We are working with business owners (owners) to provide one-on-one advice and support on Employee Relations, Health and Wellness, Business Continuity Planning, Marketing, Digital Enablement, Finance and Cashflow Management, etc.  We will be looking to test both the owner’s and their business’s resilience and to provide advice and support on how to increase that resilience.

This support can take place by way of video conferencing, telephone and face to face meetings.  It will also cover the effect of the current longer-term restrictions being placed on New Zealand i.e. border closures, restrictions on gatherings and the impact of a reintroduction of lockdown periods.  We will work with you to come up with methods to both manage and minimise the financial impacts and stresses of running a business.

This support and advice will cover the below areas with an aim to increase both the owner’s and their business’s resilience to the significant effects that Covid-19 has had and will have on the New Zealand economy and its social fabric:

• Digital Enablement Services – Alert Levels 3 & 4 have illustrated the need for a digital presence to survive whether by video conferencing to hold meetings or online sales to provide a level of turnover.  We can help you to update or create a digital market presence including websites and social media to promote and sell your products and services; setup online newsletter mailouts; implement video conferencing to hold remote meetings with clients, suppliers, work mates, etc to reduce travel costs and lost time.
• Human Resources – includes identifying all key staff and to provide cover for them if they cannot work, making plans to allow staff to work from home, how to cover mission critical activities, business restructuring i.e. redundancy plans to allow businesses to survive in a smaller market, etc.
• Health and Wellness – covers the need for business owners to stay in contact with their employees while working from home and during lockdown periods.  It includes the setting up of employee networks to check and stay in communication with each over.  And will include helping the owners to set up or join networks to ensure that they are able to cope with the effects of this crisis on their business.  As a Business Advisor it is also one of our duties to stay in contact with business owners during times of business stress. 
• Business Planning and Business Continuity Planning – short, medium and long-term recovery plans which include how to cope with the immediate issues i.e. additional Covid-19 restrictions; the longer term issues of the significant impact on the economy, people’s health and social conditions; plus the recovery plan once New Zealand comes out the other-side of Covid-19 restrictions.  This will not be a quick recovery and strategies will need to be developed to reinstate critical business activities in the shortest possible time frames.
• Financial Planning – this will include the impact of a downturn in your business from reduced production caused by staff and material shortages plus decreased demand from a slowdown in the economy from lost or reduced market segments.  Additionally, the costs and benefits of changing market strategies, cost cutting, cashflow management, refinancing loans, staff redundancies, etc.
• Cashflow Management will include full cashflow planning including refinancing loans at lower interest rates, mortgage holidays, use of Government subsidies, loans and tax deferments.  The combat of Covid-19 will not mean an instant return to business as usual as our borders will stay either closed or tightly controlled until there is a global all-clear.    
• Potential Government Funding and tax relief – checking what funding is available and when.  This is a moving target in favour of business.
• Financial Review and Analysis – this will show how the business is currently operating (good or bad), allow for the implementation of key drivers to better understand the business and provide the basepoint, if required, for any potential government claim.
• Market Analysis and strategy – identify every sector that you currently operate in and any new sectors that you could operate in.  Analysis the effect of Covid-19 on each sector and then implement a strategy to target the least affected and fastest recovering sectors.  Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.  A competitor analysis is key to keeping your competitive edge and developing a competitive advantage in a smaller marketplace plus building your business’s resilience.

This programme will be tailored to the specific needs of the business owner (no two businesses are the same).  The cost of this programme will be fully funded up to an amount as agreed by your local Growth Advisor.  Our costs are worked out on a time and materials basis ranging from $50 + GST per hour for basic digital enhancement services to a maximum of $200 + GST per hour for Business Continuity Planning.  Call now tel:021 625 871

We provide tailored one-on-one hands on business coaching / training for business owners and senior managers (owners) either at their workplace or other locations as requested.  The business coaching / training is to help business owners to develop and or improve their business process skills to improve business efficiency, reduce duplication and waste including rework, remove complexity and improve the business’s sustainability. 

