Skip to main content Skip to search

Management Consulting

From starting a new business to developing a succession plan, the business consulting services at LB Carlson span the lifetime of a business. We support preliminary research and analysis of your business idea. You will receive knowledgeable representation for financing and transactions. Our experience and resources help you plan, design and implement through the next stage of your career and business.

Connect with Carlson today

Practice Leader
Melvin Enger
Melvin Enger
Contact Rick

Your Management Consulting Team Leaders

Dawn Polfliet,
Principal

Darren Kray,
Principal

Robert Younkers, Principal

Dea Johnson,
Principal

Rick Riesgraf,
Retired

 

BENCHMARKING
BUSINESS TURNAROUND

If your business is struggling, we can help steer you back on course. Through integrity, trust and communication, our business turnaround consultants will meet with you to discuss your concerns, develop an action plan, and implement a restructuring plan so you are prepared to move forward again. Let us help you make a fresh start.
Our business turnaround services include:
  • Shareholder value enhancement
  • Restructuring/reorganization
  • Lender relations
  • Financing, capital and private equity placements
  • Finance reporting and forecasting systems/controls
  • Mergers, acquisitions, sale
  • Tax strategy
  • Operations alignment

BUSINESS VALUATIONS
Knowing the value of your business is important for tax, regulatory and legal reasons such as divorce or lawsuits. Valuations also play an important role in many business and financial planning situations.

You can count on a thorough independent analysis using current valuation tools and resources. Our specialized training will provide well-reasoned, supportable values relevant to your type of business. Our valuation professionals are Certified Public Accountants designated as Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV) by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

We have experience in all aspects of valuation, including the following:

  • Gifting and estate tax planning
  • Mergers and Acquisitions
  • Shareholder transactions
  • Litigation Support
  • Financial reporting

COMPENSATION PLANNING
We structure competitive compensation and benefit packages that help direct your executive team and support your bottom line. We have extensive background in designing incentive compensation programs and management incentive plans. We can assist with sales compensation strategies and reward programs.
CONTRACT CFO
STRATEGIC COSTING REVIEW
LB Carlson works with you to facilitate a plan to complete a strategic costing review. This process is designed to increase the understanding of your cost structure and how it impacts profitability throughout the company. Our review will help you improve competitiveness in the marketplace and can help in the following areas:

  • Understanding of cost structure throughout the organization
  • Improved labor utilization and efficiencies
  • Identification of most profitable work mix and/or customers
  • Better accounting for inventories
  • More reliable estimating standards and comparison of actual to estimate
  • Knowledge of break-even points and knowledge based pricing decisions
  • Better visibility of high margin work
  • A greater understanding of production standards
  • Improved scheduling and workflow
  • And more…

EQUIPMENT ANALYSIS/CAPITAL BUDGETING
FINANCING

Finding the right financing to meet your needs is critically important. Whether you need to connect with a banker, venture capitalist, or an equipment finance or leasing company, our experts will connect you with the right sources. We are creative in structuring loan packages and know how to get competitive funding when you need it.

LITIGATION SUPPORT
Attorneys know the cornerstone of their case is the quality of their evidence. LB Carlson’s accredited litigation-support professionals provide your law team with forensic accounting services, expert testimony and litigation consulting to help build a strong case, including:

  • Economic damage calculations
  • Business valuation
  • Data analysis and compilation
  • Evidence assistance
  • Deposition assistance
  • Expert testimony

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
If your strategic plans include the pursuit of merger and acquisition opportunities or you are considering the sale of your business, LB Carlson has 30+ years experience in all aspects of the process. We customize our approach with each client in conjunction with their specific objectives. The following includes a brief description of some of the services we provide in the merger and acquisition process:

  • Planning – develop the plan, approach, and process in consideration of various options/alternatives and client objectives.
  • Prepare informational packet and presentation materials.
  • Prospects – define ideal target companies, research and identify prospective buyers and sellers, and contact.
  • Prepare various financial or other analysis in conjunction with process and as necessary.
  • Determine projected tax ramifications of proposed transactions and advise on structure.
  • Assist legal counsel in preparation, review, and negotiation of transaction documents/agreements.
  • Facilitate and participate in the due diligence process.
  • Assist with post-closing plans as applicable.
  • And others…please contact us to learn more.

OPERATIONS OVERVIEW
Our consultants work hard to understand your business and industry in order to provide you with constructive and objective advice to ultimately improve your operation. We review historical financial results and trends as well as develop key performance metrics that will allow you to monitor and improve your operation.

