Chase Morrison Shows Pasadena Entrepreneurs How To Listen To Their Numbers At The University Club

As the monthly Business Growth Workshop series at the University Club reached its halfway point, Chase Morrison kept the momentum rolling in a positive direction. A partner at BSB CFO, Chase Morrison offered an engaging presentation entitled, “Your Numbers Are Speaking, Are You Listening?” that lit up the room. The vibrant mix of entrepreneurs and business owners who showed up at 7:30 in the morning for the workshop learned about the details of financial planning from the perspective of a truly experienced business consultant and chief financial officer.

The problem for owners of businesses across the board as they continue to grow is cash management and how to effectively use resources to help a company. Although every business journey appears predictable, the result always seems to be a surprise. In the beginning, the finders are in charge as they grow the business during the honeymoon phase. A B2B truism, however is the simple reality that “Most Finders do not spend a lot of time methodically planning their business infrastructure.”

As a result, after the initial infrastructure creation and the honeymoon phase, most businesses hit a point where growth without proper planning begins to cause damage. The original ethos and strengths of the business can be lost as Minders take control of the day-to-day business operations, replacing the initial success of the Finders with a more traditional business perspective. If the Finders did not plan their infrastructure, formalizing the zeitgeist of a company, the new infrastructure can sap the life from a company. After all, a B2B truism is, “The failure to plan infrastructure will eventually hurt the company.”

When Minders take over from the Finders, a business sinks into the morass of bureaucracy. Stuck in this morass, financial problems arise because new business is not being generated. In addition, previous business relationships can be damaged as the company becomes more faceless and less enthusiastic as it grows. Most importantly, the initial emphasis on cash flow is replaced by meetings and management. With the honeymoon phase a distant memory, welcome to The Danger Zone.

If a business wants to escape The Danger Zone, the company’s mindset needs to be shifted from minding back to finding. By focusing on the key metrics of a healthy company while delegating the minding responsibilities, Finders can revive the heart of what made the business a success in the first place. The focus needs to be on cash flow and developing processes that produce relevant insight into the mechanics of what makes the business successful.

As Chase Morrison’s engaging presentation continued, he went into a number of advanced business metrics about managing working capital and creating viable benchmarks. A business owner needs to start with their Value Proposition by understanding why companies buy from them as opposed to a competitor. By identifying critical success factors and asking the right questions, even a business in financial trouble can recover and return again to the road of success.

Throughout the presentation, questions were asked as the Pasadena entrepreneurs applied the concepts being explained to the realities of their own business lives. Once again, the University Club has shown its value to the Pasadena community as a place where professionals can gather to learn from each other in a supportive environment. Given the enormous insight provided by Chase Morrison at the latest Business Growth Workshop, it is exciting to imagine what is to come in the second half of the program. If you are a business owner in Pasadena, it is an opportunity that truly should be taken advantage of in order to help optimize your company and build your network.

About the Author

Growing up in New York City as a stutterer, John Lavitt embraced writing as a way to express himself when the words would not come. After graduating from Brown University, he lived on the Greek island of Patmos, studying with his mentor the late American poet Robert Lax. As a writer, John Lavitt’s published work includes several articles in Chicken Soup For The Soul volumes and poems in multiple poetry journals and compilations. Today, John Lavitt works at Open Interactive as the Director of Content Development. As a journalist, he is a Regular Contributor to The Fix where he writes investigative reports about the latest issues in the world of addiction and recovery.