About You

At What Stage is Your Business?

McKeever and Sullivan helps organizations that have already launched to create a Management Advantage that allows you to achieve the objectives to which you are committed. Launching and operating a business has many parallels to a space flight.

Liftoff

You’ve cleared the tower… you’re flying. The launch crew has done its job and now mission control is the focus of activity. You’re producing something customers are finding valuable and you are generating revenue. It’s all about cash flow and reacting to customers’ feedback about how your products and services could be better focused to add value. Without steady cash flow and agility in adapting to feedback -- to pivot or preserve successfully -- you’ll come back down to earth in a crisis situation.

Throttle Up

You’ve passed through the part of the flight where maximum pressures on your enterprise forced you to be cautious and to adjust to the environment. Your process of rapid discovery and adjustment has shown you the right path. The market is rewarding your offerings and it’s time to accelerate to a higher trajectory. Now the focus is on profitability. All indicators are ‘Go’, but everything has to be working perfectly to achieve orbit. If all the components don’t perform in an integrated way, you’ll have a suborbital flight that will have been exhilarating and ended without tragedy, but you will not have a successful business.

Orbit

You’re feeling everything the experience has to offer – unmatched vistas, unimaginable speed, a literal and figurative high. The business has matched the pull of gravity and can use its momentum – its scale, its brand, its competitive advantages – to stay in orbit. Now it’s about the total return on investment, maximizing the reward to all stakeholders. But all orbits decay, so staying steady isn’t really an option after all. You either aim for bolder destinations, or enjoy the ride until you inevitably come back down to earth.

The Sky’s The Limit

Going round and round almost effortlessly is appealing and enjoyable at first, but then it gets tired. Your capital – financial and human – sees more excitement elsewhere, so unless you set and achieve bolder goals, it could part with your organization. Having positive free cash to invest in greater things, you set out for the moon, the planets, anywhere your imagination, your commitment, and the integrated capabilities of your organization can take you.

Pick Your Destination

You’re doing what you have to do – making money. That money is the fuel to drive your company wherever you and your stakeholders wish. You can generate a market rate of return and be a bona fide member of the business community. You and your team are making a good living, but is it special enough to make an impact? Or build a legacy that extends far into the future? This is where your company becomes a great, ongoing adventure, one that makes you and everyone in the organization want to get out of bed every morning. A whole universe of possibilities lies before you. You’re building an enterprise that can go anywhere, any time, you choose to go.

çBack

You may be having trouble getting alignment among your leadership team and through to the front line to want the same things, and powerfully move in the same direction.

You may have started with a great value proposition, but seen your product or service quickly copied or even commoditized.

Your current go-to-market efforts have been good, but may have reached a plateau.

You know IT is important for scaling your business or even central to your value, but it hasn't had the impact you hoped.

Your success has been based on heroics, but it's getting harder to profitably deliver based on predictably having heroes show up when needed.

Your people have been essential to your success, but can they get you to the next level, or have they hit a plateau as well?

You're ready for a transaction to combine your organization with another, or seek investor's capital for growth or to change the ownership structure.