To provide our clients with the best feedback and advice, we developed a graphic arts library, which includes a monthly reporting package. Understanding your industry performance indicators, industry ratios, profit leader metrics and benchmarks allows us to help you align staffing, equipment needs and track overall operations execution.

SUCCESSION PLANNING
Energizing and preparing the next generation of managers and owners at your company is an opportunity that takes careful planning. LB Carlson can help you navigate all aspects of succession planning. We can coach you through this process and assist with training and development of succeeding family members or managers. We offer an objective viewpoint and will help you set the direction of your company.
FACILITATOR
We can help your planning process by providing suggestions for the step to follow for attaining an exceptional strategic plan. We can provide ideas for setting objectives; maintain accountability and helping to facilitate the process to keep things on task.
FORECASTS

Financial forecasts are a critical management tool in helping to align your business with expectations. A good forecast becomes the ruler to help measure ongoing success or failure of your operations. Our professionals can help you develop a credible and an effective forecast that allows management to make better decisions and focus on the future. In conjunction with your existing reporting package, our attention to detail and our unique format help make your forecasts reliable and easy to use.

A good forecast will provide information to help you make better management decisions regarding cash flow, equipment and personnel needs, and will help to evaluate and analyze other important decisions including:

  • Cash flow requirements
  • Capital needs
  • Consolidation of operating facilities
  • Mergers and acquisitions
  • Relocations and building purchases
  • Equipment purchases and facility expenses
  • Minimize income taxes

MANAGEMENT REPORTING
We have experience with designing key management reporting packages that can help you achieve success in your business. We provide suggestions for reports, formats and metrics that are the most meaningful to you. Gathering performance data is critical to helping you manage your business and we can help you go beyond the numbers to get you the information you need.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
We can help you maximize performance by aligning efforts across your functional business areas and tying strategic results to individual efforts. Let our experts help you bring together your strategic plan and the organizational efforts and talents within your business. Getting your team doing the right things is critical to your success.
STRATEGIC MARKETING SUPPORT

We assist clients to identify the right marketing metrics to monitor and measure. In so doing we help our clients to better understand their return on marketing investment. This helps clients to focus on outcomes and results for their marketing expenditures, and helps to guide decision-making in this vital part of our clients’ business.

Related Posts

Strategic Costing Review – Understanding Costs to Gain Competitive Advantage

April 13, 2020

Current market conditions around COVID-19 have reduced workload and forced difficult cost-saving decisions.  In addition, heightened marketplace competition makes it critical that you understand what really drives your profits.  A strategic cost review grounded in the knowledge of your cost structure, workflow and productivity measures can help managers focus on activities that bring the most value and allow you to align your pricing strategies to maximize profits.

CARES Act: Understanding the Paycheck Protection Provision (SBA 7a Loan) Program

April 7, 2020

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act signed into law on March 27 provides $349 billion in funding for the Small Business Administration (SBA) in an effort to provide assistance and relief to America’s small businesses struggling under the weight of COVID-19. The Act included a paycheck protection provision for small businesses by providing additional funding to the SBA for specific areas of need and expanding the SBA’s 7(a) loan program.

Tips and Considerations for Small Businesses Applying for an SBA Disaster Loan

April 5, 2020

Small businesses are now eligible for up to $2 million in Economic Injury Disaster Loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA). President Trump has called for an additional $50 billion in funding to the SBA’s lending program from Congress. While the $50 billion is not yet approved, the SBA can issue an Economic Injury Disaster Loan declaration, thanks to the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act.

Knowing what to expect before starting the loan process will help prevent unnecessary errors and rework. Completing the application process quickly and accurately will be key as there will be high demand and processing times will likely increase. We’ve put together the following summary of what business owners can expect when applying for an SBA loan.  

SBA Providing Disaster Assistance Loans to Qualified Small Businesses

March 20, 2020

Qualified small businesses are now eligible for up to $2 million in Economic Injury Disaster Loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA) after President Trump called for an additional $50 billion in funding to the SBA’s lending program from Congress in response to COVID-19. While the SBA waits for the $50 billion to be approved, they can deliver an Economic Injury Disaster Loan declaration in response to the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act recently signed by the president.

Look closely at your company’s concentration risks

February 6, 2020

The word “concentration” is usually associated with a strong ability to pay attention. Business owners are urged to concentrate when attempting to resolve the many challenges facing them. But the word has an alternate meaning in a business context as well — and a distinctly negative one at that.