Anchor Advisors offers small business consulting in the Chicago area. Our advisors help businesses to grow with confidence and make better decisions.
The Big Picture Home Theater Company is a home-theater design and installation business based in Wilmette, Illinois. Owner Patrick McFadden, a sound-system enthusiast, opened the business in December 2003 and quickly built a customer base through customer referrals. Challenge The Big Picture Home Theater Company started as a one-man operation but as new business continued to pour in, one man could no longer handle all the work. Patrick hired several new staff members but was still too busy tending to the day-to-day operations of the business that he could not focus on what was needed to bring his company to the next level. He wanted his company to grow in a manner that would ensure its … [Read more...]
The owner of this contracting business had over 25 years of experience, but this year things seemed to be slipping behind. He was spending all his time reacting, putting out fires with customers, employees, vendors, but no time building his business. In fact his crews were all under manned because he just hadn't had time to do any recruiting. The highest priority was staffing, we needed people on the jobs so that the projects wouldn't fall behind. Through a combination of outsourced staffing and a streamlined hiring process he was up to full strength within a month. His sales people were relived and had renewed confidence that the company could deliver work on time. We restarted long … [Read more...]
Looking for New Markets As the economy has declined from it's height the office furniture business was particularly hard hit. As the size of the market shrank, each of the players fought harder for the business that remained. Margins have declined and may never rebound. One of the leading office products dealers in the Chicago area approached Anchor Advisors to help them to develop strategic alternatives to this trend. The project began with an analysis of the company's sales by customer for each of the previous 3 years. The trends that emerged helped our client to identify their most profitable customers and tailor their offerings to more effectively reach those segments. We also … [Read more...]
Starting a new business can be a daunting process. When Peter's professional services firm had survived its first year, he wanted to pause and look at where he was headed, and develop some systems and processes to make the back-end of the business more efficient. He called Anchor Advisors to help. This project was executed through a series of coaching sessions twice a month for several months. In each session we took one phase of the client's business and analyzed its efficiency and effectiveness, looked at its scalablity and whether there was someone else who could better accomplish it either inside the firm, or through outsourcing. This review enabled the client to get a clean look … [Read more...]
