Services
My service offering spans finance, strategy, operations, governance and risk. Most engagements draw on more than one.
Finance and strategy
Building and testing financial models, working through scenarios, and examining unit economics, margin and cost structure, so that the position is understood before a decision rests on it. The questions range widely: a straightforward business wanting to know where it can safely scale, or where costs can in fact be reduced, through to the development of a sophisticated model on which a substantial decision will rest. Where the purpose is to present the business to funders, financiers or lenders, they read its numbers differently again from those inside it, and the preparation has to account for that.
Operations and performance
Working out how processes, systems and teams in fact fit together, where the constraints sit, and how throughput might be improved without losing the people doing the work. The complaint I hear most often is that the senior people are working in the business rather than upon it. That is rarely solved by systemising the layer beneath them alone: it takes a culture in which trust and performance are both established. The work can then be left with the people responsible for it, including remote teams.
Governance, risk and compliance
Senior leaders often feel unsupported in their decisions, or lack the information to be confident that risks are under control. The work is to establish what would rectify that. I help boards and executives decide without taking on unexpected risk, and put the recommendations of lawyers and other advisers into effect, so that governance becomes part of everyday work rather than an annual exercise.
Marketing and positioning
Most businesses cannot say what their marketing is returning. The first task is to connect campaign results to the budget decisions which follow from them. The second is positioning. A business with a complicated offering often struggles to say plainly what it sells and to whom, and a buyer who cannot follow it will not act. I also give an independent view of what agencies propose, before a contract is signed or while a campaign is already running.
Giving and philanthropy
Two sides of the same conversation. For an organisation seeking funds, the work is to put its case in terms a funder can actually assess. Much of that sits behind the proposal rather than in it: a funder must be satisfied not only that the idea is sound, but that this organisation can deliver it. For funders, the questions are usually giving methodology, and how collaborative giving should be arranged so that it holds together.
Who I work with
I engage directly with founders, executives, boards and partners.
Privately owned and family businesses across Australia, where growth, cost or succession present issues requiring advice.
Businesses committing to marketing, systems or advisers without a clear account of what that expenditure is producing.
Professional services firms seeking specialist advice to support their own clients.
Boards and senior leaders wanting governance, risk and compliance obligations given practical effect.
Charities and not-for-profit organisations seeking funding, and needing to satisfy a funder that they can deliver what they propose.
Philanthropic trusts, foundations and family offices with a giving programme, on giving methodology, collaborative giving, and assessing what it is they are funding.
How engagements work
The first conversation is free.
Thirty minutes, with no obligations. We will establish whether the matter is one we can work together on.
A proposal in writing.
I will establish what the question actually is, and what answering it properly would involve. What follows is a proposal setting out the work, the fee and the timing, so we are on the same page before anything begins.
The work is done by me.
You deal with me throughout, and what you receive is an objective and independent analysis. Engagements are confidential. I do not name clients or publish case studies.
Ongoing engagements.
I am available to be retained on a monthly basis. That suits holding a function while recruitment for a senior role runs its course, carrying a large project such as establishing a remote office, or taking the technical work off a new business while its people concentrate on growth.
Fees are agreed in advance.
My preference is a fixed fee for a defined piece of work, or a retainer where the need is ongoing. Reduced fee arrangements are available for not-for-profit organisations, and in certain circumstances I will consider taking on work pro bono.
Book a thirty-minute discussion
By telephone or video, at a time you choose. Free, and no obligation on either side.
If you would rather write, I am at michael@loosemoreadvisory.com and I answer everything myself.
If any part of a matter sits outside my competence, I will tell you early and, where I can, say who should be approached.