“Paying it forward” is a term people often use to show their willingness to help others without immediate reward. We, as a team, have absorbed this ethic into our company culture which we call “The C2 Way.” Our culture enables our team members in multiple ways, such as supporting charities, volunteering, and making introductions for people looking for help. Our intention is to be authentic in all that we contribute.
One way that we pay it forward is through our Guided Discovery process. We offer business owners a complimentary two-hour Zoom exploration to help them clarify and tie the drivers of their business to their strategic plans. Why do we offer our time for free to do this? Our passion is to give back our expertise in running our own companies to help others ramp up and achieve their business dreams.
Within the exploration call, owners/CEOs rate eleven drivers of business s
uccess according to the importance to their firm and their performance against those drivers. Then they prioritize the order to fix the gaps. Applying our many years’ experience as business owners, we guide them with questions that help reveal needs and priorities and we follow up the meeting with an opinion on how to cure the largest and most urgent gap on the list. We thoroughly enjoy these conversations as we always learn something ourselves and we enjoy witnessing the business leaders experience “aha” moments as they uncover something new about their business during the process.
We do this as a way of paying forward to the business community. The only investment we ask or the owner is three hours total commitment on Zoom over three separate Zoom calls: 30 minutes introduction/determine fit, two hours in the Guided Discovery exploration meeting, and 30 minutes in reviewing our recommendations. In the end, there are three outcomes: one is “thank you very much and I will work on it on my own.” Another is “I do need your help” where we provide a statement of work. Lastly, they may decide to introduce us to others that they believe we can help. Any of the three outcomes is acceptable to us because it is all about giving back our years of expertise to help other businesses and form trusting relationships.
We believe that paying it forward with intention makes all the difference to the business leader on the receiving end. The receiver may or may not understand the underlying intention, but when delivered authentically, it reinforces the importance of the contribution. This is the foundation of the C2 Way, and why it is transparent, purposeful, and focused on trust. It is this trust that allows us to help other business leaders and hopefully be the spark that ignites new ideas, growth, and a pay-it-forward attitude that just keeps expanding. It works for us and for the business leaders with whom we interact because they are always in control of the conversations and the outcomes. We’re just the conduit.
C Squared Solutions provides interim or fractional CFOs, COOs, and CEO advisors in all industries. We analyze and advise on these issues frequently through sophisticated modeling and experienced management. Give us a call and we can offer more information and details. We have been there and done that!
