45 Days From Closing. Stabilized in 90.
A regional timber hauler came to their bank asking for more capital. The bank said no — but required them to work with Carrie. Within the first week, she found the problem. Within 90 days, the business was stable. They continued working together for two more years.
45 → 90 days
From near-closure to stability
5
Custom operating tools built
Per-driver
Cost-per-haul visibility (was invisible)
2 years
Continued engagement post-stabilization
The Challenge
The company came to their bank asking for more capital. They were a contract hauler — timber, regional routes — and cash flow had deteriorated to the point where they were roughly 45 days from running out of money and closing doors. The bank declined to lend more, but made one condition: they had to work with Carrie.
She reviewed the books quickly and identified the immediate problem: a second location they had opened as a pilot was bleeding cash. It wasn't obvious from the top-line numbers, but when she isolated the costs, the answer was clear. That location was shut down immediately.
Cash flow visibility was nonexistent. No forecasting tools, no weekly cash position, no way to see a problem before it became a crisis. The business was flying blind on its most critical metric. The pilot location was treated as a growth bet when the data showed it was a cash drain — cost isolation by location didn't exist, so the problem was invisible until it was nearly fatal.
Our Approach
The pilot second location was the immediate problem. When Carrie isolated its costs, the losses were clear and significant. Shutting it down was the first decision — and it happened fast, within the first week of engagement.
Carrie built cash flow forecasting tools and met with the owner multiple times a week for the first month — working through every cash decision in real time. The goal wasn't just to stabilize; it was to build the owner's ability to see what was coming and act before problems hit. The tools tracked: cost per haul by driver, hauls per day and per week by driver, route profitability by lane, fuel cost impact on margin, load weight vs. contract rate, and weekly cash flow projection.
Once stable, the work shifted to building the operational infrastructure that would keep it that way. Driver performance benchmarking quantified the gap between top and average drivers, turning vague "do better" conversations into factual ones. Species-by-weight analysis revealed that certain timber species were being hauled at rates that didn't account for legal load limit differences — leading to customer rate renegotiation. And with real cost-per-haul data, vendor contract renewals became fact-based instead of gut-based.
The Outcome
Within 90 days, the business was stabilized. The bank relationship improved once the numbers told a different story. The engagement didn't end there — 406 continued working with the company for two more years, building out operational tools, improving driver performance conversations, renegotiating contracts, and identifying low-hanging fruit the owner couldn't see before.
Cost-per-haul visibility, driver performance data, and renegotiated vendor contracts are not dramatic outcomes. But they are the kind of operational clarity that compounds over time — and that is exactly what was missing before the engagement began.
Services involved
Industries
Selected client result. Details adapted for confidentiality.
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