Client Case Studies
Case Study: Alice, Ever After Books—Buffalo, NY
“I can’t imagine running my business without your guidance! I have learned so much about important strategies, such as cash flow analysis, that guide the work we do every single day.”
Meg Howe, the owner of Alice, Ever After Books in Buffalo, first contacted me about working together in August 2023. She had reached a point where she felt she’d done all she knew how to do as far as running the operations part of her business, and was looking for outside support to expand her knowledge.
When Meg and I met for our intro call, we discussed her goals and how I could support her. She decided to move forward with a 6 month strategic planning project because she wanted an in-depth, ongoing plan to achieve her goals.
During our planning process, Meg shared her business ideas and goals with me and I created a detailed plan for her to bring them to life. As part of her plan, we also created a cash flow analysis that enabled Meg to see how money was flowing in and out of her business on a month to month basis, and what actions she could take to improve her profitability.
After working through her plan and closely analyzing her cash flow, Meg has experienced growth and success in multiple areas of her business—from finances, to decision-making, to partnerships. A few details from Meg:
In January & February 2024, typically a slower time for retail businesses, her sales were up 85% compared to the same period in 2023.
For 2024 to date, her sales are up 17.1% from the previous year. At the same time in 2023, her sales were down 9.51% from the previous year.
Our work on clarifying her business values and goals enabled Meg to easily decide which opportunities or partnerships to say yes to and which to decline, saving her time and keeping her actions aligned with her values.
Our cash flow analysis enabled Meg to make informed decisions about hiring, paying herself, identifying growth opportunities, and eliminating waste—saving the business money that she can now reinvest.
Meg’s strategic plan was so successful that she decided to renew for a second 6 month plan, which we’re working through now. We’ve even started discussing a third plan, to be launched in early 2025. As a bonus, Meg was able to apply our cash flow principles to managing her personal finances as well. Win-win!
Meg’s clarity of vision, dedication to following through on her plans, and commitment to her community is inspiring. I feel incredibly lucky to support her and the excellent work she’s doing at Alice, Ever After Books.
“The work we do together is infused into daily decisions that go beyond the scope of what we set out to do…I am always more than excited to refer folks to work with you.”
Case Study: Read It & Eat Bookshop—Buffalo, NY
“I never knew a set of monthly goals would work better for me than a daily list. This allowed a little bit more flexibility in my life, so when I had the brain space I would jump headfirst—but if I needed to pivot, I had the grace to do so.”
Kim Behzadi, owner of Read It & Eat Bookshop, Buffalo’s Culinary Bookstore, and Read It & Eat Box, reached out to me about working together in March 2024. At that time, she was experiencing a common challenge of being a small business owner—the feeling of having a never-ending to-do list, with no clear way to get her head above water.
The daily tasks on her to-do list were also taking away from her ability to be a strategic thinker and leader for her business. She had goals in mind but no time to create a plan to tackle them, and in the back of her head was a constant voice, saying “You really need to work on this.” But the time she needed to do that work never seemed to materialize.
When Kim and I met for our intro call, she described needing a sounding board that was not emotionally attached to her business. (As she put it: “Your husband should not be your sounding board all the time.” So true!)
But she also knew she had some major milestones she wanted to hit in 2024, and she needed a roadmap to get there. We agreed that my strategic planning service would be the best fit to serve those needs.
After we created and launched Kim’s 6 month strategic plan, she discovered that having a set of monthly goals worked better for her than a daily to-do list. It provided more flexibility, so when she had the brain space she could jump headfirst into working on her goals, but if she needed to pivot she could do so. When unexpected things came up in her personal life, it was possible to shift the deliverables within each month so she could balance everything.
The work that Kim did to achieve the goals in her strategic plan brought her tangible business results, including:
Long-term revenue growth by divesting from third-party sales platforms and re-directing customers to her own website.
Increased financial stability by establishing monthly revenue targets in alignment with her inventory cost, operational expenses, loan repayment, etc.
Increased operational stability by identifying and investing in bookseller-specific training programs that will help her grow her revenue in the future.
Kim also noted that having a detailed strategic plan in place helped her achieve better work/life balance. Following a plan gave her a feeling of security in a year that was full of personal and professional changes.
Kim described feeling a sense of validation because the strategic planning process gave her the time and space to address her business concerns and ideas with a strategic mindset. Bringing this process out of her head and into a collaborative effort with my support helped remove her doubt and reinforce her confidence in her business intuition and decision making skills.
The most valuable result that Kim experienced from our work together was her ability to act decisively to move her store to a new location, even when the outcomes of that decision were impossible to predict fully. In the face of a daunting business challenge, Kim drew on her confidence and strategic insight to make a proactive decision, and the shop is not only surviving but thriving in its new space—with revenue increasing each month!
Throughout our consulting engagement, Kim’s resilience and action-oriented mindset propelled her to achieve the goals we laid out in our plan, plus tackle additional unforeseen challenges, with grit and good humor. This spring we’ll kick off our second strategic planning process, and I can’t wait to see what 2025 has in store for Kim and Read It & Eat.
“Having a plan made me feel secure in a year that was full of changes (both personal and business related.)”
