RROBERTSONBUSINESS CONSULTING
Business strategy & coaching · Metro Vancouver

Run your business, instead of it running you.

Business strategy, coaching, and structure for owner-operated companies. Grounded in real-world experience, from someone who's been through the trenches and knows exactly what it's like.

Book a discovery callSee how it works
Strategic Planning & Execution•Business Operations Consulting•Executive Coaching•Fractional Leadership
If this sounds familiar

Everyone's busy, but you're not moving forward, and you're still the one holding it together.

Most owners reach a point where hard work stops being enough. You're growing, but it's getting harder to hold everything together. Decisions made in the meetings aren't getting executed, changes aren't sticking, everyone's busy but no one's quite aligned. Your business is running on blood, sweat, tears, and gut feel instead of real data, and everything relies on you.

You know the business could be better. You can feel the gap between where it is and where it should be. You're just not sure how to close it, and there's rarely anyone to talk it through with who actually understands what it's like.

What I do

I help you build what your business needs.

No two businesses are the same. Every engagement with my clients is tailored to their own situation and challenges. These are some of the ways I work with you.

01

Business Operating Framework

The core engagement. We assess where the business stands, set the strategy, then build the structure it runs on, and I stay hands-on until your team owns it.

02

Owner & Executive Coaching

A sounding board for the people who make the hard calls. A natural place to start if you're not ready for the full framework.

03

Fractional Leadership

An experienced hand in a leadership seat, part-time, for as long as it helps. The detail of each is on the How I Work page.

More on how I work

What gets stronger

Good structure builds five things into a business.

Each builds on the next, working together to create a business that's easier to run and less chaotic. It shifts from relying on one person to relying on the process, grows steadily and deliberately, and is more profitable and more valuable on an exit.

1
1

Clarity

A real direction, built from your vision and broken into priorities the team understands and owns. People make good calls without waiting on you.

2
2

Visibility

The few numbers that show how the business is truly doing, in front of the people who need them. Decisions on facts, not gut.

3
3

Communication

A structured way information moves, from the leadership team down through every team, so everyone's working from the same picture.

4
4

Accountability

Everyone arrives knowing what was expected and what the numbers say they delivered. No hiding, no blame. I hold you to it too.

5
5

Consistency

Documented processes that reach every part of the business and actually get followed, so it performs predictably, whoever's in the room.

James Robertson, Principal Consultant
Why me

I've walked in your shoes.

For ten years I owned and ran a company through one of the most challenging times in recent memory. Major restructuring, rapid growth, big shifts in the industry, a pandemic, contraction, serious financial trouble, clawing the lost ground back, and out the other side to a successful exit.

I know what it's like to lose sleep over payroll, to have a leadership team that nods in the meeting and then does its own thing, to want the business to be better and not know how to get there. Through my own education, the right people, a lot of mistakes, and help from good outside advisors, I came through it.

That's the work I do now. I help owners build the strategy, structure, and habits that turn a business that depends on them into one that runs and grows on its own. Not from a textbook. From over fifteen years of hard lessons as a business owner and executive.

Read the longer story

Who I work best with

A good fit matters more than a full calendar.

This is for you if

  • You own and run the business, typically with 5 to 40 people and revenue up to $10M.
  • You're growing, but the way you've always run it is starting to strain.
  • You want to make the shift from being the person who does the work to leading a business that works.
  • You're ready to put in the work, not just hear advice.
  • The principles apply to any business, but if you're an MSP or other service-based business I can bring extra value.

It may not be if

  • You want a quick fix you can hand off and forget about.
  • You're looking for a rubber stamp on decisions you've already made.
  • You're not ready to change how things are run.
  • You're already running a business that's working well, growing, profitable, with a clear strategy everyone executes on, that can run without you for an extended stretch.
Straight talk

You'll get the truth about what's really going on, not what's easy to hear.

Real problems only get solved once someone names them plainly. I'll give you an honest, outside read on what's actually holding the business back and what to do about it, even when that's not the answer you were hoping for.

Insights

Plain thinking on the realities of running a business.

Written from the owner's seat, not the lecture hall.

Strategy & Execution

Always busy, never moving? You're working on the wrong things

Win a customer, lose one. Make a hire, two leave. The bottleneck is usually the owner working hard on the wrong things.

Read → Owner Blind Spots

How to evaluate a vendor without getting sold to

You're not just buying technology, you're buying a relationship. The questions that cut through a polished demo.

Read → Thinking Out Loud

When a consultant is the wrong answer

Why would I give you reasons not to hire me? Because a consultant can't want it for you.

Read →

All insights

Start with a conversation.

A discovery call is straight talk about what's going on and whether I can help. No pitch, no obligation.

Book a discovery call