We will help you to develop expertise in: 

• Business Planning – to help you to among other things plan ahead so as to avoid the daily chaos of what job should we do next. 
• Business Process Improvement – Improve or develop business processes that follow the critical path and so eliminate waste (rework) and improve business efficiency. 
• Financial Management – how to read a Profit & Loss Statement and Balance Sheet. Reporting by business segment to better identify both segment mix changes and underperforming areas of the business. Develop key financial drivers. These will all help you make more informed financial and management decisions. 
• Review Business Systems – identify key business systems requirements within your business and complete a needs analysis to ascertain whether or not the current business systems are meeting your requirements. 
• Business Sustainability – helping you to recognise what needs to be done to improve your business’s sustainability in the marketplace. 
• Governance (working on the business) – helping you to develop better practices to enable you to have dedicated time to work on the business during working hours. 
• Procurement – best practices including supplier reviews. 
• Resource Management Planning – being prepared and knowing when you need to purchase, replace or release resources. 
• Marketing strategy – know your competitive advantage, tailor your marketing to the market conditions and increase your value proposition from a client perspective. 
• Customer Satisfaction – Ensure your customer are happy. Good communications are key. Annual customer surveys to get a better understanding of what your clients think of your business. 
• Human Resource Planning – Are owner / management and employee cultures aligned? Understanding of Team dynamics. Plan resources to meet customer demand. The subcontractor / employee trade-off in times of skill shortages. 

This programme will be tailored to the specific needs and availability of the business owner (no two businesses are the same).  The cost of this programme, which maybe Government co-funded up to 50% for the first three months subject to meeting with and agreement by your local Growth Advisor (for more information use this link “Link”), is worked out on a time and materials basis of $200 + GST per hour plus any other agreed costs. 

Business owners have the choice of either a fixed monthly fee plus other agreed costs which is calculated based on their specific requirements or an hourly rate plus other agreed costs.  All programmes will be subject to 3 monthly reviews.

We provide tailored one-on-one hands-on business coaching / training to business owners and senior managers either at their workplace or other locations as requested.  This business coaching / training is to help business owners and senior managers to become more aware of the importance of market analysis, planning, strategy, and branding and digital enablement to sustain the success of their business.  It will help you to identify threats and opportunities in your marketplace, long-term strategies for the future direction of your business and how to harness the benefits of digital enablement.

Market Analysis, Planning and Strategy – we will work with you to help you to learn how to:

• Identify and review every sector that you currently operate in and any new sectors that you could operate in.
• Complete a self-analysis of how well you operate in each of your current sectors.
• Analyse the effect of any potential crisis such as Covid-19 on each market sector.
• Implement a strategy to target the least affected and fastest recovering sectors from a major crisis.
• Complete a customer analysis and customer profiles.
• Identify if you are meeting customer expectations and ways to exceed those expectations including customer management.
• Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.
• Complete a competitor analysis which is key to keeping your competitive edge.
• Developing your competitive advantage in the marketplace.

• Build your business’s resilience.

Branding and Digital Enablement – this coaching and training will cover how to:

• Identify if your brand is still relevant to your products, services, and customers.
• Design a brand that is up to date and relevant.
• Ensure the market knows your full product / service offering.
• Design and write an up to date website or provide a website developer with the requirements to compete this task.
• Keep your website fresh and up to date including a blog page.
• Write blogs / newsletters that that can be sent to customers via Mailchimp.
• Linking digital messages and articles for Facebook and other forms of social media.

The Coaching and Training will enable you to:

• Establish an ‘agile’ marketing program / plan to align with identified channels to market.
• Develop a target list and strategy for attracting new high value customers.
• Develop a marketing strategy to achieve your goal / mission.  The strategy, while containing stretch, must be achievable.
• Identify the current and planned resources to meet the strategy’s requirements.
• Complete a market analysis including market opportunity, market structure, new services and target market size and outlook.
• Customer surveys to help better understand customer mindsets and behaviours.
• Complete a marketing strategy and budget to meet that strategy.
• Set realistic and measurable targets including key ratios and benchmarking if applicable.
• Develop Marketing Action Plans to achieve the targets.

