The strategic advisory industry guides business owners through complex transitions, particularly when preparing for exits. With a focus on enhancing business value and facilitating successful liquidity events, advisors provide essential expertise to navigate the myriad challenges associated with ownership transitions. Business owners seeking to maximize the value of their enterprises require comprehensive support that addresses not only financial metrics but also operational and strategic considerations. This industry thrives on fostering relationships that empower owners to realize their goals and smoothly transition to the next phase of their professional journeys.
Rizolve Partners specializes in assisting established business owners in the lower mid-market who plan to exit their businesses within a 3-5 year timeframe. The firm emphasizes achieving justifiable value for clients’ businesses, aligning owner objectives with the expectations of professional buyers. By focusing on tailored strategies encompassing value creation, comprehensive planning, and market education, Rizolve Partners is a trusted advisor for business owners facing critical transition periods.
At the helm of Rizolve Partners is Stephen Cummings, the Managing Partner and CEO, whose extensive experience in leadership and strategic execution, significantly enhances the firm's capability to support clients. With a robust background in guiding businesses through growth and transition, he brings invaluable insights, helping owners refine their strategies and achieve desired outcomes. His leadership underscores the firm's commitment to delivering impactful advisory services tailored to each client's unique needs.
Strategic Advisory for Business Owners Preparing for Exit
Rizolve Partners envisions becoming the advisor of choice for established business owners in the lower mid-market who intend to exit their businesses within a 3-5 year timeframe. The firm concentrates on assisting owners in achieving the value they desire for their businesses, ensuring that it is justifiable to professional buyers. This approach maximizes the likelihood of a successful liquidity event, enabling owners to transition smoothly to their next act.
Expert Guidance for Business Value Enhancement and Transition Planning
Rizolve Partners boasts a multidisciplinary team of former senior executives with extensive experience managing growth within global businesses and successfully completing transactions. Their unique approach involves advising business owners and their teams on value creation?and?collaborating to establish reasonable objectives and timelines to achieve goals over?3-5 years. The team works closely with owners to ensure meaningful progress ahead of a liquidity event, a facet of their service highly valued by clients.
A comprehensive plan is essential to attain optimal value, identifying the gap between current value and the value needed to fulfill the owner's objectives. This process involves defining business, personal, and financial goals, which are then integrated into a business plan focused on achieving necessary milestones within a specified timeframe. Once the plan is in place, individual and team responsibilities are assigned, with achievements closely monitored through regular meetings to ensure accountability and facilitate problem-solving.
A critical aspect of this process is the shift in the owner's mindset towards value creation. Value is derived from profitability and the quality of systems, processes, personnel, and intangible assets that enable a company to increase profit. Rizolve Partners' leaders possess significant expertise in assessing and improving the quality of these assets, allowing for substantial enhancements from a third-party perspective. Knowledgeable advisors can identify key value drivers with the greatest potential for improvement and assist in leveraging investments for optimal returns.
Integrated Strategies
Rizolve Partners focuses on two key components in optimizing value: value growth and exit planning. This work is conducted concurrently over 3-5 years to address identified value gaps and any obstacles to a successful sale. In implementing effective strategies, Rizolve and its advisors hold certifications and recognized training in these specialized areas, complemented by extensive professional experience.
A Certified Value Growth Advisor (CVGA) employs the discipline of value building (CVB) to provide a structured approach to enhancing value and its components. Their expertise lies in identifying potential areas for value improvement and facilitating strategies and changes that will increase value.
Each partner at Rizolve is also a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA). This credential integrates master planning and advisor coordination to deliver the essential elements for a successful transition and exit from business ownership. Rizolve's advisory model encompasses both the preparation of the exit plan and its implementation, guiding clients through the transaction where an investment banker creates the private market and bid process and onwards to a successful conclusion and transition.
Bridging Knowledge Gaps
Rizolve Partners identified a gap in the market for its services, stemming from the lack of education for business owners regarding the comprehensive actions necessary to achieve a successful exit at optimal value. The firm is committed to educating owners about the steps required for a successful transition from multiple perspectives. To this end, Rizolve actively participates in collaborative educational workshops that unite aligned advisor groups. These events provide a roadmap, enabling owners to fill in knowledge gaps and begin understanding what is necessary to successfully reach their goals.
At a certain stage in an owner’s thinking, Rizolve can assist in consolidating their exit plan. Through discussion and discovery, the firm helps owners refine their strategies. In many cases, this marks the beginning of a long-term relationship, allowing Rizolve to support owners on their journey and facilitate introductions to other advisors needed to develop their exit and value growth plans.
The services offered are strategic in nature, enabling advisors to bring together the resources and skills required to facilitate implementation of the roadmap. These services complement the operational team responsible for ongoing business growth and optimization, identifying the incremental strategies necessary for a successful transition to value and liquidity.
Distinct Advantages of a Boutique Advisory Approach
The boutique approach offers several advantages:
1. It targets the lower mid-market segment, which larger consultancies do not serve at scale.
2. It assembles an exceptional team of former executives with a multi-disciplinary approach.
3. It unites aligned advisor groups essential for addressing the wide range of issues encountered in optimizing value.
4. It employs a team-oriented strategy that adapts throughout the plan's lifecycle based on the client's needs.
5. It incorporates certified techniques for delivering value growth and executing liquidity plans effectively.
6. It maintains the agility to execute professionally while integrating senior-level expertise at the appropriate stages.
