I advised a couple of them over the past year or so and found that the biggest challenge that they faced was leadership. Employees from top notch companies were hired by them to provide direction, assist in formulating new growth strategies. Success continues to be elude these companies inspite of substantial investment and high cost of manpower.
Employees from top notch companies, may be great strategists but are unable to understand the entrepreneur mind set and come up solutions that are financially not suited to stressed balance sheets. They try and bring in practices from their previous companies without realizing that entrepreneur lead mid sized companies require different solutions.
The answers lie in innovation, low cost experimentation, implementing growth strategies that are acceptable to the owner, open dialogue, consensus building, team work and building on successful strategies.
Turnaround is possible.