This programme will be tailored to the specific needs and availability of the business owner and senior managers (no two businesses are the same) but will involve a minimum of two meetings per month of approximately two to five hours.  The programme costs are worked out on a time and materials basis plus any other agreed time and costs.  Our rates range from $50 + GST per hour for basic digital enhancement coaching and training to a maximum of $200 + GST per hour for Market Planning and Strategy sessions.  In terms of actual cost, the programme, based on the individual owner’s requirements, will typically take 3 to 4 months to complete and cost between $1,800 and $3,500 per month plus GST and any other agreed costs. 

We provide tailored one-on-one hands on business coaching / training for business owners and senior managers (owners) either at their workplace or other locations as requested.  The business coaching / training is to help business owners to develop and or improve their business process skills to improve business efficiency, reduce duplication and waste including rework, remove complexity and improve the business’s sustainability. 

We will help you to develop expertise in: 

• Business Process Improvement – Improve or develop business processes that follow the critical path and so eliminate waste (rework) and remove complexity to enable improved business efficiency. 
• Business Systems – identify the key business systems requirements within your business and complete a needs analysis to ensure that they are not only meeting your business requirements but are as efficient as they can be and do not include unneeded complexity. 
• Financial Management – to ensure financial systems and reporting are aligned with the business and will easily identify both revenue mix changes and underperforming areas of the business.  Key financial drivers (KPIs) are implemented to monitor key aspects of the business. These will all help to make more informed financial and management decisions.
• Business Planning – to provide help with not only the future planning but also the smooth day to day running of the business. 
• Business Sustainability – business planning, processes and systems are all going to help you to recognise what needs to be done to improve your business’s sustainability in the marketplace.
• Resource Management Planning – being prepared and knowing when you need to purchase new, replace old or release surplus resources. 

This programme will be tailored to the specific needs and availability of the business owner (no two businesses are the same).  The cost of this programme, which maybe Government co-funded up to 50% for the first three months subject to meeting with and agreement by your local Growth Advisor (for more information use this link “Link”), is worked out on a time and materials basis of $200 + GST per hour plus any other agreed costs. 

Business owners have the choice of either a fixed monthly fee plus other agreed costs which is calculated based on their specific requirements or an hourly rate plus other agreed costs.  All programmes will be subject to 3 monthly reviews.

We provide tailored one-on-one hands on business coaching / training for new business owners who are GST registered and existing business owners either at their workplace or other locations as requested.  The business coaching / training is to help new and existing business owners to investigate their new business idea to establish: 

1) If they want to pursue their idea and

2) Turning their idea into a reality

We will help you to develop expertise in:

• Business Sustainability – helping you to develop and write a Business Plan that outlines what you want to achieve including the potential market size, what share of the market you aim to achieve over the next 5 years, barriers of entry, time frames to establish the new venture, capital investment requirements, competitors both actual and potential, working capital requirements a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis, risk analysis, etc. 
• Business Planning – using the abovementioned five-year Business Plan as a base, developing plans to raise any required funds including bank facilities and investments.  The Business Plan will also form the basis of a project plan to allow for forward planning to avoid the daily chaos of what needs to be achieved or completed next.  The Business Plan should also be updated as actual plans fall into place.
• Business Processes – develop business processes that follow critical path methodology and so eliminate duplication and waste (rework) plus improve business efficiency.
• Financial Management – how to read and setup Profit & Loss Statements and Balance Sheets to help manage your business.  Reporting by business segment to identify both segment mix changes and underperforming areas of the business. Developing key financial business drivers to help to make more informed financial and management decisions.
• Business Systems – identify key business systems requirements within your business and complete a full needs analysis to ensure that these systems meet both your current and future requirements i.e. the five-year Business Plan’s expectations.
• Capital Raising – the Five-Year Business Plan will include capital requirements and timings of capital spend.  It can be taken to the banks to potentially obtain banking facilities and loans. We can also help you to provide specific information requirements for crowd funding, angel investors, investment companies, and other known investors to help obtain required capital requirements.
• Governance (working on the business) – helping you to develop better management practices to enable you to have dedicated time to work on the business during working hours.
• Procurement – best practices including supplier reviews.
• Resource Management Planning – being prepared and knowing when you need to purchase, replace or release resources.
• Marketing strategy – know your competitive advantage and target market, tailor your marketing to the market conditions and increase your value proposition from a client perspective. 
• Customer Satisfaction – ensure your clients are happy.  Good communications are key. Annual customer surveys (once established) will help to get a better understanding of what your customers think of your business and what you could do better.  One-on-one’s with key clients to promote your business and to ensure that you stay relevant to that client. 
• Human Resource Planning – plan resources to meet client demand, do not over-staff.  Know the timeline to employ and train new staff. Think about the subcontractor / employee trade-off while starting-up the business and in times of skill shortages.  Are owner and employee cultures aligned? Understanding individual team dynamics to maximize team efficiency and productivity.  

