Consulting

Ignite works in partnership with companies who:

are experiencing rapid growth
are in chaos and need to regain order and direction
have plateaud - requiring assistance to push through to the next level
have had a season of profitable growth - requiring the consolidation of past gains and to maximise their future potential.

We measure the results of our work against the current performance of the business, deliver project based consulting with anticipated time frames of completion. Our consulting work carries a 100% guarantee.

OUR PROCESS

Our standard consulting process involves the following key steps:

Identify, define, and measure results in critical areas needing improvement
Establish improvement goals
Make necessary changes to move toward these objectives
Monitor and record progress
Manage new processes

Performance results are often tabulated onto a one page document, allowing decision makers to monitor ongoing business improvements and make real time changes.

OUR WORK

The areas below represent just some of our work with the many clients we have worked with.

People: Team Productivity

We work with management and staff to align their strengths, technical skills and passion to their job roles, ensuring maximum job satisfaction and performance. We identify and develop staff potential, while ensuring clear role descriptions, KPI's and expectations, avoiding the 'promoted to incompetence' syndrome. A variety of analysis resources are used in conjunction with our work in this area including management, leadership, behavioural, time management profiling tools.

"Given the task of interviewing my department managers, (who I had offered a percentage of ownership to within the company), we discovered through the process that they were best suited for non management/ownership roles. What a relief! Ray's work has potentially saved me well in excess of a million dollars (and the grief that goes with having the wrong people on board) for which I am incredibly grateful". Nick Burke HEQ (Engineering)

Consulting Testimonials

Marketing

Machine gun or sniper? Our work is more akin to that of a marksman than trying to fire off a million rounds through a machine gun. Here are a few of our strategies:

Understanding a company's Core Focal Concept, including current passion, competencies, and profit sources/opportunities
Evaluate current marketing efforts and gain a thorough understanding of 'who' the key buyer is
Discard all non producing or irrelevant marketing efforts/mediums
Fine tune and create an aligned strategy based on the core business to the 'ideal buyer', taking into account the subsequent quoting/sales process.
Measure and improve ongoing results

Process and Systems

Many companies have multiple conflicting processes causing a lack of 'flow'. We streamline processes encompassing critical areas such as supply chains, internal processes, invoicing, debtor management, cash flow, job roles in relation to process etc.

"We are more organised, have slashed delivery times to our clients by 75%, increased profitability and I personally have freed up the majority of my time for ongoing business development." Nathan Morris - Morris Accounting

Cashflow - Financial Performance

When working on a company's cash flow and profitability, we progress through the following stages:

Understand the company's cash conversion cycle from the initial order to cash in the bank. This is a critical component for many service firms we work with, who often have hundreds of thousands of dollars outstanding with 4 - 8 weeks delays in invoicing.
Outstanding debtors and recovery process
Analysing profit per job, employee (producer), department and so on.
Billing WIP more frequently, (where possible)
Correcting mark ups and hourly rates
Assisting in cash flow forecasting and management
Being aware of and documenting the key numbers that affect the end result of cashflow and profits; analysing these and making continual incremental changes

"I have been working with Ray for the last 6 months and in that time have seen continual growth of our business. Increase has happened in actual jobs, revenues and the corresponding staffing to keep up with the growth. We are more fully utilising our internal systems, keeping on top of invoicing and debtors and now starting to monitor the business in terms of numbers." Brad Smith - Wolfenden Electrical

Sales

Once we understand the core business and the key buyer, we then develop (when starting from scratch) or ensure that the current sales process is documented and streamlined. This might include appointment goals, scripts, main objections and rebuttals, closing process and so on.

Profit Per Producer

We establish a simple system that monitors the productivity and profit of each producer, in terms of the hours billed versus the hours worked and paid. Regular accountability sessions are based on these figures and have been shown to increase production significantly.

"Rays consulting work has assisted in keeping me focused, setting up systems and reviewing budgets to keep my firm’s ‘producers’ accountable. The result for this last financial year is an approximate 25% increase in turnover when compared to the previous 2 financial years. Prior to working with Ray, the business had seen no growth or increase in staff performance. Peter McCartney - Spranklin McCartney Lawyers

Consulting Testimonials

Business Planning

They say that every company needs a business plan. My observation is that 99% of businesses who have one of these plans either are unsure of where it is or if they do, has an inch of dust on top of it. We think they are a great idea if you are needing to raise funds through the bank or investors, starting a business or need to revisit your business holistically. If you are not in one of these categories, establishing five or ten year goals, distilling down into annual goals and plans and then creating ninety day action lists with relevant performance measures and accountability structures for your team is one of the better approaches.

Download the chapter entitled:

right people in the right places

How to create a team that actually wants to be at work
Increase revenue with a productive team

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