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GrowthPath Business XRay: A business health check for opportunity-based growth

 

It combines

  • a traditional business health-check of profit, cashflow and key short term concerns

and

  •  an analysis of decision making speed, culture and the quality of insights available to the management team.

It delivers

  • short term recommendations to remove issues distracting the management team
  • a roadmap for becoming an rapid-response opportunity-based business

Benefits

  • A short, well-defined engagement
  • Going beyond desk-based financial weakness to find operational root caues of cashflow weakness
  • Increased confidence of key lenders and/or investors
  • Increased staff morale and upskilling

A roadmap to

  • becoming a faster, more responsive business
  • bringing focus and clarity for the management team
  • providing simplified business information which is quicker, more widely understood and leads to more profitable activities

Scope

  • Profitability and cashflow trends
  • Short term threats to viability
  • Business focus on the market and external developments (such as customer and technology trends, and macroeconomic developments).
  • A summary of industry-sector market research (often IBISWorld)
  • Speed and simplicity of business reporting
  • Use of business drivers and leading indicators in planning and decision making
  • The culture of decision making and financial information sharing among key employees
  • The use and effectiveness of business plans and objectives

The XRay scopes financial performance and the readiness of the business for profitable growth, which includes the decision-making process and the information used to make decisions.

Typical Fees and Time

The Business XRay usually takes two to four weeks. During that time, there will be around four interviews of key staff, and analysis of financials, business plans, SWOT and market research.

The Business XRay is often GrowthPath's initial engagement. It will be a fixed-fee engagement. Typically it's around $2000 to $3000.

No 'lock-in'

We have a 'no-lock-in' philosophy: the Business XRay will produce a highly professional report and implementation suggestion which you can use with some other implementation partner should you wish.

Each Business XRay has short term and medium term recommendations, prioritised. In most cases, it's possible for clients to implement the actions themselves, or to contract other resources to help.

Why is it so cheap?

Yes, we get asked that. It's a subsidised price because Tim Richardson, GrowthPath's founder, is committed to not charging clients simply to learn about their business. As an initial engagement, there is some pure learning, and we reduce the fee to allow for that.

We can still charge a reasonable amount because this is a much higher added-value initial engagement than the traditional management consultant health-check.

Google Places: a big part of the Small Business Online Toolkit

Adding growth through online business is harder than it seems for existing small businesses. Most approaches assume you can start from scratch, but life's not that simple for businesses with a local focus and a base of existing customers.

 Read More About GrowthPath's Online Action Team

The Small Business Online Toolkit: Google Places

In the online slideshow below, you can read more about Google Places, one part of the essential small business online toolkit. The slides explain how small businesses can use Google Places wisely, how to DIY set up a good Places listing, and the low-cost services GrowthPath provides.

 

Start a new business and get set for success

 

The GrowthPath Business Start package:

ladyInHardwareShop web

  • A GrowthPath Business Plan/Business Model
  • Alignment of personal cashflow needs with the business outcome
  • A checklist for key items: company registration, GST registration, logo and slogan intellectual property
  • A checklist for saving money by using cloud options for your IT needs, and getting some basic search engine optimisation
  • Optional mentoring
  • Optional bookkeeping & GST services from a team rich in new business experience

Minimise the risk of cashflow death

Knowing your market, your product plus lots of hard work should be enough for a business to thrive. But a lack of basic financial literary kills many new businesses. If we had to pick two problems for new businesses, they are:

  1. Poor understanding of cashflow forecasting
  2. Poor prioritisation of the tasks that need focus

How GrowthPath helps new businesses

Tim Richardson teaches financials and some aspects of business law for Holmesglen's Business Enterprise Unit, which provides a number of outstanding Certificate IV programs for people starting their own business (such as the NEIS program, and private programs tailored to tradies, skilled graduates, and entrepreneurs ready to start a business or take over an existing business). These courses take around twelve weeks and for private students run after hours and on weekends. It's an outstanding program with lecturers who are experts in marketing, selling, branding, law and accounting.

Not everyone has time to take a Certificate IV in Small Business Management. We can't replicate the full content and benefits of this program, but we can distill important elements relating to Financials.

The GrowthPath team also includes strong bookkeepers. For a small business, a strong bookkeeper can be more beneficial than a good accountant.

Are you buying into a franchise? We can help you evaluate the financial outlook and value of the business you are buying into. Under the law covering franchise agreements, potential franchisees are provided with a lot of financial information. Some franchisers provide more information than others. We can help you take advantage of this data to make informed decisions (such as understanding how much of your own time you need to contribute to the business). We may also help you understand when you need more information.

More GrowthPath services for small businesses

smallBus1Online business

smallBus2Coaching in cashflow management and decision making

CFO adviceCustomer and product profitability

smallBus4Outsourcing services overseas

smallBus5Save money and increase collaboration with cloud computing

smallBus6Finance system upgrades (replacing MYOB)

For more information, please see Services for Small Businesses

Pro-bono and discounted support

At GrowthPath, we love emerging businesses. It's not a lucrative area for consultants, but we find it personally rewarding.

GrowthPath offers pro-bono and discounted support for new businesses where we feel our advice meets our desire to support community development. This may be to support a non-profit organisation, or someone starting a business from what we feel is a disadvantaged position.

Why use GrowthPath?
Our Approach

 

  1. Our fee is fixed-price and linked to the value generated. The value generated is several times the fee. We offer compelling value due to our skills and experience.
  2. We don't give clients spreadsheets to complete and questionnaires to fill in. We are hands-on and help do the work to get the results.
    Since we don't charge per hour, this is about getting a good result, not about billing.
  3. We don't like jargon. Tim has a linguistics degree and is trained in Clear Writing (Plain English). He really hates jargon. Tim and Alan have worked for years in non-English speaking countries, and we've learnt how to communicate clearly and quickly.
  4. As CFOs trained for years in the European approach, we focus on the levers which drive a business: those few important things to improve and manage which really can bring a result. This doesn't necessarily make change easier, but it means we focus effort where it brings benefits.
  5. We have real business experience. We know that the numbers follow what happens in the real world. We know that businesses make money and grow through the way they satisfy customers and work with suppliers and employees. We know how to persuade banks and investors to commit funds. Sometimes our advice means restructuring. We don't do this lightly. We know what it's like to fire people, and we've been on the painful end of restructuring as well.
  6. We've worked in a very wide range of industries (and in a wide range of countries). We're fast to learn but every business is different. We appreciate learning about new businesses and the knowledge we gain helps us grow our business.
    But we don't charge you to learn about your business.
  7. We are strong communicators and teachers. We love to improve the team at clients. Tim has been teaching for his whole career: he was even a tutor for the Mathematics Dept at Melbourne Uni. He has a TAE (2011) and teaches Small Business Management at the Holmesglen Business Entreprise Unit.

 

GrowthPath Business Plan Inquiry

To ask us to contact you about growing or starting your business, please complete this form.

 

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