We transform visions into remarkable businesses by becoming your COO
Everything we do is geared to scaling your business aggressively but safely. We believe the CEO role has become excessively complex. To achieve success the CEO needs help. We help by ensuring that strategy and operational processes and actions are aligned. We do this by deploying our Playbooks in an integrated way, over successive 100 day plans. We know this can transform your business, making it more valuable, more fun and ultimately more saleable. (if you ever want to sell it.) We want to help you fulfil the potential of your business. In practice this means we work in your business, working on the right stuff, leading to a rich combination of discovery, diagnosis and action. Think of The Portfolio Partnership (TPP) as a contracted COO. THIS IS NOT A CONSULTANCY MODEL. WE ACTUALLY DO STUFF.
Take a look at the problems we believe we can solve. Our partners are operators. We’ve helped scale over a dozen businesses. That’s know-how that’s hard to come by. Read our blog to see how we think.
Tough love. The majority of SMB owners are not increasing the value of their business. Many SMB owners are working hard on the wrong stuff. Our insight and experience tells us to really create value you need to align all the department agendas with the big audacious goals. You need to be clear on the type of activity that scales a company and creates exceptional value. Consider these nine big questions to see if we can help.
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: How does a business build an attractive positioning and translate it into a compelling marketing narrative?
Our Playbook Solution: The Positioning Playbook revisits the fundamental business you are in. We examine the competition, your unique skills, your value proposition. We reconcile your positioning with all of your marketing collateral wherever it resides. We help you define the voice of the company, that special narrative that will be remembered by prospects and compel them to take action. We design and write lead generation campaigns centered around content marketing and aligned to SALES TARGETS. This alone is often the key to quantum leaping growth.
[/two_thirds_last]
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: How do you create a high growth sales environment with world class repeatable sales processes and a well trained sales team?
Our Playbook Solution: The Sales Playbook addresses a comprehensive sales process that aligns your messaging with sales scripts that deliver rich conversations with your prospects. It teaches sales professionals how to sound like businessman, put costs around problems, look for symptoms of live issues that have severe consequences. It teaches curiosity and awareness of a prospect’s world, in their language. It explains and develops Engagement Strategies for accounts that cause a far higher level of traction between you and your customers. We build a new sales process, integrated with your messaging, ensuring an efficient filtering of prospects and a compelling dialogue with decision makers leading to a quantum leap in sales.
[/two_thirds_last]
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: How do you build innovation into your culture and ship award winning products?
Our Playbook Solution: Our Product Innovation Playbook may sound like an oxymoron but it works. By bringing the right people together in a continuous cycle of innovation we build a culture inside your business that is always challenging itself to stay ahead of the curve. And when it comes to actually developing and shipping product, our DSMO approach, aligning Development, Sales, Marketing & Operations ensures that the product or service is market ready at launch date. We build a new approach to innovation, aligning development teams with marketing, sales and operations teams. This guarantees that the whole company is fit for every product/service launch including the post launch integration into your systems.
[/two_thirds_last]
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: How do you attract the best talent and nurture them?
Our Playbook Solution: Today’s constraint on growth is not money its people. From Pepsico to Facebook to local world class players that are not household names; the problem of talent acquisition and retention is huge. Our Talent Playbook creates a series of low cost actions that dramatically improves your odds in the Talent War. Tactics such as the creation of internal universities to train your workforce, to innovative incentive schemes, to new organizational structures that drive projects instead of departments are key elements. We help create a new approach to recruitment to capture the best talent when you need it. We reconfigure internal training of existing talent through the creation of an internal University.
[/two_thirds_last]
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: How do you build a metrics culture that is relentlessly curious?
Our Playbook Solution: The Metrics Playbook is a refreshing approach to all metrics that require to be measured to stay competitive, profitable and effective. Today’s technology allows us to measure a plethora of Key performance indicators with the speed and accuracy only dreamt about 10 years ago. The key is to understand that, who you are, is what you measure. This is one great example of the holistic nature of our Playbooks, linking the Positioning Playbook with the Metrics Playbook. We create a set of KPIs both financial and non financial that measure the right stuff. Building on your existing metrics we create an enhanced reporting system that generates clear actions required. We believe in auditing the signals, keeping management agile and alert.
[/two_thirds_last]
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: What are the best business models and how could you improve yours?
Our Playbook Solution: It’s really quite logical that an acquirer would want to buy a company with a reliable, long term stream of revenue and profits. Therefore the psychology behind any business model designed to maximize your exit value is all about predictable sales and earnings growth. Our Business Model Playbook examines the various ways of bringing your product to market and the economics of various scenarios. Now whether you ever plan to sell your business or raise investment money or borrow long term finance from your bank, there is no downside in building a more reliable business. We review, test and evolve better ways of making money. This includes everything from simple trade terms and contract improvements to radical new business models.
[/two_thirds_last]
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: How do you raise venture or private equity money and beat the odds?
Our Playbook Solution: The Fund Raising Playbook is not always required but the team have built a robust model that builds presentations that investors love and will want to fund. This process map has been tested in the field and refined over 25 years. We know who to talk to and what to say. When and if relevant we execute our blueprint for preparing companies for fund raising including management coaching, business plans, presentation skills and negotiation of commercial terms.
[/two_thirds_last]
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: How do you minimize risk and build robustness into your business as it grows?
Our Playbook Solution: Our Compliance Playbook is ironically about ensuring you remain agile to change. It ensures you have reviewed the material risks within your business. It ensures you have a strategy to mitigate those risks whether they relate to financial matters, succession issues, contract exposures, customer dependencies, internal control gaps, accounting treatment, or forecasting ability. We create a new enhanced set of light, simple processes to ensure that all compliance, regulatory and control issues are dealt with as a normal part of trading.
[/two_thirds_last]
[two_thirds_last]
Big Problem: What are the best process maps and tactics to complete acquisitions and integrate them seamlessly?
Our Playbook Solution: Our Acquisitions Approvals Model is designed to change the odds in your favour of completing an acquisition successfully. Again it may not be relevant for your growth plans but when the time is right our Playbook will prepare and train your team in the art and science of doing deals especially the post acquisition integration of those acquired companies. When and if relevant we execute our Acquisitions Approvals Model guaranteed to find and complete relevant acquisitions at attractive prices. Post acquisition integration is a core skill of our team.
[/two_thirds_last]
Have a specific issue in mind? – Just call Ian on 978 395 1155.
