Welcome to Strategic FIRM

Better businesses are built on better fundamentals.

Strategic FIRM Inc. develops, advises, finances and partners with businesses through the resources that decide their outcomes.

Coaching and advisory

Practical work on the fundamentals that are limiting the business right now.

Access to capital

Financing options explained, prepared properly and taken to real lenders.

Operating experience

Hands-on knowledge of running, buying, building and selling businesses.

About Strategic FIRM

FIRM stands for Fundamentals in Resource Management.

Most businesses do not fail because of one dramatic mistake. They fail, or stall, because a handful of ordinary resources are being managed poorly and nobody has put a name to which ones.

Strategic FIRM works the same way every time: find the fundamentals that are actually holding the business back, then fix those in the right order.

People
Capital
Processes
Operations
Customers
Assets
Information
Time
Opportunities

What We Do

Work on the resources that decide the outcome.

Strategic FIRM operates across the areas that determine whether a business can start, stabilize, grow, finance itself and eventually transition.

People and Leadership

Who does the work, how they are led, and what the wrong seat is costing.

Numbers and Profitability

Reading the business from its own figures instead of from instinct.

Processes and Operations

Turning what works into something repeatable by someone other than you.

Customers and Growth

Where the work comes from, what it costs to win, and why it comes back.

Capital and Financing

What the business can realistically access, and how to be ready to ask.

Assets and Equipment

Trucks, equipment and property: what to buy, what to finance, what to sell.

Business Units

Strategic FIRM Business Coaching

Coaching and advisory work for owners and managers who are running a real business and want it to run better. Every engagement starts with what is actually limiting the company, not with a template.

The work is specific: what to change, in what order, and how to tell whether it worked.

Strategic FIRM Finance

Help for startups and small to medium businesses in understanding what financing they can realistically pursue, what the terms mean, and how to present the business so a lender can say yes.

Startup capital
Business expansion
Equipment
Vehicles
Working capital
Improvements
Acquisitions and assets
Specialized projects

Strategic FIRM Finance works with SBA-related lenders, microlenders, alternative business lenders and equipment financing providers. Strategic FIRM Inc. is not a bank or a lender, and no financing outcome is guaranteed.

Specialized Practice

Food Truck Coaching

A specialized practice for mobile and small-format food businesses: trucks, trailers, carryout concepts and small restaurants. Concept and menu development, truck sourcing, purchasing, sales and builds, equipment, startup planning, marketing, operations and the numbers behind them.

Opportunities

Partner with Strategic FIRM on ventures, assets and alliances.

Not every Strategic FIRM interest is offered as a public service. The company also participates in operating partnerships, strategic alliances, business assets and internally owned ventures. If there is a fit worth discussing, the door is open.

How It Works

Four steps, in this order.

The sequence matters more than the tactics. Skipping straight to growth is how a fragile business gets more fragile.

Assess

We look at the business as it actually runs, not as it is described.

Prioritize

We name the two or three fundamentals that are genuinely limiting it.

Execute

We work the plan with the owner, in the order that changes the outcome.

Review

We check it against the numbers and adjust until the result holds.

Tell us what the business is and where it is stuck.

We will point you to the right part of Strategic FIRM, or tell you plainly if we are not the right fit.

Insights