Exceptional Business Counsel, and/or Direct Hands-On Management Assistance, When You Need It

Instantly supercharge your team to ensure consistently optimal strategies, decisions, execution, and results.

SERVICES

Most businesses, especially those that are smaller or earlier stage, don’t have all of their management fundamentals in order, strategically and operationally, and they often make non-optimal decisions due to lack of experience. If they solved these things – and it’s easy to do – they’d be rolling, growing much faster than their competitors and hitting the high end of their possible profit range. Instead, they take too long to identify and fix their weak spots, making everything far more difficult for themselves.

With decades of broad general management experience and strong results in a wide variety of industries and economic models, including management of marketing, selling, production and operations, quality control, customer service, research and development, recruiting, profit and cashflow optimization, legal issues, and dealmaking and negotiation, I help ensure that experience deficiencies don’t hinder your business.

Here are the four ways in which I deliver assistance to my clients:

Advisory / Guidance

Overview

The benefits of having quick, on-call, access to someone with extensive general management experience and a track record of strong results are immeasurable – this is why many companies, including those that are privately held, have a board of advisors or directors. For starters, you don’t know what you don’t know. Even on “what you know”, the benefits of a sounding board, of another seasoned perspective(s), are invaluable in optimizing decisions and avoiding costly mistakes.

Whenever you need business advice or guidance on matters small or large, I provide not only experience but superior strategic and tactical skills, to help ensure that your decisions are never wrong-footed. I help you plan your chess moves several steps ahead, and see around corners.

Process

With any prospective new client, I provide a free initial chat – to give me an understanding of your business, to enable me to give some immediate feedback on your key issues, to help you evaluate me, and to mutually decide if there’s a good fit for working together.

After that, if we decide to proceed further, the process is quite straightforward and easy. You’ll contact me when you have a particular issue/challenge/need that you seek guidance or assistance on. It might be very narrow and specific (e.g. solving a quality problem, determining how to evaluate top candidates for a key position, establishing key metrics reporting, devising a commission or bonus plan, etc) or more broad (e.g. strategic planning, product planning and development, staff motivation, etc). I’ll then outline and convey to you my recommended solution approach/plan(s). (Also, after that, you can decide whether you’d like to get my assistance in solution implementation as well.) I require no retainers or minimums, you can end the process at any time with no further obligation.

Key Considerations

Businesses are only as strong as their weakest link. Many companies possess several strong attributes but don’t thrive because of one or two key incompetencies. Smaller businesses, especially those between start-up and $25M in sales, typically have more weak links. Usually, these are either in their offense (marketing and sales) or in financial management, not in the “product” or operations (because businesses often begin with a strong product foundation), but not always. Most of the time, weak links can be identified and solved quickly, allowing the business to take off. But first, the owners/managers must be aware of them and know what to do and what the right performance and quality standards are.
There are certain fundamentals of strong, effective management that should be applied at any given level (executive, departmental, project, etc). These methods or “systems” are not bureaucratic; to the contrary, they speed up the business, create more autonomy, work enjoyment and satisfaction at all levels, and enable staff to spend more time improving the business and thinking creatively. When a business has this, it can move towards “excellence”.
Managing an enterprise (or a sub-unit/division thereof) really well is, most of the time, predictable and easy to do. Effectiveness and success are delivered via the proper orchestration of strategy, creativity, standards, systems, visibility, accountability, structure, and most importantly staff selection, management and culture.

Management Services

Overview

Depending on the company and its operating situation, I may be available to provide short- or long-term, part-time, executive management services, either broad scope (CEO/president/GM) or functional/departmental. This can be invaluable in the event of a sudden departure or absence, or when transitioning and looking to establish new standards and upgrading enterprise or operating unit performance. For example, as of this writing, I’ve served as president of one of my client companies (150 staff; education sector) for over nine years now, growing its revenue by 130%, its profit by 10x, and its market value by 6x.

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Performance Assessment

Overview

It can be extremely helpful to obtain a quick, independent, expert evaluation of your company’s overall performance, or of subset departments or key operational processes thereof, along with of course specific recommended actions to improve/optimize them. It’s easy and common to become too close to such issues when you’re in the detail every day, and fail to see the forest for the trees.

I know how an enterprise and its various functions should be performing, and what to do when they’re not. I have found that, more often than not, just a few actions make all the difference, accelerating the business and its profit growth. And this can be especially impactful when you start to think about selling the business and maximizing valuation/sell price – you may be able to increase it significantly, in short order.

