Coaching

As our name suggests, this is a big part of what we do, but it needs a little explanation. Our main job is to help you and your staff become better at running your business yourselves – not to do the work for you. So you will find that we are light on writing voluminous reports, and very hands-on instead.

That will involve a whole range of things like calling on our past experience, helping you to look for creative solutions, helping you determine where you want to go, what your reasonable expectations ought to be, and whether you have the capabilities and discipline to get there, helping you organise and evaluate your staff, and continually pushing you to see through your commitments.

By doing things that way, the important knowledge to move forward is locked in your firm, rather in our brains.

Candour

Clients generally say this is our most valuable attribute. We aren’t in the business of justifying the fee through flattery and telling you just what you want to hear. For example, we will typically address your personal styles, levels of discipline, and willingness to follow through on things.

These are usually more important than simply having the right direction. Naturally, whether or not you choose to accept our advice will be up to you.

Confidentiality

You have a right to expect the same level of confidentiality from us as your clients would expect from you. So we give that commitment – both during, and after the relationship. We don’t publish client lists. Our relationship and the work we do together are between us. Our client testimonials are all de-identified.

Non-conflict

When you invite us into your business, and expose us to your people and your systems, you place us in a special position of trust - so when we talk to your staff, you need to be confident that we don’t have other barrows to push.

For that reason, we have chosen not to be in the recruitment business, nor have any commercial ties to that business. You can expose your people to us in that knowledge. Recruitment agencies have a clear and valuable place in the market. For us, direct associations with that work would produce an unhelpful complication.

Non-delegation

You are paying for Peter’s analytical skills and experience so that is what will be applied to your work.

Transparency

We don’t and won’t claim to have expert knowledge about every facet of your business. If during our association, we encounter issues that can be dealt with by others quicker, better or cheaper, we will say so. Similarly, we won’t waste your money on major self-examination exercises unless it is clear that you or a dominant group of partners really have a genuine commitment to make improvements to the way you do things.

Commitment

Once retained by a client, we treat problems and opportunities as if they were our own. We don’t just give wise counsel and walk away. We will work with you and your staff right through the execution stages until we are all happy the projects are actually turning into benefits.

We are pretty much “on call” – provided our clients treat this facility with reasonable respect. Where we establish a retainer relationship, we don’t penny pinch on exact hours. Accounts for extra hours are almost unheard of. Our clients mostly get much more effort than they pay for.

Open contracting

We don’t ask for fixed time agreements. If at any time you think you aren’t getting appropriate value or we just aren’t working well together, you can walk away. All we require is that we are paid up for the whole month in which you make that decision.

Similarly, if we feel that our relationship is or becomes incompatible, we may also choose to walk away. We would not do so leaving a project incomplete, unless that were your wish.

Flexibility

How we choose to work together is open to negotiation. We can work on one-off projects, and where we do this, our standard charge rate applies. We find that clients seem to gain the most value when we work on a retainer basis. This is for three reasons. Firstly, when a client says they have a particular problem, it is often only a symptom of the true problem. Secondly, by establishing an ongoing relationship, we have the opportunity to live in your firm and see what you are really like. That way, we can get a much better fix on the kind of firm you have and how hard or easy improvements will be. Thirdly, if we have the relative certainty of an ongoing relationship, we are able to negotiate the fee more flexibly.