Process for Transforming Businesses

Posted on: February 23rd, 2022

This is the sixth installment of an interview between Seth Morgan, Founder, and CEO of MLA Companies, and Stone Payton of Business RadioX Studios.  In this section, they discuss MLA’s process for transforming businesses, called the Business Redeemed Process.

Seth ended the previous section with this statement: “If our goal is to transfer value, including financial value beyond me as the founder, then we have to have a group of men and women who can take that governing responsibility and oversee it.”

Are you wondering how to create value beyond financial?  MLA has a process to help you discover that.  We call it Business Redeemed.

The MLA Methodology

Stone: So tell us a little bit about the MLA methodology or process. I guess maybe walk us through the high points of what an engagement might look like, especially maybe the early pieces.

Seth:  We pride ourselves in stepping in with our clients wherever they’re at, but feel the need for help.  We’ve got clients that start with us on succession process improvement on the floor, or some organizational problem. More often than not it’s a financial issue. They need fractional CFO or accounting back-office support. 

Behind that, we have a seven-step model called the Business Redeemed Process. We believe organizations are doing these things, whether they realize it or not. We just think there’s value in identifying them for our team at least and the client. In many ways, that model is more about our team understanding where we are in this process than it is telling our clients how to think about their challenges.  

We want the client to be transforming and changing for the good, regardless of whether they understand how they got there.  Many of our clients, just like most small business people, are so focused on the daily matters of running a business they may or may not want to learn another way to look at it.  

Process for Transforming Businesses

We don’t think our perspective is necessarily smarter than any of the others.  But when we look back over what we’ve done again and again there are the following seven steps that make up the Business Redeemed Process.

1. Reality: What is the current situation that it’s kind of a historical look.  In finance, there are all kinds of history.  So what do we have today?
2. Perspective: And what perspective does MLA bring to that conversation? Sometimes that’s not just MLA, but once you start to get that data perspective starts to flow.  
3. Runway: Once we start to look into the future, we think about runway.  What can we define?  Your limiting factor could be cash or people or plant capacity.  But how do we work with that?
4. Dream:  Once we’ve defined Reality and Runway, then we’re ready to ask “What dream got us here? And how does that dream need to be affected and changed?” 
5. Roadmap:  Then we need a map to get to the dream. That’s strategic planning. This is the last step in considering the future before coming back to execution.
6. Courage: Now we have something to do. Now we’re hitting the button and we’re pulling the trigger on some decisions. Then we measure what happens as a result.
7. Reward: What’s the reward? What have we learned through the process? Sometimes that’s the end of the engagement.  But often the owner is ready to start all over again with a new reality.

We believe most consultants make the mistake of starting with a dream.  But unless you start with reality, you can’t contextualize that dream.  It may be inspiring, but if you’re not taking steps toward it in a measurable way, it’s a distraction.

For your dream to come to fruition it must be anchored in reality.  The MLA Business Redeemed Process can help you get there.