7. The partners are actively involved as leaders throughout the engagement timeline.
Tailored Strategies for Incremental Value Delivery and Improvement Planning
Numerous strategies can be employed to incrementally deliver value.
Each client's strategy is tailored to their specific circumstances. A key differentiator for Rizolve is assessing optimal strategies for each situation to maximize value delivery. Experience indicates that achieving quick wins is essential for building confidence within the team responsible for execution, leading to enhanced performance and greater overall achievements.
The first step is to establish the current value and its components. Once documented, an improvement plan can be crafted that focuses on the value drivers where enhancements can be made. Rizolve employs software to benchmark 24 distinct value drivers, evaluating the quality of created assets against best-in-class industry standards. This analysis allows for the development of a hierarchy of improvement opportunities, resulting in a targeted and quantified improvement plan.
Key areas of improvement often include the following strategies:
1. Development of a strategic plan.
2. Documentation of the sales pipeline by customer and prospect, forming the basis for revenue plans and forecasts.
3. Creation of a tactical plan (12 months) that quantifies goals and objectives and establishes accountabilities for delivery.
4. Organizational planning and operational KPIs for delivery and capacity planning.
5. Strategic human resource management planning.
6. Strategic marketing planning to support growth objectives outlined in the strategic plan.
Strategic Succession Planning for Sustainable Legacy Management
Numerous strategies can be employed to incrementally deliver value. Succession planning is a critical component of legacy planning, ensuring that people and operational systems maintain legacy elements into the future.
Legacy is documented through the following components:
1. Business track record
2. The value that products and services add to the community
3. The culture that defines the organization’s operations
4. The brand identity that the company promotes, markets, and delivers to service standards
Rizolve assesses the quality of these legacy elements within the organization and identifies improvement strategies based on the significance of legacy to the owner and the desire to enhance a secure and sustainable legacy.
Succession planning is vital for sustainability and is a key legacy aspect. Developing an organizational plan that addresses the company's capacity needs during scaling is integral to the advisory engagement.
Comprehensive Financial Planning for Scalable Growth and Investment Strategies
An appropriately organized financial plan that accounts for the resources necessary to scale is a critical component of any strategic plan, and Rizolve emphasizes this for all clients. Ensuring that relevant scenarios are addressed when assessing financial needs is also essential to maintaining a sufficient financial "moat" capable of managing various circumstances as a risk mitigation strategy?for all growing companies.
Rizolve assists clients with evaluating, preparing, and presenting opportunities to financial institutions.
When specific investments extend beyond working capital financing, the nature of these investments becomes important for determining the appropriate sources of finance. Rizolve aids clients in identifying the most suitable sources of finance and the appropriate providers for each situation.
Essential Factors for Building a Strong Foundation for Scalable Growth
Rizolve identifies several key factors essential for any company aiming to establish a solid foundation for the future, particularly when planned scaling is a primary objective. These factors include:
1. Leadership and senior management
2. Human resources
3. Recurring revenues
4. Margin
5. Financial and operational reporting
6. Sales plan and process
7. Operations and capacity
8. Customer satisfaction
Key Criteria for Success in Growing Markets
The following criteria are considered essential for companies looking to succeed in large and growing markets:
1. Addressing large, growing markets
2. Offering in-demand products and services
3. Demonstrating a track record of performance
4. Providing clear future prospects
5. Maintaining a capable management team
6. Achieving strong margins relative to competitors
7. Generating strong cash flow or promising future cash flow
8. Presenting strong customer satisfaction data (e.g., Net Promoter Score)
9. Operating with a trained workforce, disciplined operations, and documented systems
Collaborative Advisory for Effective Exit Planning and Transaction Execution
Rizolve collaborates with an aligned advisory team that has a strong track record of execution, which includes:
1. Investment bankers
2. M&A lawyers
3. Accountants with M&A experience and tax planning expertise
4. Wealth advisors who provide complementary skills for personal financial planning, tax-efficient distributions, and investment of proceeds
Through the exit planning process, Rizolve gathers and analyzes the information necessary for executing the transaction and populating the due diligence data room. This information facilitates transaction due diligence and the preparation of sales documents, such as the Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM).
Furthermore, with the comprehensive knowledge acquired about the client, Rizolve is well-positioned to advise on management presentations to prospective buyers and address due diligence inquiries.
Experienced Leadership Team with Proven Transaction Execution Skills
Each partner has held senior positions at global companies, including CEO, CFO, Head of Sales and Marketing, Head of Human Resources, and Data Analytics.
Each partner's typical career tenure?exceeds 35 years. The team has been assembled to ensure that experience is complementary, with strategy and leadership being shared competencies.
All partners and senior advisors possess extensive experience in executing transactions.
Client Acquisition Focused on Motivated and Coachable Owners
The business model is established and in demand. The focus on client acquisition emphasizes identifying motivated and coachable clients willing to invest in preparation. Business owners who do not possess these traits are likely not suitable for the work involved and the mindset shift required for success.
