Operations and process
The work moves through the business the same way twice, and you stop being the only person who knows the sequence.
Small-business advisory
Run the business you meant to build.
Northway works with owner-operated companies doing $500k to $5M: big enough to be complicated, small enough that every real decision still lands on the owner’s desk. We sort out the operations, the pricing and the hiring, in that order, and we leave you with something you can run without us.
- Practicing since
- 2014
- Client size
- $500k to $5M
- Ways to work together
- Three
“Most of what we do fits on one page. Getting to that page is the work.”
What owners bring us
Nearly every engagement starts in one of these four places.
Pricing and margin
Know what each job, product or account really earns, then price on that instead of on what the last guy charged.
Hiring and roles
Roles written down, a hiring process that runs on a schedule, and a first thirty days that does not depend on you.
Cash and forecasting
A rolling look at the next thirteen weeks so payroll, taxes and the slow season stop arriving as a surprise.
01 — Engagements
Three ways to work together.
Every one of them starts the same way: a thirty-minute call where you tell us what is happening and we tell you, honestly, whether we are the right people for it.
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- 01
The Diagnostic
from $2,400A hard look at the whole business, then a written picture of what is actually going on and what to do about it first.
Two weeks. Owners who know something is off but keep getting three different answers about what.
What is included - 02
The 90-Day Sprint
from $9,000We pick the one change that moves the most and we install it together, on a schedule, until it holds without us.
Three months. Owners who already know the problem and need someone to drive the fix past week three.
What is included - 03
The Retainer
from $1,800 per monthA standing seat at the table. One monthly working session, a look at the numbers, and a phone that gets answered in between.
Month to month. Owners who have the basics in place and want a second set of eyes on the decisions that matter.
What is included
02 — Results
What changed, in three cases.
Composite examples with placeholder figures, written so you can see the shape of the work. Replace them with your own once you have permission.
Specialty contractor, 14 employees
Every quote was a guess. Two crews were busy all summer and the year still ended flat.
Rebuilt estimating from three years of actual job costs, set three tiers of work, and retired the two job types that never made money.
Gross margin up 7 points
Within two quarters
Two-location retailer
The owner was the only person who could place an order, so nothing shipped on the weeks she took off.
Wrote the ordering playbook, trained two store managers to run it, and moved the business to one weekly number that both stores could see.
Owner's hours down 11 a week
Within 90 days
Regional service company
Hiring was a revolving door. New techs quit inside four months and the good ones were covering for it.
Rewrote the roles, built a thirty-day onboarding a lead tech could run, and changed the pay mix so tenure was worth something.
First-year turnover cut in half
Over one year
03 — About
One principal, one associate, and no slide decks.
Dana W. started Northway in 2014 after twelve years running operations for a family-owned distributor. Owen R. handles the numbers behind every engagement. That is the whole firm, on purpose: you get the people you met on the first call for the length of the work.
- We look at your own numbers before we offer an opinion
- Everything we build is written down and handed over
- We say the uncomfortable thing in week one, not week nine
- If we are not the right help, we say so and point you elsewhere
“Most owner-operated businesses do not have a strategy problem. They have four decisions nobody has made yet.”
Dana W., Principal
04 — Clients
What owners say afterward.
Reviews shown here are placeholders. Replace them with your own Google reviews.
“We got two weeks of questions we had never been asked and one memo that told us exactly what to fix first. I have paid more for less and waited longer for it.”
“The sprint was the first time a plan in this company survived past week three. Somebody kept showing up and asking what happened, and that turned out to be the whole trick.”
“We have been on the retainer for two years. It is the one meeting a month where we talk about the business instead of the fire in front of us, and it has been worth every dollar.”
Start with thirty minutes.
Tell us what is going on. We will tell you what we would look at first, whether or not you hire us. No deck, no proposal you have to decode, no follow-up sequence.