This programme will be tailored to the specific needs and availability of the business owner (no two businesses are the same).  The cost of this programme, which maybe Government co-funded up to 50% for the first three months subject to meeting with and agreement by your local Growth Advisor (for more information use this link “Link”), is worked out on a time and materials basis of $200 + GST per hour plus any other agreed costs. 

Business owners have the choice of either a fixed monthly fee plus other agreed costs which is calculated based on their specific requirements or an hourly rate plus other agreed costs.  All programmes will be subject to 3 monthly reviews.

We provide tailored one-on-one hands on business coaching / training for business owners and senior managers (owners) either at their workplace or other locations as requested.  The business coaching / training is to help business owners to identify what they need to do to prepare for the day that the business owner wants to leave and or transition the business from one owner to another.  It identifies the actions required and describes the form that the transition will take. The training helps the business owner, to identify the various strategies and to ensure that firstly there is a business to sell, and secondly that the maximum value possible can be extracted from that sale.

In theory, the Exit Planning process should be a natural extension of your Business Plan, but in reality, for most small and medium sized businesses there is no real or significant business planning taking place, hence the need for an Exit Strategy and Exit Plan.  The Exit Process varies from the usual business planning process in that it specifically identifies key strategies that will make your business more attractive to potential purchasers (grooming) and should also make it a more profitable and more sustainable business.

The coaching / training will cover: 

• The exit issues
• The exit alternatives including family succession, internal sale and external sale
• Transition options
• Business valuation methodologies and value creation
• Potential risks

The goal being to have a business that is both ready for sale and attractive to potential purchasers at a price that you are happy with when it becomes time to exit your business.

Please note not all business owners want to sell their business’s on completion of this process as the steps taken in grooming the business for possible sale can often lead to reduced work hours and a reinvigoration to carry on for a bit longer.

This programme will be tailored to the specific needs and availability of the business owner (no two businesses are the same).  The cost of this programme, which maybe Government co-funded up to 50% for the first three months subject to meeting with and agreement by your local Growth Advisor (for more information use this link “Link”), is worked out on a time and materials basis of $200 + GST per hour plus any other agreed costs. 

Business owners have the choice of either a fixed monthly fee plus other agreed costs which is calculated based their specific requirements or an hourly rate plus other agreed costs.  All programmes will be subject to 3 monthly reviews. A typical Exit Programme may take 6 to 24 months plus depending on the size and complexity of the business plus the owners’ individual requirements.  

We provide tailored one-on-one hands-on business coaching / training to business owners and senior managers (owners) either at their workplace or other locations as requested.  The business coaching / training is to help business owners to understand what strategy really is, the three key elements of good strategy, how strategy helps to identify “your point of difference” and give your business a competitive edge.  We will also help you to identify the key items to achieving the strategy and the development of an Action Plan to implement that strategy.

Business Strategy is often confused with a business’s “Vision”, “Mission Statement”, “Core Values Statement,” and “Business Plans.”  While business strategies can be used to support the aforementioned, particularly Business Plans, where strategies can be developed to support the Business Plan’s goals, they are most closely linked with Action Plans.  

We do this by helping you to identify the one or two issues critical to achieving your business’s required goal(s), these are the pivot points that can multiply the effectiveness of effort.  You can then focus and concentrate your action and resources on these pivotal points, as they will become your point of difference and give the biggest bang for your dollar.

A good strategy follows a logical structure and always contains the following three elements which will be covered during your coaching sessions:

• A Diagnosis – the key issue(s).
• A Guiding Policy – specifies the approach to dealing with the obstacles identified in the diagnosis.
• Coherent Action – feasible co-ordinated policies, resource commitments, and actions designed to carry out the guiding policy.

