth Officer, or Transformation Officer. This may include helping prioritize initiatives, coordinating internal and external resources, monitoring progress, reviewing financial and operating results, developing management capabilities, improving accountability, and helping leadership navigate important decisions as they arise.
These services are particularly valuable when a business is undergoing significant change, such as restructuring operations, preparing for growth, opening additional locations, developing a franchise or licensing program, preparing for succession, seeking funding, integrating new partners, or repositioning the business for future opportunities.
The objective is not to replace management, but to strengthen it. By combining strategic oversight with practical implementation support, we help ensure that important initiatives move from concept to execution while remaining aligned with the long term goals of the business and its owners.
Common Outcomes
Different objectives often lead to different outcomes. (The following examples are provided in no particular order and are not meant to be exhaustive.)
Dealer or Agent Network
Partnerships or Joint Ventures
Company Locations
Franchise or License
Restructuring
Capital Infusion
International Expansion
Mergers and Acquisitions
Business Sale or Transfer
Alternative Business Formats
Systemized Operations
Governance Structure
Succession Plan
Market Repositioning
Self-Sustaining Enterprise
The process used to determine them is remarkably similar. The right outcome is rarely the result of jumping to a solution. It is the result of defining the right objectives, developing the right strategy, and building the right structure.
Ways to Work With Us
Different situations require different levels of support.
Learn It Yourself.
Book, articles, assessments, models, tools, and other resources.
Work With Us.
Courses, coaching, reviews, accountability, and implementation guidance.
Structure Together.
Strategy and structure engagements designed around your specific objectives, resources, opportunities, and constraints.
Extended Implementation Support.
For selected clients, ongoing support in a role similar to a Virtual COO, Growth Officer, or Transformation Officer.
Some clients simply want a framework they can implement themselves. Others want guidance, accountability, or ongoing support. The appropriate level of involvement depends on the objectives, resources, timing, and complexity of the situation. We can help you evaluate which is more beneficial in your situation.
Universal Principles. Practical Applications.
Businesses may differ by industry, size, ownership, geography, and objectives. The principles used to evaluate opportunities, develop strategy, and build structure are remarkably consistent.
Industries
Business Situations
Geographies
Restaurants
Retail
Service Businesses
Professional Practices
Manufacturing
Distribution
Technology
Growth
Expansion
Franchising
Licensing
Funding
Succession
Transfer
Turnaround
North America
Europe
Asia
Middle East
Latin America
Africa
Different situations. Same principles.
Resources
Why Turngrow Exists
After working with businesses across industries and continents to pursue various, often multiple goals at the same time, one observation kept repeating itself…
Business owners tend to focus on opportunities before determining whether the necessary ingredients, tools, skills, resources, and timing are in place to support them.
Over time, a consistent framework emerged for evaluating opportunities, developing strategy, designing structure, and supporting implementation.
Turngrow exists to help business owners make better decisions fast and build organizations capable of supporting long term growth.
Growth is not the objective. Building a business capable of supporting growth is.
Continue the Conversation
If you’re considering an important decision, evaluating future opportunities, or preparing your business for growth, we’d be happy to discuss a possible fit with our firm.