Becky helped us figure out if our perception of how our business was doing lined up with the reality, and would let us know when we needed to correct course. It is good to have someone who can give you a dose of reality. It was great to have someone who could analyze the numbers and either confirm that things were going well or tell us when they really weren’t. It was great to have another set of eyes on board who could help us move away from things that weren’t helping us succeed but that we did anyhow, because that’s how it was always done.

She stepped in and created job descriptions for me and my siblings as we took over the family business. These provided a lot of clarity and allowed us to stay in our own lanes.

Most small to mid-sized businesses focus on the operations – delivering whatever product or service they provide. But they tend not to spend a lot of time or effort on the other elements of a smoothly running business: administration, finance, human resources. Becky has the ability to step in and see the whole board. She is really like a contract CEO. She was able to tell us what we needed to do with the numbers to reach our goals. Before we just had people giving us the numbers. She helped us with succession planning and leadership transition. She put processes and procedures in place that helped us not only operate the business but also to reach the goals we had for it. She taught us the basics of understanding financial statements and showed us how to maiximize staff profitability once they were on board.

She provided a good combination of emotional support and technical skill. I really valued how she listened to what I needed and then tailored what she offered to meet my needs. She is a great listener. She really works to understand your entire operation, and doesn’t start giving advice until she fully understands a business. Transitions are harder than people think they are going to be. She was able to take our very different personalities and working styles and help us all point in the same direction. She was really patient with us, but focused. She seemed to be able to tell when we needed a break from the work of making our transition and was able to step bak and then jump in again when the time came for us to return to it. She was focued and persistent, but not pushy. She was an excellent translator between my business partners and me. She seemed to understand our motivations, styules and triggers very well. I never got the impression that she had a dog in the hunt, or favorites among us. She knew when we needed to be pulled in to a room together to air our issues, and made us do that work when it needed to be done.