We will cover the two vital components of a good strategy which are:

1. Having a coherent strategy – one that co-ordinates policies and actions.  A good strategy doesn’t just draw on existing strength, it creates strength through the coherence of its design.
2. The creation of new strengths through subtle shifts in viewpoint.  The most powerful strategies arise from game-changing insights.

As you will learn, a good strategy has two natural advantages:

1. Other organisations often don’t have a strategy and do not expect you to have one either.  

Good strategy is as much about what an organisation does not do as it is about what it does.

1. A good strategy comes from insight into new sources of strength and weakness.  Looking at things from a different or fresh perspective which can reveal new realms of advantage and opportunity as well as weakness and vulnerability.  Preconceived ideas of strength and weakness may be unsound. Not every good strategy draws on this kind of insight, but those that do generate the extra kick that separates ordinary from the extraordinary.

An insight when acted on can provide a much more effective way to compete – the discovery of hidden power in the situation (point of difference).

One organisation’s success is often at the expense of another organisation’s failure to implement effective strategy to compete in the marketplace.

This programme will be tailored to the specific needs and availability of the business owner (no two businesses are the same).  The cost of this programme, which maybe Government co-funded up to 50% for the first three months subject to meeting with and agreement by your local Growth Advisor (for more information use this link “Link”), is worked out on a time and materials basis of $200 + GST per hour plus any other agreed costs. 

Business owners have the choice of either a fixed monthly fee plus other agreed costs which is calculated based their specific requirements or an hourly rate plus other agreed costs.  All programmes will be subject to 3 monthly reviews. 

We provide tailored one-on-one hands-on business coaching / training to business owners and senior managers (owners) either at their workplace or other locations as requested.  The business coaching / training is to help business owners to become more aware of the importance of planning to sustain the success of their business. It will help them to identify threats and opportunities in their marketplace, and long-term strategies for the future direction of their business.

 

• Business Planning helps owners plan for the short-term, to avoid the daily chaos of not knowing what job they should be doing next.  It also helps with planning for the medium and long-term, so that owners know, for example when they are going to run out of capacity and hence have made the investment decisions to avoid these capacity issues.  This coaching / training covers short, medium and long-term planning. It includes both being able to make a plan “on the fly” (create an immediate work-around) for any urgent issue that may impact on the current business operations plus planning for known or possible future events that may also  impact on their business such as capacity or staffing.
• Business Plans (which for many companies may sit on a shelf gathering dust) should be a major tool in every business’s arsenal.  Our coaching / training will help owners to write multipurpose Business Plans that can help them to better understand their key business drivers, identify their competitive advantage, provide robust forecasts which can be used to help raise capital for the purchase of new or replacement plant and other assets, and develop employee incentive schemes based on the business’s profit improvement.

 

This coaching / training will cover:

 

• A self-analysis of what the business currently does and how well it does it.
• Identifying your competitive edge / advantage.
• The Owners goal / mission for the business.
• The business strategy to achieve the owner’s goal / mission.  The strategy, while containing stretch, must be achievable.
• Current and planned resources to meet the strategy’s requirements.
• Market analysis including market opportunity, market structure, new services and target market size and outlook.  A customer survey will also help with understanding customer mindsets and behaviours.
• Competitor analysis.
• SWOT analysis covering both internal and external influences.
• Marketing strategy and budget to meet that strategy.
• Setting realistic and measurable targets including key ratios and benchmarking if applicable.
• Developing Action Plans to achieve the targets.
• Financial Plan (budget / forecast) covering three+ years derived from the above analysis and strategies.
• Business continuity planning. 

 

This programme will be tailored to the specific needs and availability of the business owner (no two businesses are the same).  The cost of this programme, which maybe Government co-funded up to 50% for the first three months subject to meeting with and agreement by your local Growth Advisor (for more information use this link “Link”), is worked out on a time and materials basis of $200 + GST per hour plus any other agreed costs. 

 

Business owners have the choice of either a fixed monthly fee plus other agreed costs which is calculated based their specific requirements or an hourly rate plus other agreed costs.  All programmes will be subject to 3 monthly reviews.