VALUE DRIVERS

Successful entrepreneurs balance an array of factors over many years in building their business. They focus on a compelling need in the market with products or services, bring together unique skills or ideas to differentiate themselves from competitors, raise sufficient capital to launch and sustain their business, demonstrate the creativity and persistence to make it all happen, and usually benefit from a large measure of good fortune.

There comes a time, however, when even the best of these entrepreneurs are significantly challenged — new competition emerges, their industry shifts, the economy falters, or they reach the limit of their skills. They're not sure how to react because they've never developed a truly strategic view of their business. They've never understood the real success of their business has been based on CREATING VALUE.

Fulcrum Partners has learned through years of experience there are two Primary Drivers that create Enterprise Value with companies in this segment of the middle market. When businesses create value for their customers, they have the means to create value for themselves. Building value for customers (Revenue Growth), and optimizing the use of the company's resources (Cash Flow), grows the value of the company. This growing enterprise value, as reflected by accelerating returns on owners' equity (ROE), provides the basis to fund further growth, to distribute profits to ownership, and eventually to provide liquidity in change of ownership.

Our practice concentrates on advising clients how to work toward:

• Consistent, Profitable, Diversified Growth of Revenue. Focus on revenue growth paves the way toward increased market share, broader market presence, critical mass, and deeper pool of talent.
• Increasingly Efficient Cash Flow. Focus on cash flow provides the means for additional growth, broader access to capital for investments, flexibility for meeting unforeseen challenges, and ultimate achievement of ownership objectives.