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Why Your Business Needs A Profitability Roadmap Now

Profitability Roadmap
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A financial advisor once told me, “I don’t work with a client unless we begin by creating a financial plan.” To me, this makes perfect sense. No amount of industry expertise, no cutting-edge financial instrument, and no clever tax dodge is going to deliver desired results unless it is put in the service of a clear, well-considered objective. (After all, it’s no coincidence Stephen Covey’s Habit #2 from the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is “Begin with the end in mind.”)

Of course, the universal entreaty, “I want to be rich!” isn’t enough. Heck, we all want to be rich. Knowing this, a good financial strategist first considers the client’s means, health, lifestyle, risk tolerance, and, yes, his/her personal definition of exactly what “rich” entails. Does the client want to retire early or continue working until no longer physically able? Do they want to leave a large chunk of money to their children or arrange to spend every last dime before shuffling off to the Great Beyond? Does the client want to buy a private island or simply pay off their home mortgage? 

Only after these factors are known and a strategy developed can the real work of financial planning begin. To this end, my team at BlueprintCFO, in working with mostly privately held middle market businesses, won’t collaborate with any company unless we begin by creating what we call a “Profitability Roadmap.” Analogous in some ways to the traditional “financial plan,” it goes much deeper and is more complex. 

How so? Our Profitability Roadmap involves virtually every aspect of a business, including the following: 

  • The business model
  • Value proposition 
  • Organizational structure 
  • Employee compensation 
  • Capital investments and expenditures 
  • Sales and marketing activities 
  • Accounting 
  • Tax planning

Our Profitability Roadmap dovetails nicely with our company philosophy, which is to always look forward, as evidenced by the recent Forbes profile of us entitled, When The Economy Reopens, Let’s Create Our Best Future Yet. Ultimately, we want to create a strategic “blueprint” from which you can build a future for your business that is solid, secure, and capable of strong, steady growth. 

Now, let’s discuss what this looks like in practice. After a series of thorough interviews with corporate stakeholders, including the management team, other employees, customers, shareholders, major suppliers, and even potential new clients, we lay out a clear vision of your company’s short-term (months), median-term (years), and long-term (decades) goals. This exercise inevitably leads to introspective discussions, including a series of back-and-forths resulting in a three-to-five-year vision. We also cover critical initiatives about how to get to this vision everyone can agree with and get behind. 

From this vantage point we synthesize the Profitability Roadmap. Unlike traditional roadmaps plotting routes in mere two dimensions, ours takes us into virtually every aspect of a company’s activities, with a particular emphasis on three areas most vital to long-term profitability:

 1. Customer Acquisition, Growth, and Retention. 

This involves taking a hard look at where a company’s advertising dollars are being spent, how marketing is being managed, and how customers, once acquired, are being serviced. We’ve all heard it’s five times more expensive to acquire a new client than it is to serve an existing one, so we make sure investments made in customer acquisition are protected by an equally aggressive approach to customer service and retention.

2. Operations.

This involves not only providing A-level customer service (see above), but refining development, manufacturing and distribution/delivery with a constant eye on profitability. (More about this in a moment.)

3. Money Management and Shareholder Value. 

This covers everything from capital acquisition to cashflow management, accounting, and cost control. 

 As so many small-to-medium-sized businesses ($5M-$50M in annual sales) are founded and run by entrepreneurs, the profitability imperative is still often a tough sell. People with “vision” tend to focus on the work and on the product, believing the old adage that if you “build a better mousetrap, the world will be a path to your door.” 

Yet, without profits, a business cannot survive, let alone thrive. And as Michael Michalowicz, author of the book Profit First notes, profits are not necessarily the outcome of a good idea or even back-breaking effort. “Profit is not an event, it’s a habit,” he writes, noting that “Small, repetitive, continuous actions, chained together, build momentous momentum.” In addition, Henry Ford once said, “The business of a business is making a profit.” Unfortunately, this is sometimes a far-away concept, even for a hard-charging entrepreneur.

At BlueprintCFO, we create profitability roadmaps to ensure those small, repetitive actions, chained together, do occur, and are performed in the service of a clear, articulated cause. The result: profits provide the means for growth and better lives for company employees and customers alike.

If greater, more dependable profits are on your mind, it’s time to talk to us. You’ll soon learn we are a lot more than a traditional accounting firm. Our focus is on the future, not the past, and we’re skilled in helping aggressive entrepreneurs make sure their dreams succeed. For more information on how to create your biggest future ever, email me at jim@blueprintcfo.com or visit www.BlueprintCFO.com to learn more about our fractional CFO services.

Valuation Planning

Blueprint CFO will work with executive leadership to determine shareholder value, and run various models to determine estimated company valuation. Together, we will determine milestone objectives to increase shareholder value and track company performance in relation to these targets. We will review your company’s organic and acquisition growth options to create shareholder value, and emphasize tax planning to optimize shareholder value upon a sale or purchase. We can also focus on Initial Public Offering (IPO) Planning and Readiness.

Analytics & Business Intelligence

We believe that being data-driven is key to profitability. As such, we can help you create meaningful dashboards and scorecards for your business, analyzing performance against key performance indicators and other factors. Our profitability reporting and analysis tools will help drive business decision-making and provide insights into trends, predictions, results, and potential strategic direction moving forward.

Goal Setting & Tracking

Our team can partner with company leadership to establish goals and objectives for the company, for both the short and long term. Additionally, we will help leaders develop meaningful Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track and measure results.

Insurance & Tax Planning

Blueprint CFO can work with businesses to review insurance needs and requirements, as well as plan for taxes and R&D credits.

Human Resources

We can assist your HR department with employee benefits planning, and can also perform compensation studies to ensure best practices are implemented across the business.

Accounting & Finance Support

Whether you have an internal team in place or need more hands-on assistance, Blueprint CFO can oversee and advise your accounting and finance department. From preparing general ledger transaction entries to completing month-end closes, forecasting to crafting financial statements, developing customized reporting packages to implementing more effective software, Blueprint CFO can bring you everything from a supportive junior or senior accounting team, all the way to high-level strategic CFO consulting.

Mergers & Acquisitions

Blueprint CFO can partner with company leadership to improve strategic business plans and assist with the development of organizational growth strategy. We can also create financial reporting packages and proformas for capital raises, investments, acquisitions and/or banking requirements, and provide due diligence on company-focused deals.

Financial Planning

We can prepare, create and/or review financial statements. This includes providing trend analysis, developing cash flow projections, and tracking operational and financial performance, with insight into budget and forecast variances.

Banking Services

Our team can help your company to establish high-level banking relationships, and offer expert advice and support when it comes to sourcing bank loans, etc. Additionally, we can review and determine the optimal capital structure for refinancing or a liquidity event.

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