Dumas Capital Partners is a boutique corporate finance firm that provides advisory services for M&A, divestitures, capital formation and balance sheet financing. Jack Kearney is a co-founder and currently serves as their Managing Director of Investment Banking. With over 30 years of experience, Kearney’s background includes raising equity and debt capital, M&A, and financial advising. Kearney also holds JD and MBA degrees from Duke University and was a licensed CPA in Georgia.
Business Challenges
Despite experiencing success with companies in the $5M- 150M range, Kearney and his team knew that there was a large market of small businesses they were not targeting. In an effort to expand, Kearney developed a strategy for working with entrepreneurs whose revenue was less than $5M by providing process improvement consulting. The goal of this new initiative was to cultivate and nurture these small business owners into eventual corporate finance clients. In order to do this, however, Kearney needed a coaching platform that enabled him to help businesses build value within their organizations.
Furthermore, Dumas Capital Partners needed an efficient lead generating and prospecting tool in order to identify which small businesses would be a good fit for their services. Finding a tool that had these capabilities would allow Kearney to quickly scale his new business process improvement consulting.
With a renewed focus on working with small businesses, Kearney needed an all-in-one platform that solved all of his issues. The first priority was finding a coaching tool that assisted his business process consulting and value building. To fuel this new service, Kearney was looking for a reliable method to quickly generate leads and qualify prospects. Lastly, the ultimate goal was to help small businesses grow and eventually become corporate finance clients.
Why The Value Builder System™?
With The Value Builder System™ now integrated into his practice, Kearney has found the perfect platform to help him effectively and efficiently advise small business owners.
“The Value Builder System™ has helped us work with smaller companies, led by aggressive and growth-oriented entrepreneurs, whereas in the past, we would not have worked with them at all,” Kearney said. Previously, Dumas Capital Partners did not provide consulting to small businesses, but now with the proper tools in place, they have been able to introduce a new advisory service and generate additional revenue.
Kearney has relied on The PREScore™ (Personal Readiness to Exit Score) as a prospecting tool. This online questionnaire assesses whether or not an owner is prepared to exit their business from an emotional perspective. “The PREScore™ helps us identify prospective clients, and who would be good clients”, Kearney said. “Not only does it ask questions about if they are ready to sell, it helps us identify small business owners who really want to grow their business.” With the goal of converting small business owner clients into corporate finance clients, The Value Builder System™ gives Kearney the ability to recognize potential future customers.
When discussing how targeting small business owners has fueled growth within his company, Kearney said, “25% of corporate finance transactions have come through our association with The Value Builder System™ and the business improvement activities. Using The Value Builder System™ to help business owners build value has proven to be a strong precursor for long term partnerships at Dumas Capital Partners. Furthermore, they have been able to establish a new sales funnel where one in four corporate finance clients first began as a business improvement client.
Kearney has also leveraged The Value Builder Questionnaire as a strong lead generating tool. This 15-minute online assessment provides business owners with the strengths and weaknesses of the business. By presenting business owners with a quantifiable score on each of the 8 Drivers of Company Value, Kearney has been able to begin discussions on how to optimize or improve certain areas. With this tool, Kearney can generate leads in a quick and efficient manner.
As corporate finance advisors, Dumas Capital Partners are not always experts in all of the 8 Drivers of Company Value covered in the Value Builder Questionnaire. Kearney recalled an example where The Value Builder System™ identifies Growth Potential, one of the eight drivers, as an issue for a business owner. This allowed Kearney to refer this client to one of his trusted sales & marketing advisors. By developing strong relationships with other advisors, Dumas Capital Partners has expanded their network, but most importantly, increase the number of referrals they receive back.
Results
The Value Builder System™ has provided Dumas Capital Partners a vital technological partner that has improved their practice in a variety of ways. With business process consulting now in full swing, Kearney uses The Value Builder System™ as a multi-use tool for coaching, lead generating, and prospecting. In addition, Kearney gained a new recurring revenue stream and created a strong pipeline of potential corporate finance clients.
With the help of The Value Builder System™, business process consulting now represents 15% of all revenue. Furthermore, 10-15% of them are able to successfully build value within their business and eventually become corporate finance clients.