Process

Typically, the sequence here – depending on the scope and level of the evaluation – entails discussions (“interviews”) with directly relevant managers and staff, review of available key performance indicators (“KPI’s”) / metrics, evaluation of procedure and process information, and the like. After review with my principal client contact, my recommendations are then discussed with those same staff, and after any adjustments are made, they are finalized in writing as specific action items, with expected scheduling and any related, significant expense implications. Then, if desired, I can directly assist the relevant manager(s) in launching the action items with their team.

Key Considerations

Over and over again, I’ve seen that every business is only as strong as its weakest link. Even a business with several “A” or “B” grades in its major components – product, packaging, distribution, pricing, quality, fulfillment, marketing and branding, selling, staffing, and financial – often “flounders in place”, or even declines, if one or two of those elements is grading at a “D” or “F” rating. All of them must be achieving at least a C, i.e. competence, or else the other strong points won’t be enough.
Jack Welch (former General Electric CEO) said that candor is the hardest thing to obtain from staff, and that its value is immeasurable. The fact is, your employees usually know most of what needs to be done to make their operation stellar, and they want to do just that. It is upper management’s responsibility to maximize their candor and their ability to act… and this results from creating a comfortable, collaborative, enjoyable, and largely egoless working culture / environment. When I first became president of a company, I literally couldn’t get the department heads to speak up or give their opinions – that had been “beaten” out of them by an intimidating and unpredictable previous boss. Three meetings later, they were talking like magpies and excited about voicing their ideas, making changes, and pushing for excellence. Needless to say, I provide instant, experienced, and independent candor to my clients in assessing their business’s weaknesses and impediments to growth and profit.
Smart work beats hard work every time. Obviously, it’s best to have both. But I’ve seen a lot of hard workers beat their heads against the wall for years, rather than adapting and taking a better, faster path. There sometimes seems to be a perverse pride in working harder than necessary. Business owners and managers need to be regularly challenged and questioned by experienced, savvy advisors that may see things differently. It sharpens everyone’s game.

Coaching / Mentoring

Overview

Managers at all levels, from supervisor to C-level executive, can greatly benefit from 1-on-1 counsel and coaching, especially when it comes to structuring the way they manage, their style, staff motivation, breaking bad habits, business politics, and remaining strategic while constantly being pulled down into day-to-day operational details. I offer coaching and mentoring services that address these challenges, on either a recurring session basis or ad hoc, i.e. as desired. Utilizing a managerial “personal trainer” accelerates the development of advanced supervisory and organizational skills, thereby maximizing effectiveness, business performance, and the realization of career objectives.

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Process

Coaching often starts with the question “what do you want to work on?”, but after getting to know your strengths and weaknesses, and more about your business and how you manage it, I’ll know where you need to improve or adjust. This may entail strategic, tactical, business philosophy, or management style issues. When I make recommendations, I’ll explain my reasoning thoroughly.

Key Considerations

The most powerful and successful managers are those that are not just smart, but those that also exhibit humility and show great respect to all of their employees, while still driving everyone to goals and objectives.
Never humiliate an employee, especially in front of others, no matter how severe their failure was. Even if justified, other staff will rapidly lose their respect for you, and it’ll take a long time to build that back.
Humor and self-deprecation are massively important and effective, and they don’t weaken your authority. They increase employees’ desire to perform well for you, while also conveying confidence and self-assuredness.
Managers that feel they have to exhibit aggressiveness, dominance, and even intimidation to exercise and increase their power or to get results, are dead wrong. The vast majority of the time, the completely opposite approach is far more effective, especially in the long run. Constantly aggressive managers don’t last long, rapidly lose respect of subordinates, peers, and superiors, and quickly falter regardless of how smart they are otherwise.
Optimizing creative and strategic thinking while also executing well on the tactical side is a very important right-brain vs left-brain challenge for senior level managers, and many are not naturally good at both. But this can be overcome if you take the right approach.
What you might call the “fundamentals of tactical effectiveness” are key, and it’s very important to revisit these periodically. In no particular order, these include such items as: Effective meeting management that always translates to decisions, action items, and tight implementation; KPI (key performance indicators) reporting and review (“visibility creates accountability”); effective project and task execution management (what, who, when); SOP (standard operating procedures) management, including continuous improvement thereof and training/cross-training protocols; periodic strategic and competitive reviews.

Let's talk.

Available as needed; no retainer or minimums.

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LOS ANGELES
+1 310 403-9808
cg@chasgiffen.com