CrossRoads always offers a free, one-time, completely confidential interview with a potential client.  Ask any and all questions you can think of.  Consult your financial and legal advisors.  It's a great opportunity to try and steal some of our secrets!  From this interview, we both should try to determine the scope of your need and our ability to work together to provide real plans and solutions.  The next step is an engagement letter.  The best step is to roll up all of our sleeves and get to work.

Great question!  If you can, by all means, do it.  Here are some questions to ask yourself:

Have I fixed my company before?  Do I practice exploratory surgery on myself or engage professionals?  How is my health? What is the ramification to me, my investors, my family, if I fail?  Have I failed at changing the Company before?  Why didn't I make these changes before?  Can I use professional support to make change quicker than do-it-yourself? 

Has your Lender assigned you someone new recently who seems a lot less excited about your business?  Are you in Special Assets or Workout?  If so, are you really on par with the knowledge of a skilled Loan Workout Professional?

Might as well get the burning question out of the way.  We approach each of our clients individually.  We structure hourly, project-oriented fixed fee, and success fee based engagements. 

Sometimes it's irritating to anwer questions with questions, but we do it for analytical reasons.  What is the probability of failure?  What is the dollar cost of failure?  Let's answer those questions with examples 30% and $1,000,000, respectively.  Probability now teaches us that we've got $300,000 in expected loss. 

Further, have you calculated the full cost of failure of your turnaround?  Did you include attorney fees for bankruptcy, litigation involving personal guarantys, increases in interest rates from your lenders, loan default fees and costs, increased pricing from vendors?  The toll on your health or marriage?  Not all costs are monetary.  We've been in the trenches fixing companies enough to know when to ask for help.  You should, too.

If you answer zero percent chance of failure in today's economic climate, you are more optimistic than most.  Can you avoid all of this, likely not.  Would it help you to have a professional resource to guide you?

Standard rate:  $195 hour for Senior Member; $85 to $165 for Key Managers; $25 for secretarial.  Compare our rates to the Turnaround Firms in Chicago, Detroit or Cleveland.  We encourage competitor quotes.  We give professional discounts to financial institutions for repeat business. 

We've not lost a client yet who executed a signed engagement letter with a competing Turnaround Firm on rate alone.

Yes, in most instances.  Clients unwilling or unable to manage even a modest retainer might do better providing the funds to the BK attorney.  In a success fee engagement, the retainer is usually reduced.  We try to remain flexible for the situation and the client.

This might be your intuition.  CrossRoads might just agree.  Even then, structuring an asset sale, closure or liquidation is still a daunting task and the process can be expensive, emotionally and physically taxing, unproductive and unprofitable if not managed well.  We can craft a well-thought plan for an exit or closure and include dealing with creditors.

The most common reflex in an owner is some degree of denial. Many times, you are right.  Almost by hearing our name or inquiring into what we and the turnaround industry actually does, you are probably in need of some form of guidance and consultation.  CrossRoads provides a free confidential discussion of your problems. 

CrossRoads believes we are in 'different' difficult times.  The 'new normal' is much worse than the old normal.  It will take commitment, creativity, and much more formal design to fix a company today.  We firmly believe our knowledge can help you and that companies that engage us will benefit now and down the road. 

Yes.  Please note that our clients do prefer to have even the most successful turnarounds limited to a 'need to know' basis.  You can imagine the complexity and myriad of reasons for this decision.  CrossRoads is greatly respectful of this decision though we believe the vast majority of our clients would write thoughtful and glowing testimonials.  Respected law firms and other professionals have witnessed our methods and outstanding results, too.

CrossRoads is proud of its client list, but it's important that we respect confidentiality and decorum.  Many times, non-disclosure is written directly into closing documents for a sale or restructure outcome.  We must be careful with the information,  You will see by the number of transactions and the high level transactional information we can freely disclose that privately held companies, private equity firms, and financial institutions large and small have experienced the professional and success outcomes you desire.