Questions?
Manage cookies Skip to main content
ZipHealthy

Fixed-Fee Consulting for Northwest Arkansas Owners | [email protected]

ZipHealthy
Home/Business Consulting/Financial Performance
Business Consulting · Money

Run the business on numbers, not nerves.

Most owners feel their finances more than they see them — a checking-account balance and a knot in the stomach. We build the clean monthly picture, the honest margins, and the cash discipline that turn anxiety into decisions.

Not bookkeeping. Judgment.Banker-grade numbers.
01The Problem

Profit on paper, panic in the account

The P&L says you made money; the bank account disagrees. Jobs get priced off habit, the busiest service line earns the least, and risk lives wherever nobody looked — an uninsured gap, a single dominant customer, a personal guarantee long forgotten.

We make the numbers tell the truth: margin by job, service, and customer; a thirteen-week cash view; pricing with intent; and the short list of risks that could actually hurt you, each with a mitigation that fits a real budget.

Objectives

What changes

Monthly numbers you trust by the 10th; prices set with intent; cash predictable enough to plan hires and equipment.

Measures

How we track it

Gross margin by line, days-to-close the books, 13-week cash forecast accuracy, concentration and coverage ratios.

Value

Where it shows up

Money recovered from mispriced work; borrowing on your terms because the bank sees order; an owner who sleeps before payroll week.

02Where We Focus

Four disciplines, one calm owner

01

Visibility

A monthly close that lands on time and a one-page scorecard the owner actually reads — margin, cash, pipeline, and the two numbers unique to your business.

02

Pricing

Cost reality plus market position, applied job by job. The goal isn't raising every price; it's knowing which work deserves you.

03

Cash

Thirteen weeks forward, every week. Collections tightened, payment terms negotiated, the line of credit used as a tool instead of a crutch.

04

Risk

Customer concentration, key-person exposure, insurance gaps, covenant terms — ranked by damage, mitigated by priority, reviewed yearly.

Every engagement runs the same way: conceptual agreement on objectives, measures, and value — then one proposal, three options, one fixed fee.

See how we engage
03Case Studies

An illustrative engagement

Composite scenarios drawn from the kinds of situations we work on. Details altered; client identities not used.

Supplier-ecosystem services firm · Illustrative composite
Objective
End the quarterly cash crunch despite growing revenue and a 'profitable' P&L.
Measures
Days sales outstanding, gross margin by contract, 13-week forecast vs. actual, line-of-credit utilization.
Value
Two underpriced contracts renegotiated, collections pulled forward, and the first year in three without a covenant conversation.

Illustrative composites for explanation of method — not statements of past performance, and not a guarantee of results.

04The Evidence

Grounded in peer-reviewed research

  • Across 732 firms, structured management practices — monitoring, targets, incentives — correlate strongly with productivity, profitability, and survival.

    Bloom & Van Reenen (2007) — “Measuring and Explaining Management Practices Across Firms and Countries,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(4). doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2007.122.4.1351

  • A randomized trial with SMEs: subsidized access to consulting improved productivity and grew employment measurably against controls.

    Bruhn, Karlan & Schoar (2018) — “The Impact of Consulting Services on Small and Medium Enterprises,” Journal of Political Economy, 126(2). doi.org/10.1086/696154

Research informs our methods. Findings describe study populations — not a promise of results for any engagement.

Stephen Velasquez, MBA, MSW, LCSW — principal consultant
Your Consultant

Stephen Velasquez

MBA (Cornell) · MSW · LCSW · Principal

Founder-owner of ZipHealthy for ten years — profitable, with no outside capital — and a former technology-product executive at Amazon, Microsoft, Walmart, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The advice you get has been paid for with the advisor's own payroll, and stress-tested at Fortune 1 scale. Every engagement is led personally, start to finish.

Common Questions

Asked by owners, answered directly

No — we make their work decision-grade. Your bookkeeper keeps the ledger, your CPA keeps you compliant; we build the management view between them: margins, pricing, cash, and risk.

Exactly this service. Concentration risk has a playbook: contractual protection, deliberate diversification targets, and a cash buffer sized to survive the worst quarter while you replace the revenue.

Yes. Lenders and buyers pay for confidence. Clean monthlies, defensible margins, and documented processes move both the answer and the price you're offered.

See your business clearly.

One conversation with the principal — no pitch deck, no junior associate, no obligation. If we can help, we'll show you exactly how we'd measure it. If we can't, we'll say so.

Prefer the phone? (479) 259-1390 · 240 S Main St, Suite #270, Bentonville, AR 72712

Most of our clients come to us by referral from other Northwest Arkansas owners. If someone sent you here — tell us who, so we can thank them.