Frequently Asked Questions

Why did you Start White Caps stewardship?

We were both trained in business management but spent years focusing on components of business ownership such as sales, marketing, specialty services, resource allocation and financial analysis. The idea of working with small business owners took shape as we saw first hand how hard they work and how often they suffer avoidable failure. We welcomed the opportunity to establish genuine relationships with small business owners – investors with more control that they often realize – to help them succeed at something meaningful to these owners, their families and employees, and the communities they serve.

What separates you and/or your company from the competition?

Our role differs from that of a typical business consultant. While we are usually paid a modest amount for our time, our goal is to genuinely walk alongside the owner(s) as an “outsourced partner.” Our incentive is to pursue business results that make it easy for the owner to pay us well over time. Very small businesses have very limited access to professional day-to-day business management expertise. We offer that access. 

How will I know if a business should work with White Caps Stewardship?

• Literally any small business owner (less than 50 employees) is a potential prospect.

• But a good prospect is a business owner who appears to have moved just beyond “owning a job.” They are still wearing many – but not all – of the hats.

• Repair and maintenance businesses.

• A second generation business owner.

• A people-person or skilled technician or talented artist who just doesn’t like the planning/numbers/paperwork side of things.

• Owners looking to improve their quality of life. Their kids may be demanding more time or they are leaving the nest.

• An owner inheriting or considering taking over a business is also a good prospect.

we just need someone to free us to do the work we love...the reason we started our business. Can you help?

Yes.

Our desire to ensure businesses can benefit consistently from the owners' strengths is what shapes the work we do for clients. We combine our strengths with the owners' to build a better version of the business.

What do you enjoy most about what you do? Can you share a story about a client that you really enjoyed helping?

We enjoy identifying truth alongside the owner(s). By this we mean 1) where they are actually headed and 2) where they would honestly like to be headed. We also enjoy the process of empowering an owner to consider a bigger vision and realize better results.

We helped an employee and prospective owner flesh out a better vision for the business they bought. Throughout the process, we had to identify opportunities to re-characterize the value and impact of certain historical business practices as well as re-assess the overall health of the business. That created the platform for a more robust business planning process. We think at one point, the clients wanted to strangle us as we kept pressing for a sharper focus in certain areas of the plan. The clients presented the business plan shortly after completing the asset purchase. It was recognized by a group from the Cleveland Leadership Center as outstanding (the clients won a little money.) More recently, the clients are now opening a second location.

What type of clients are you looking for?

We are looking for unique, compelling businesses. What they do must serve the community or the region in a very direct, hard to replace manner. We like the idea of improving the overall portfolio of businesses we serve. We are always looking for startups and turnaround situations. These owners tend to know help will make a difference. We are also looking for more established, non-seasonal businesses that are looking to plan a new phase of profitable growth.  While we will not accept businesses that compete with our existing clients, we always welcome opportunities to work with businesses that complement our existing client base.

Describe your business or service in one sentence:

We give your business a voice so you can properly partner with it to realize your dreams.

plenty of our friends have businesses and we all love small business, What questions should we ask to encourage them to seek your input? 

• What’s your favorite local business?

• Why?

• How much did business improve over the last year?

• Did you see it coming?

• Do you have more fans than customers?

• What are you doing to enhance the value of your most important business asset?

What's the biggest challenge small business' face?

Recognizing transitions.

It was interesting how little attention was paid to the last Mars landing. Remember that? Recall the name of the vehicle? How did it nail that landing - transitioning from a space vehicle to an all terrain (is it still called terrain on Mars?) vehicle in just 7 minutes? There will be many transitions during the course of that mission. How many will we notice? Some transitions are a blur. How many could we plan for?

All around us, small businesses are experiencing transitions: Starting up. Downsizing. Back-tracking after a wrong turn. Expanding with growing pains - which is more like starting up than you might think - and succession.

All around us, there are transitions ahead that we can help with.