Strategic Issues was formed to help SMB executives identify and exploit significant opportunities for additional revenue and profit.  Most SMB enterprises have significant untapped additional potential, but the skills for unearthing those potential opportunities are significantly different than those needed to run an enterprise on a day-to-day basis.

We use either of two approaches to identify new opportunities, which are discussed under the Profit Strategies and Portfolio Method buttons at left.  Note that these approaches are believed to be proprietary to Strategic Issues and are not known to be used by any other consulting firms.  And there is a third approach always available, which is YOUR approach, if you already know the issues you are concerned with, but there is an important caveat.

What the opportunities that I identify tend to have in common is that they are either non-obvious, sometimes unique, or complex.  In other cases, the organization lacks the resources or expertise needed to implement opportunities they are already aware of.  In any event, we generally don't deal with easy or obvious issues.

On the subject of strategic planning, most consultants, myself included, agree on the following points:

● SMB performance improves significantly when they have a strategic plan.

● Very, very few SMB actually have a strategic plan.

And although I am considered knowledgeable in strategic/business planning, and sometimes develop up to 60-70 page financials, I rarely recommend developing such a plan in the early stages of a consulting relationship (see Hunting Analogy). The reason for this is that Strategic Issues is first and foremost concerned with finding and exploiting specifically targeted strategic opportunities.  We will do only the minimum amount of planning necessary to achieve very specific objectives - which almost always includes increasing cash flow.  But everything in life, and business, isn't about cash flow - see Lifestyle Issues.

There is another issue of note, even though unrelated to financial or even lifestyle issues. Almost every SMB CEO is mired in day-to-day management issues but this process provides the opportunity to step back and look at the business, seeing fresh opportunities.  The goal is to raise the stakes and the rewards, and the result of this process sometimes not only reenergizes the CEO but reinvigorates the entire organization.  There are several reasons for this, among which is decompartmentalization.

Also, note that most consultants typically require weeks or man-months to complete a project.  But due both to the type of projects I work on and the way I work, I can often complete a project, or at least a major phase, in hours.  This greatly decreases the uncertainty and risk in projects I work on.  Finally, be aware of what I refer to as Dumb vs. Lazy.