Sometimes its not about the formal reports or the strategising that you need help with, you just want someone to listen to your ideas, or sound out an issue and suggest a way forward, someone independent from the company, who can offer you 2 hours of their time to listen. As long as there is a cup of strong coffee on offer, we are happy to be there for you, on the end of a phone or online or in a café. Taking time out to get away from the office to think things through is always important. 

We worked with a caterer and tableware company over the course of 2 years. Working on her own meant she didn’t have anyone who she could talk issues through with. Regularly she spent her days delivering the day to day running of the business and didn’t have time to breath. We talked about the business at length, there were two elements to it, the successful business side and the side that was her passion, was it cost effective to run both, how could she make either one grow, could she franchise an element or even sell one part. Most of the time she talked and we offered guidance, used case studies and provided an argument to help the decision. She knew really what she needed to do, but she needed someone to talk the options through with and make sure she was taking the right path.

We were asked to write a business plan for an Arts organisation in London, however as we delved into the organisation, as a group of directors they had some difficult decisions to make. The organisation relied on project funding to deliver activity, the changes they wanted to make needed them to become commercially sustainable, but commerciality went against their ethos of supporting artist and communities to engage with the arts. We spent a number of face to face meetings working through their vision which would honour their ethos but achieve financial sustainability, there were times we had to ask hard questions, we had to give them obstacles to think about and many times we played devil’s advocate, the end result was a new business model which kept true to their origin.