Consulting & Business Development

Three things: we have built companies ourselves, we stay on board for the implementation — and fiduciary services, digitalisation and marketing are in-house with us. That way a recommendation becomes reality directly, without losses in handover.

For SMEs, trades and founders — from the sole proprietorship to the business with several dozen employees. What matters is not the size, but the will to take the next step consistently.

Both are possible: a focused situation assessment with a roadmap as a project — or ongoing support with regular reviews. Many start with the project and decide afterwards.

Clarity comes quickly: after the analysis you know where you stand and what to tackle first. How quickly results show up in the business depends on the measures — we deliberately prioritise what takes effect early.

Our method is industry-independent: contribution margins, customer structure, bottlenecks and pricing logic follow the same laws in every business — you bring the industry knowledge, we ask the right questions about it. Add to that our own entrepreneurial practice in trade and services. And where we lack specialist knowledge, we say so openly and bring in experts, rather than improvising.

No — the opposite is the goal. We make no decisions for you: we prepare the decision-making foundations, show options with their consequences and structure the process. The decision is made by you, the record is kept by us. Through the numbers-based approach and the clear decision paths, many owners experience for the first time that they really steer their business — instead of just reacting to it.

We ask ourselves that question before you do: every roadmap goes through a capacity check — who is supposed to deliver this alongside day-to-day operations, and with how many hours per week? If the answer is unrealistic, it is staged or cut before anything is decided. And where the hands are missing internally, Tradebonus can implement parts itself — from the web presence and automation to the accounting. A roadmap that only works on paper is not something we hand over.

Everything your business needs to stay able to act without you: a clear deputisation arrangement with powers of attorney, regulated access rights to accounts, e-banking and passwords, as well as documented procedures for payments, wages and key customers. The result is a dossier that takes effect immediately in an emergency — and, along the way, reduces exactly the owner-dependence that makes every business vulnerable. Where desired, in an emergency our fiduciary team takes over parts of the deputisation, for example in payment transactions.

Yes. An acquisition is often a faster route to your own business than a start-up — but also the more demanding one. We support you from the search for and valuation of suitable target companies through the review of figures and contracts to negotiation and completion, including the coordination of financing, legal advice and the commercial register. You decide, we structure the process — so that you don't buy the first company that comes along, but the right one.

When a decision is already made and just needs confirming — or when the willingness to actually implement measures is missing. With us, consulting works through implementation, not through a concept paper. If it isn't a fit, we say so in the initial consultation — that is part of the method.

Yes — this is one of the most common assignments. We recalculate your hourly rates or your product costing from the ground up: full costs, mark-up rates, target margin, price floor. In addition, we compare the pre- and post-costing of completed orders — this shows which jobs really pay off and where hours get out of hand. If we also handle your accounting, the data basis is already in place; otherwise we work with your existing figures. Many businesses cost using rates that have not been adjusted for years — the price floor is usually higher than the gut assumes.

Yes — and the earlier you come, the greater the room for manoeuvre. We prepare an honest crisis diagnosis, safeguard liquidity with immediate measures and support the talks with the bank, landlord and creditors, based on an action plan grounded in figures. Equally clear is what we are not: in the event of capital loss or over-indebtedness, the corporate bodies have statutory duties — their legal assessment and representation are a matter for a lawyer, with whom we coordinate closely. We handle the business-management side; we leave the legal side to the lawyers.

No — and we draw this line deliberately. We structure your financing dossier, prepare the documentation to a bankable standard and support you right into the bank meeting. The loan, lease or guarantee contract is concluded directly between you and the bank; we never take receipt of client funds. We support corporate financing exclusively — we do not broker consumer loans.

Clarity about where your sales function loses enquiries. For a fixed price, we analyse your current process from the first contact to the close: how do enquiries come in, who follows up and when, how many quotes are left unanswered? The result is a pipeline diagnosis with prioritised measures — what gets fixed first and why. Whether you then tackle the implementation with us or on your own is up to you.