On September 11th, 2001 I stood in front of the TV and developed an idea that has driven me since: I refuse to sit on the sidelines.
That principle helped me lead soldiers in combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan, assembly lines in the midwest, new product programs on the east coast, service departments in the southwest, and now heavy equipment companies that need an outsider point of view.
For 20 years I’ve been leading teams to exceed expectations.
I get my hands dirty.
There are very few consultants that are able to leave an executive level presentation, put on coveralls, and replace a leaking cylinder on a 3512 diesel engine.
Many of the problems in heavy equipment companies originate at the lowest level.
Have you ever seen a senior consultant from a large firm crawl under a bulldozer in a landfill to help a mechanic? How many of these six sigma black belts are just as comfortable in their data sets as they are sludging through a frac site? Very few.
And yet, companies are willing to shell out millions of dollars a month to get folks from top business schools who have never actually run a business, tell them how to run their business. Make it make sense!
I had a VP ask me this one day when I returned from spending 8 hours in his maintenance shop with a laundry list of opportunities to fix.
How was I able to see, in just a few hours, issues that had existed for years?
Well, one way is that his employees were willing to talk to me.
Why me though?
Many years ago, I was a teenager with my grandfather visiting a mechanic shop and the lead mechanic didn’t want to shake hands because they were dirty. My grandfather reached out, shook his hand tightly and said, “The hands of a hard-working man are never dirty.”
That lesson stuck with me, and our hard working folks in mines, or oil fields, land fills, etc can all tell the person who respects them and is willing to hear them out.
This is something that can’t be taught in a classroom and can only be learned through days of sweat and soreness. After your body has given all that it has and the steam from the shower hasn’t even dissipated before you fall exhausted into the sheets.
In lean, we have an acronym for the 8 different types of waste: TIMWOODS.
Now, I’m not going to get into what they all are and how to identify them here, but I do want to talk to you about why transformation projects struggle to stick.
You have paid for these consulting teams, and many of them will look at operations, identify all the different wastes, and then brief it to your teams.
I’ve seen first hand entire teams shut down because a very smart, capable, and skilled consulting team has told them that 50% or more of their time is “waste”.
They don’t know how to talk to your employees, how to get them onboard, and how to get them excited about eliminating waste in operations.
In multiple occasions, I’ve helped teams cut their maintenance cycle times in half, cut failures in half, double the life of their equipment, and create exponential gains in equipment uptime!
You know your business, and can do some quick math at how many millions of dollars that would mean for you.
Some of you are here because you’re wondering if this guy can actually help your startup, especially when all I’m talking about is heavy equipment.
And that’s a fair criticism!
Especially if you’re considering shellling out $50,000 to help establish a strategic plan.
I mean, your business doesn’t operate heavy equipment, so maybe this isn’t the right guy.
Not so fast…
Many of the companies and organizations I’ve worked with have to make long-term, predictive analysis on new market entry, new product introductions, and equipment death.
A full and comprehensive strategy that involves all aspects of the organization from design, supply management, marketing, operations, sales, test, quality, and more is essential to win in the marketplace.
What I realized is that startups are fueled by a great idea, with an innovative entrepreneur willing to take a risk. These leaders HAVE to view the world from a high-level perspective. Their risk-tolerant attitude and creative approach often leads them to miss critical steps in strategic planning.
It can be hard to hear, “you can’t launch that new product yet” or “stop selling because operations can’t keep up”.
If you don’t have a strategic plan, that can feel like a MASSIVE constraint, and I’ve seen founders lose their shit over those two statements in board meetings.
Why is it so frustrating?
Because if you don’t have a plan, that feels like someone blowing up a bridge on your trail and now your business is stopped.
When we have a strategic plan, however, we know when those moments are coming, and we have already prepped everyone on how we’re going to handle it when it happens.
We’re not going to get too deep into the product here in the about page, but these are decision points that we plan out long in advance, so the team is ready when we get there.
These same principles are what I used to help a fortune 100 company get 50% market share in a product line!
We all know the stats about what percentage of startups fail, but one thing you may not know is that of the ones that actually make it past 5 years, the overwhelming majority of them had a strategic plan.
This isn’t a “nice to have”, it’s a “need to have”
…and there really aren’t many people with the skills, know-how, and desire to help you.
When I got into consulting, I wanted to do something different: Provide Big 4 level insights at a low cost, tailored exactly to the customer needs.
This is a consulting firm that can operate just as seamlessly in front of a board of directors in a skyscraper as it can in deep dark pits of a mine site with coal haulers.
By the end of 2024, this firm will be serving clients in the US, Canada, the Middle East, and Europe.
10 years from now, we will be a global firm, never losing the boutique feel, deploying a specialized group of consultants to help high-growth startups and transforming heavy equipment operations globally.
Yeah, it’s a tall order…but we got a strategic plan to get there 😉
More than 20 years of varied experience has led to this point. Here you are, considering sending an email and getting in touch. There are many other consultants out there, and many that will charge a lot more. There aren’t many that can help you like I can.