Stone & Lever helps businesses identify and overcome their growth constraints.
We review the parts of the business that drive performance: sales, marketing, finance, operations, hiring, management, reporting, and customer experience.
We look for wasted spending, weak controls, slow or inefficient processes, missed sales, poor reporting, and outdated systems. Then we focus on the problems that create the most leverage and fix them one at a time.
Depending on the engagement, that can include retraining a sales team or redesigning its processes, improving financial controls, building reporting tools, reviewing marketing performance, hiring and training staff, and creating better operating systems.
We use proven frameworks where they make sense, but no framework accounts for every business. We look at how each company actually operates, identify what is holding it back, and focus on the changes that will have the greatest impact.
Stone & Lever is run by a career operator who has spent years in the hot seat, directly responsible for every business front to back.
He knows what it means to own the outcome, make difficult decisions with incomplete information, manage teams, protect margins, grow revenue, and live with the consequences when something does not work.
That experience shapes how we work with clients. Even at the most basic advisory level, we do a deep dive on the health of the business and the systems driving performance so our recommendations are grounded in the reality of the company.
We do not stop at theory. We focus on what will actually work inside the business and help put those changes into practice.
That depends on the level of engagement.
Our advisory package focuses on analysis, recommendations, and ongoing guidance while your team handles implementation.
Our more involved engagements include direct help putting those recommendations into practice. That can mean building tools, improving processes, training staff, reviewing performance, supporting hiring, and working alongside leadership to make sure the changes actually take hold.
We help with the parts of a business that directly affect growth, profitability, and execution, including sales processes and training, hiring and staff development, operations, financial controls, reporting and KPIs, organizational structure, management systems, customer experience, pricing, marketing strategy, and advertising copy.
We also build tools, processes, and reporting systems that make businesses easier to manage and help teams make better decisions.
There are areas we intentionally do not provide directly. We do not manage paid advertising campaigns, provide SEO or AIO services, or develop custom software. When those services are necessary, we can help evaluate the need, review performance, and work with the specialists responsible for them.
We work primarily with small to mid-sized businesses, typically ranging from about $1 million to $20 million in annual revenue.
Our experience spans law firms, restaurants, multi-unit franchises, brick-and-mortar retail, eCommerce, arts and crafts, publishing, and other service- and product-based businesses.
We do not limit our work to a single industry. The specific challenges vary, but the underlying business problems are often the same: weak sales processes, inefficient operations, poor financial controls, bad reporting, wasted spending, staffing issues, and systems that no longer support the size of the company.
During our free initial call, we review the challenges your business is facing and what you believe is the greatest constraint on growth.
If you choose to continue, we take a top-down look at the performance of the business and create a plan to overcome your constraints.
From there, the level of engagement depends on how much support you want.
If you prefer to roll up your sleeves, execute internally, and want an experienced operator to help you see the risks, prioritize the most important work, and avoid costly mistakes, an advisory engagement may be enough. If you want someone working alongside you to build tools, improve systems, train staff, review performance, and help drive implementation, we can provide that level of support as well.
We will review information about your business, and what constraints you are facing.
To make the most of your call, please be prepared with as much of the following information as possible.
We'll use this information to identify the constraints of the business and determine how we can help.
We start by reviewing the information that shows how the business is actually performing. That typically includes 12 months of profit and loss statements, budgets, marketing and business analytics, staff KPIs, and any other reports relevant to the company.
We then spend several days reviewing the material and forming our own view of where the business is performing well, where it is struggling, and what may be the greatest constraints.
Before we make recommendations, we meet with you again to test those conclusions, fill in gaps, and make sure we are not working from incorrect assumptions.
From there, we build a practical roadmap that prioritizes the problems with the greatest potential impact. We finish with a final review meeting to walk through the recommendations, explain the reasoning behind them, and make sure the next steps are clear.
We prefer to meet at least once a week so we can stay current on what is happening inside the business, review progress, address problems quickly, and keep important work moving forward.
Clients in our more involved engagements will often meet with us several times each week, depending on the work underway and the level of support required.
It depends on the needs of the business and the scope of the work.
Some engagements are focused on solving a specific problem or improving a particular part of the business. Others continue longer because the company is growing quickly, making major changes, or benefits from ongoing support.
Our goal is not to make clients dependent on us. We work to build stable systems and better processes & management practices so the business can operate successfully without constant outside help.
Some clients choose to continue with a lighter advisory relationship after the more intensive work is complete so they still have access to experienced guidance when they need it.
We expect to see improvements within the first 90 days.
How quickly those results appear depends on the condition of the business when we begin. Companies with reliable financials, established reporting, and functioning management systems can often move faster because we have a clear baseline and can focus immediately on the highest-impact problems.
If those foundations are missing, our first priority is building them. A business without reliable financial statements, useful reporting, or basic controls cannot make consistently good decisions, so part of the initial work may involve establishing the information and systems needed to measure performance accurately.
In either case, the first 90 days should produce clear progress: stronger processes, better visibility into the business, corrected problems, and measurable improvements where the available data allows us to track them.
Ongoing engagements start at $5,000 per month.
The final cost depends on how involved you want us to be, the scope of the work, and the level of support your business needs. Some clients primarily need ongoing advice and an experienced outside perspective, while others want us directly involved in implementation, staff development, systems, and operations.
We review those needs with you before recommending an engagement, so you know exactly what the work will include and what it will cost before you make a decision.
The 90-Day Money Back Guarantee is based on where the business starts and what needs to change first.
If a company lacks basic systems such as reliable financial reporting, KPIs, controls, or management processes, the first 90 days may focus on putting those foundations in place. In those cases, the guarantee applies to establishing the systems and improvements necessary to create a stable baseline for future growth.
For more established businesses, we can usually move directly into identifying the problems creating the greatest constraint and begin correcting them.
At the start of the engagement, we agree on the areas we expect to improve and how progress will be measured. As long as the client provides the access, information, participation, and cooperation required to do the work, we guarantee measurable improvement within 90 days or refund the professional fees covered by the guarantee.
Yes, but only as a tool, not as a decision-maker.
We use AI where it improves speed or efficiency, including analyzing large data sets, automating repetitive administrative tasks, and helping build tools that require code.
We do not outsource business judgment or recommendations to an AI model. Research published in Science found that leading AI models affirmed users’ actions 49% more often than human respondents, a tendency researchers call sycophancy. AI can process information quickly, but speed does not replace independent judgment.
Jesse reviews the information, challenges assumptions, and makes recommendations based on the business itself.