Iron Age Business Consulting
If you are a leader in a start-up, scaling-up or grown-up business and feeling challenged with your business’ identity or model in our continuously changing landscape … or wondering how you can create better alignment, focus and accountability with your teams – then Iron Age Consulting can help. With years of executive-level strategic, marketing, innovation and coaching experience – I can help you co-create tools that will enable you to easily capture and communicate your business model, your strategies, your execution plans – and more.
Click the button below to start a conversation. I would love to hear more about your challenges and opportunities.
The Business Model Canvas
The very first thing I like to complete in any consulting opportunity is a Business Model Canvas. This is one of the best tools to fully understand your business and how it will launch, change, and innovate as it grows and responds to new dynamics in the market.
This simple, 9 step tool captures the basic building blocks of your business (e.g. your customer segments, the value you provide them, etc.) so you can easily compare it to your competitors and more importantly, communicate it to your team.
This is the first tool you will use in your arsenal to create alignment and focus. This is the start, the foundation, of how you will create and maintain a common language for your team.
Besides giving you and your team clarity on how your company drives revenue and profit, it gives you a powerful tool to discuss opportunities, changes and threats – that puts everyone on the same page.
Click the button below to read how I walked BMK Coaching thru a Business Model Canvas session, specific to their market.
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You can read more about the Business Model Canvas at strategyzer – who first described the canvas in the book “Business Model Generation”.
Strategy Workshops
“The number-one responsibility of a leader is to catalyze a clear and shared vision for the company and to secure commitment to and a vigorous pursuit of that vision.” — Jim Collins and Bill Lazier, from “BE 2.0”
There is no better tool to deliver this vision, strategy and set of tactical drivers than with a One Page Strategic Plan – the best, being some version of the one described in “Scaling Up” by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles.
I can you walk you and your team through the process of creating a unique One Page Strategic Plan just for your company – which will align and focus your team on the most critical strategies and key initiatives that will need to be executed over the next 1 to 3 years.
This is another incredible tool that will provide a common language for your company and become the starting point for every critical decision that will need attention quarter to quarter.
Click the button below to start a conversation.
Execution Plans and Accountability
A strategy is worthless without clear priorities and action plans.
Your team must be able to take your strategic plan and turn it into a more detailed “set of instructions” to ensure it is executed successfully.
One of the best ways to do this is to create “swim lanes” for each key initiative – which becomes the third key tool I like to help companies develop.
Each swim lane starts with a 12 month SMART goal, followed by quarterly SMART goals and tactics. These become your “instructions” for lack of a better term to give your team – which in turn becomes an accountability tool that ensures it is crystal clear who is doing what, and when.
If you couple this with bi-weekly coaching sessions, you and your team will be communicating on a regular basis – and the business model canvas, the one page strategic plan and your set of swim lanes as a common language to keep everyone aligned, focused and accountable.
If you would like to learn more about how all these tool can work together to create a high performing company and teams, click the button below to start a conversation.
Fractional CMO
If you would like additional help with strategy, execution, or marketing support – I may have openings for fractional CMO work.
Please complete the Contact form below to start a conversation.
Testimonials
In 2023 and 2024, Jeff and I collaborated at AgriPlex in a change management environment. Jeff introduced a number of tools at AgriPlex to improve communication, alignment/focus and accountability.
The Business Model Canvas was introduced to help the entire team better understand the value certain customer segments were choosing AgriPlex for and how that might change if new strategies were introduced.
During this time, Jeff also designed the AgriPlex leadership team and completed our One Page Strategic Plan that identified new key initiatives to drive the business forward. As part of this work, Jeff introduced swim lanes to map out goals and tactics in order to improve the organizational structure.
These tools allowed the AgriPlex team, amongst other benefits, to have better conversations and potentially accelerate decision making.
— Wim van Haeringen, PhD – Co-Founder, MolGen
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I had the pleasure of working with Jeff as he helped our marketing and customer care functions align around a new set of strategies. The team was impressed by Jeff’s professionalism, subject knowledge, and positivity – which were critical in moving us forward.
He introduced a number of tools to help our teams visualize and solidify key initiatives – while ensuring the right people were held accountable to communicate, execute achieve those critical items.
His leadership and guidance in adopting swim lanes to help organize and execute the initiatives within our group was particularly helpful. The implementation of these swim lanes gave our group common SMART goals that were easily to understand and flushed out with specific action items and detail. It was very helpful to see our group’s goals mapped out by year and quarter – with extreme clarity.
Jeff is an amazing asset to any team and the tools he implemented in our group will be used for years to come to both improve communication and drive execution
— Alexandra Carr – Operations Project Manger
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While Jeff joined Agriplex to lead our Marketing efforts, he made many important contributions to the management of the company during a time of transition.
Jeff instituted tools that introduced much needed structure to our mode of project management – which helped to align and focus the team. He was a driving force in the restructuring of the company as the ownership and top management worked through heavy transition. He facilitated the relationship with a key strategic partner, as the two companies merged, and provided advice and consultation to the new board as it focused on new strategic initiatives.
Jeff possesses the ability to look at challenges in a detached mode, identify the “pain points”, suggest solutions, and champion their execution. We have benefited from Jeff’s competencies, as I am sure will any entity he may choose to be associated with in the future.
— Beni Kaufman – Director of Genotyping
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Jeff’s combination of integrity, experience and skills provide a winning combination.
He has the unique capability of being both a strategic collaborator and a “roll up your sleeves-get it done” leader. Jeff is able to take a demanding project, outline the scope, communicate the desired outcome and move the project forward, on-time, on-budget with an outcome that delivers more than expected.
His greatest strength is his ability to be a catalyst in moving from theory to implementation.
— Craig Geller – Sales Operations Consultant
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Jeff is motivated by the core principles of integrity, commitment and organizational trust. He uses these principles to manage daily interactions and commitments. I have personally found him to be of the highest of integrity, and a person that honors commitments.
— Andrew Markese – President and CEO at Image Sensing Systems
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Jeff always has his eye on what’s next and doesn’t settle for the status quo. He does a great job to inspire others to look at things in new ways while always keeping an eye on the overall strategy. He is always interested in ways to improve impact and effectiveness.
— Peter Platt – President at Accountable Digital
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Jeff is the consummate marketing professional. While his technical grasp of the many facets of his chosen craft are superb, I am perhaps more impressed with his incredible drive and passion in support of the overall team.
I would highly recommend Jeff – especially in a cohesive team environment wherein his can-do energy, command of his craft, and creative voice would be encouraged toward the goal of helping the team win.
— Shawn O’Connell – Global President, Energy Systems at EnerSys
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Jeff was one of the most creative and responsive managers I have had the pleasure of working with in my career. His attention to maximizing marketing results and brand development were exemplary.
— Stephen Oaks – Principle at Pacific Management Partners
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Jeff understands that creating a bond between technology, products, corporate cultures and branding is the only way to guarantee success. Mr. Luke is highly recommended as an invaluable resource to any world class organization wishing to improve their marketing, business development and sales departments.
— Bill Shank – Sales and Business Dev Executive