Jim Kahrs is the founder and president of Prosperity Plus, a management consultancy specializing in succession planning. For over 20 years, Kahrs has been helping family-run and small businesses in the office systems industry improve their productivity and increase their profitability. Prosperity Plus also uses those improvements to engage external buyers for a strong exit and to evaluate profitable businesses for purchase. The company has recently added merger and acquisition support to its list of expertise.
Business Challenges
Kahrs was foremost looking for a tool to streamline his lead generation process. His firm, Prosperity Plus, lacked the marketing automation engine and engaging content required to attract business owners in his target market.
In his work guiding business owners through the succession process, Kahrs also discovered two recurring issues. The first was that the next generation of owners often didn’t have the cash on hand to purchase the business from their parents. Secondly, although they may have worked in the business, the next generation often lacked a thorough understanding of how to run the company, much less how to cultivate it for their eventual transition or exit.
These obstacles led Kahrs to search for a tool to accomplish a few things. First, he needed a platform to help generate new business owner leads. Furthermore, he needed a repeatable system to help him quantify a business’s current value and determine areas for improvement to increase value. He also wanted a system that would help train the next generation to successfully run every part of the business on their own.
Why The Value Builder System™?
With The Value Builder System™ implemented in his firm, Kahrs has found the perfect complement to his advisory services. He first leveraged the various lead-generating tools available in the system. Kahrs uses lead magnets, out-of-the-box lead capture forms, and landing pages on his website, social media, and email. He’s also taken advantage of various presentation templates to run webinars, workshops, and one-on-one sessions with his clients. These tools have accelerated lead generation and created a larger pool of prospects to sell his services to. With more business owners in his funnel, Kahrs has found a reliable pathway to recurring revenue.
In addition, through the system’s 12-step coaching platform, Kahrs has found a structured process for clients to follow. Throughout the entire client engagement, he can provide actionable steps they can take to grow their business.
Kahrs also leverages the Value Builder Questionnaire, which consists of 34 questions that assess the business through the eyes of a potential buyer. With the questionnaire, Prosperity Plus can quickly evaluate whether a potential client is a good fit for their services, reducing qualification time. In addition, the questionnaire enables them to assess the business’s health and determine whether a family sale is viable. “If the profitability isn’t there,” Kahrs says, “your options to move a business to the next generation are nonexistent. The Value Builder System™ forces you to look at that.” In addition, Kahrs uses PREScore (Value Builder’s Personal Readiness to Exit Score) then assesses the owner’s readiness, which helps them decide whether it is time to transition to the next generation or improve aspects of the business.
Kahrs and his clients then look beyond profitability to the rest of the 8 Key Drivers of Company Value addressed in the Value Builder Questionnaire. The questionnaire pinpoints areas for improvement and demonstrates how acting on each item increases the value of the business.
Kahrs guides his clients one by one through each of the metrics measured by the questionnaire, using each one as a target for improvement. In solving one of his biggest challenges, Kahrs said, “I can now provide a prebuilt training and education program for the next generation of business owners.”
Utilizing the Value Builder Engagement with his clients, Kahrs said, “These are things that drive value, but they drive value because they improve the business, and they make a business that works.” Now backed by a proven 12-step process for building value, Kahrs has introduced a recurring revenue stream in his practice.
Results
With an influx of new leads generated and a reliable coaching platform, Kahrs doubled his revenue over four years. The Value Builder System™ enables him to bring clients on board with a codified process then navigate them through the decision to pass the business to the next generation or a third party. With The Value Builder System™, Prosperity Plus can effectively attract business owners, quickly assess their needs, and help them through the essential steps of building value.
