How I work: I make your business better

I help you reduce complexity, and increase your good – and great – business results, including customer satisfaction and profitability

I help you handle or prepare for the change that sometimes hits with great force and little warning.

I help you streamline your operations and business processes, producing results for your customers that make it easy and desirable for them to do business with you again, and to refer you to colleagues and friends.

I help you make your business better to work with, and work in.

What’s it like to work with J. G. Richards Consulting?

On this page I’ll tell you the kinds of results our clients have reported, give you a sense of my values, my approach to client projects, and how I’m different from most business consulting firms.

What results can you expect, when you work with me?

You can expect to see steady, significant improvements, including higher profitability. Costs go down as I simplify operations, eliminate waste and open up new possibilities. Customers are more easily and predictably satisfied with what you provide them, and revenues grow. Good results, like satisfied customers, revenues and profits increase and become easier to achieve.

Your team works better. Communications are easier, clearer, more timely, more complete. What you want done, gets done. More easily. More effectively.

And don’t be surprised if you find that, as a result of our work together, you accomplish much more together than you ever thought you could, individually, and as a team. This work – believe it or not – can be very satisfying, even fun.

Guiding Beliefs and Values

These are the beliefs and values that guide my work:

Strong, visionary leadership is vital to progress, and success. Excellent leadership gives a company or a team direction, focus, and the drive to reach a dream. Without strong, positive leadership, the best any organization can hope to do is to hold steady, hang on, maintain. And for many companies, that's plenty.

Focusing on your customers gives you the direction that you need. At the end of the day, a business exists, and continues to, if it meets its customers’ real needs – some of which customers know, and can tell you, and some of which they don’t.

Management by fact is the best way to grow, and create a business that can succeed over the long-run. Finding and facing facts is not always “fun.” Ultimately having the right information, and using it well is a very good thing. Knowing the truth about the business and how it is working is vital to your company’s health and long-term success.

Solutions must be designed for a world that continues to change. The need to innovate, to change rapidly and change well is a crucial skill for short- and long-term success in any business. Your success depends on your ability to anticipate and be prepared for change – when you can. And when you don’t see change coming your way, success depends on your ability to respond rapidly, appropriately to new and different circumstances – and do so – better than your competition does.

Listening well is essential. It is not a common skill. I listen very, very well. In fact, one client described me as having “some of the best listening skills in the business.” It has been a vital part of our success, and I can use it to help you succeed – more than you even dreamed was possible.

Our Approach

Here’s how I work:

We meet by phone, on the web, by e-mail, in person, or through referrals.

We see if we have a match between what you need, and what I can help you do to go from where you are to where you need to be.

We plan. We size up the barriers that are preventing you from achieving your goals now. This may involve a simple assessment and planning process, or it may require an initial scoping and situation evaluation of the challenge we’re helping you resolve.

We create and implement. I design and work with you and your team to create the appropriate mix of vision, process improvement, measures and monitoring systems, training and coaching that your organization needs in order for you to succeed.

We do what’s needed to move you over, around or through the barriers that prevent you now from achieving the results you seek. Sometimes these barriers are caused by fear of change, or fear of the unknown, if the project or goal is new for you. Other times the barriers consist of perspectives, habits and history that’s still tying you to the past – a past that doesn't exist anymore. We help you develop the individual and team skills, attitudes and beliefs and to get the job done to help you achieve short- and long-term success.

I work with you to ensure a solid hand-off when the project is done so that you can carry on well, on your own. Some consulting firms do not want you to be able to make long-term progress without them. I do. I LOVE your success. Endless dependence on us, the consulting firm? That’s not my style, or my definition of success. I want the project to be completed well, with all of us knowing you’re better off because we worked together – and that you’re well-prepared to continue your progress, on your own.

When a new challenge or opportunity arises in the future, I want you to want to work with us again.

I LOVE YOUR SUCCESS!

Our Uniqueness

I know that the right mix of both “right brain” and “left brain” skills is essential to your success. Many consulting firms emphasize the left brain, “hard skills” of business: analysis, assessment, a plan. Others focus on just the right-brain, “soft skills” of vision-setting, communication, coaching. I'm consistently successful in finding the right blend of “hard” and “soft” skills, and very attentive to both. As a result, I’ve worked very well with many different companies, teams, individuals, at all levels of each organization. I know from experience that your greatest, most sustainable success occurs when there’s high commitment, high engagement and a clear path and practices to accomplish the work ahead.

I love to design and create systems for business excellence that create long-term customer satisfaction, product and service excellence. I love to put you back in the driver’s seat of your business again. Leading, managing, directing resources to where they need to go, rather than just responding to the winds of change, the next economic blow. Customers say that I do a great job of designing systems that will work when viewed at the 40,000 foot level, but also at the ground, or detailed level, where results are ultimately created and sustained.

I work with an eye on the past, present and future. When I work with clients, I work to meet their current needs – taking into account their unique history – with a clear eye, as well, on the long view of your business and your success. I know that the future won’t be a simple extension of the present, or the past. Something will happen – positive, or not – that no one expects. I help you anticipate, prepare, figure out what to pay attention to so you are ahead of the game of change, rather than running to catch up when it happens.

I help you put the fun back into your work life again. Business is a game with very, very high stakes, but a game nonetheless. I help you find your “game” again. I help you bring back the positive focus, the excitement and adrenalin of playing the game well.

Now that you’ve learned how I work, and the kinds of results I'm committed to helping you achieve, learn more about my services.