People-side advisory for owner-led companies.
I help you get out of your own way.
SGR Advisory helps owners of lower middle market companies reduce the owner dependency that suppresses value and stalls growth. The work starts with the leader. A founder and owner leadership diagnostic builds the self-awareness everything else depends on, then coaching and the organizational design, culture, and leadership development it surfaces carry the change through. Whether a sale is years away or already in view, the goal is the same: a business that can run, scale, and stand without you in the middle of it.
Start with the diagnosticThe owner doesn't need another quarterback.
You lead the company: the customers, the vision, the calls only you can make. I run the option play, the people-side work that takes owner dependency off the board before it caps your growth or your eventual sale. Full disclosure: I am a Husker football fanatic, so the metaphor is personal. Tom Osborne revolutionized college football with the I-formation option at Nebraska, and I have been running some version of it ever since.
Because the most expensive risk in an owner-led business is not on the balance sheet. It is on the org chart, and most of it routes through one person. In the option, the play dies the moment the quarterback will not pitch the ball. Same in a business that runs on its owner.
Owner-led businesses, and the people who advise them.
You are the owner or leader of an owner-led business, roughly $10M to $100M in revenue. You built it and you still run it. Decisions route through you, the bench is thin, and the business cannot yet operate, scale, or sell without you in the middle of it.
Or you are the fractional executive or business consultant already inside one of those companies, hired to move a mandate forward, and you keep hitting the owner as the blocker.
Either way the work is the same: reduce the dependency so the business can move.
I fill the people gap, and I make you look good.
You were hired to move something forward, a technology roadmap, the numbers, the operating system, the brand, the sales engine, and you keep hitting the same wall: the business runs on the owner, and nobody below will decide. That leadership gap can sink the mandate you were brought in to deliver.
Bring me in. I fill the people gap, execute your play, and bill direct, without getting between you and your client. You stay the quarterback. When the owner shifts, your work lands. If a sale later comes into view, I read what deal team exists and bring in the right exit-side partners rather than reaching for your relationship.
Owner dependency is leadership readiness, named from the other side.
In an owner-led business, the owner is usually the most valuable asset and the single biggest risk. Projects stall waiting on one decision. People will not act without a sign-off. Knowledge, relationships, and approvals live in one head. Value is suppressed, growth caps out, and when a sale eventually comes, a buyer prices a key-person discount straight into the number. In football terms, the offense is bottled up: everyone waiting on one player, and no lane opening.
The problem is rarely that the owner is doing the wrong things. It is that everything still routes through them, and no one has helped them see the pattern or build the bench around it.
That is fixable, and it is where I start.
Start at the top. Like everything should.
Founder & Owner Diagnostic
A short discovery conversation gathers the cultural and business context, then a Hogan assessment plus my interpretation builds the self-awareness everything else depends on. It ties the leader's behavior to the business issues and leaves a development plan. Starts at $2,500.
Ongoing Coaching
Monthly coaching that turns that self-awareness into changed behavior and reduced dependency. This is where the pattern actually shifts, and it is the steady base the diagnostic earns the right to.
Deeper Work
Organizational design, culture, leadership development, and the broader people work the diagnostic surfaces, so the business becomes genuinely able to run without you.
Owners come to me directly, or a fractional executive, business consultant, board member, or M&A advisor already working with the owner brings me in. I price and bill direct, the way an accountant does. I never go around the person who opened the door.
Warm with the people. Honest about the pattern.
For 20 years I have walked into messy rooms and put structure where there was not any, across financial services, state government, a luxury brand, and executive coaching at every level. The work I am known for is telling the truth in rooms where everyone else is offering the comfortable version of it.
Now I bring that to owner-led businesses. Owners call me the one person in the room who was not telling them only what they wanted to hear.
I will tell you privately when your own pattern is the thing holding the business back, and then I will help you change it.
The people side is not a personnel issue. It is where the value is.
I did not start SGR Advisory from a tidy business plan. I started it from a crossroads. After a career spent walking into messy rooms and putting structure where there was not any, I kept being the person who would say the candid thing everyone else was avoiding.
That work led me to a pattern I could not unsee. In the lower middle market, owners spend years, sometimes decades, building a business, and over time the whole thing comes to depend on them. It cannot scale past their capacity, cannot run without them, and cannot sell without a discount.
It is not a character flaw. It is what happens when a founder is good enough to hold it all together for long enough.
So I built a firm that starts where the problem starts: with the leader. I assess it, I coach it, and I help build the organization around the owner so the business can finally stand on its own. When the owner can step back and the business keeps moving, everyone wins.
That is why I do this work.
Start at the top. The diagnostic leads, coaching sustains.
1. Founder and Owner Leadership Diagnostic
The front door. A leader-first engagement that reads the situation, assesses the leader with Hogan, ties behavior to the business issues, and leaves a development plan. Starts at $2,500, scaling with the size and complexity of the situation.
2. Ongoing Coaching
Monthly coaching that turns self-awareness into changed behavior and reduced owner dependency. The steady base the diagnostic earns the right to.
3. Deeper Work
Organizational design, culture, leadership development, and the broader people work the diagnostic surfaces, scoped when the situation calls for it.
How engagements start
The owner comes directly, or a fractional executive, consultant, board, or advisor already working with the owner brings me in. SGR prices and bills direct.
Scope boundary
SGR works only in its areas of expertise and stays out of payroll, benefits, and compensation. Administration that surfaces, such as job descriptions, is outsourced so the work stays strategic.
Let's talk.
No pitch. No deck. A real read on where the business runs on you.
If the business runs on you and it is starting to cost you, in growth, in your time, in your options later, the most useful thing I can do is spend 30 minutes on where that dependency actually lives in your situation. Just an honest read on what is routing through you and what it would take to change it.
Book a discovery call