Fractional COO in Punta Gorda
For established Punta Gorda owners, many of whom are closer to the exit than the start. Marine, trades, professional services and family businesses that have rebuilt at least once and intend to be worth something when they sell.
Punta Gorda has rebuilt itself twice in twenty years, after Charley and after Ian. The businesses that are still here are run by people who plan for the long term, and the long term now includes who runs it after them.
- Charlotte County
- Under an hour north on I-75. I schedule Punta Gorda in day blocks rather than drop-ins.
- Twelve companies operated, six of them mine
- One engagement covering operations, software and demand
A business that runs without you is worth more
Punta Gorda owners are, on average, further along than the rest of the coast. Many built the business, rebuilt it after a storm, and are now thinking about what it is worth and who takes it on. A buyer, a family member, a manager. In every case the question is the same. Does it run without the owner in the building?
That is an operations question and it has a method. Document what actually happens, put the systems in place that make the numbers legible to an outsider, and remove the owner from the daily loop one function at a time. I do this work for private equity buyers on the other side of the table, so I know what they look for and what they discount. Doing it before the sale is the cheapest value you will ever add.
The buyer pays for what runs without you. Everything that only runs through you gets discounted.
What it looks like in Punta Gorda
Numbers an outsider can read
Clean books, margin by line of business, and a weekly report that does not need the owner to explain it. This is what a buyer or a bank reads first.
Documented operations
Who does what, how a job flows, what the systems are and who holds the passwords. Written down, kept current, owned by the business rather than the founder.
The owner out of the loop, one function at a time
Intake, scheduling, billing, follow-up. Each one moved from the owner's head to a system with a person accountable for it.
Straight answers
I do not broker businesses, value them, or give financial advice. I make the business legible and self-running so that whoever does those things has something clean to work with. I am not in Punta Gorda every week, and I say so.
- I am not selling for years. Is this premature?
- No. A business that runs without you is better to own as well as better to sell. The work pays out in your own time long before a buyer sees it.
- How do you know what buyers look for?
- I do operating work for private equity on the buy side. I have seen what gets discounted at diligence, and it is nearly always the same list.
- How often would you be in Punta Gorda?
- Day blocks, scheduled, usually every other week during a diagnostic. The rest is remote, which is how the work is designed.