A hidden champion is never built by one person. It is built by the people that person made capable. The term hidden champion describes the firm — the quiet, world-class business that leads a category most people have never heard…
There is a difference between a business’s best customer and a customer the business cannot survive without. The second one isn’t an asset. It’s a leash. There is usually one that keeps you up at night. The account that is…
Every privately held business faces one moment that tests everything: the day it changes hands. Most of its value is decided long before that day arrives. It comes for every owner eventually. A sale. Retirement. The next generation. A change…
The hardest truth for an owner to hear is that a business which depends on them isn’t an asset. It’s a job they can’t leave. Most owners discover it on the one week they try to step away. The calls…
Most Hidden Champions owners will exit their business eventually. The financial preparation is being handled. The structural preparation is not. Your accountant has mentioned succession. Probably more than once. The conversation has been about structure — the right entity arrangement,…
Pay is usually the explanation given. It is rarely the structural reason. The people who leave capable businesses are most often leaving a condition, not a compensation package. You have seen this pattern before. Someone joins with energy and ability.…
The business is bigger than it was three years ago. It is working harder. The margin is thinner. Input costs are part of the story. They are not all of it. It usually surfaces around the end of the financial…
Australia’s quiet achievers of manufacturing and industry — and why they have always deserved better than they have been given. There is a category of Australian business you will not find in the startup press. You will not hear about…
ou built it. You grew it. And somehow, twenty years later, it still can’t make a significant decision without you. That is not a time management problem. You know the feeling. You walk back in from a customer visit and…