How is Your Business Positioned for a Possible Setback?

By Ron Leaf, Partner

No business owner wants to have to call in a turnaround consultant. The decision to do so is usually  forced, either by a secured lender seeking to get its loan repaid, or by a set of circumstances that have led to significant financial distress. So how to you ensure you avoid such a predicament?

Being prepared to act before the first sign of trouble—and responding right away to the warning signs—can provide a business owner with a better range of options and more time to deal with the issues. And such preparedness starts with understanding what some of those troublesome issues may be.

Over the years Platinum Group has found common themes leading to the need for a turnaround. Most often is a significant revenue decline due to external factors, such as changing demand for the company’s product or service, the company’s loss of focus on its core offering(s), or poor customer service/satisfaction. Another common theme: operating losses caused by poor productivity over an extended period, or recent changes that had an immediate negative affect on productivity. At the other end of the spectrum, businesses experiencing rapid growth can find themselves in distress if they do not have the right skills in place to manage the growth... MORE

How Claire Ferrara Dealt with a COVID-19 Triple Whammy

One of the most challenging aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic as it hit last year was how to continue servicing residential heating and air conditioning systems. How could shelter in place, work from home and remote learning all remain safe with an outsider coming into the house? And how could a repair person be assured he or she wouldn’t catch COVID while in someone’s home?

These were only a few of the challenges needing to be addressed by Claire Ferrara, president and majority owner of Minneapolis-based Standard Heating and Air Conditioning, a fourth-generation family-owned business employing about 100 people. “We're in the heating and air conditioning business but we're really in the people business and it's very much about a person-to-person interaction,” she says... MORE

Watch this interview on YouTube or listen via Spotify or Apple Podcasts.