William Buckman puts his affinity for management to use for the benefit of small-business owners.
Buckman entered the workforce in the mid-1970s with an engineering degree. As an engineer working on Army ballistic missile systems, he learned he liked managing projects and people and leapt bet
ween the public and private sectors over the years. After leaving Eldec Corp. in 2007 as a project manager, he founded The Buckman Consulting Group Inc.
Buckman, 59, works with small to mid-size businesses, from sole proprietors to companies with 300 to 400 employees. He lives in Langley on Whidbey Island, but all of his clients are in Snohomish, King and Skagit counties. He works with only four to five clients at a time, he said.
The biggest obstacle to business success today, Buckman said, is fear of the unknown.
“Business owners are scared to death to invest because they’re afraid of the future,” Buckman said, “but they’ll fail unless they do something.”
Buckman isn’t looking to profit from others’ business misfortunes and management miscues. He says his clients are often successful despite their naivete and many need help getting organized before they seek a loan from a bank, for example.
Buckman says he tries to find out what the client needs and doesn’t push them into anything they don’t want. His rates range from $75 to $150 per hour, depending on the complexity of the proposed management plan. The contract can be based on time or a budget or the business owner’s desire to solve multiple issues. Buckman works at the client’s pace.
The ultimate cost “depends on who needs what when,” Buckman said.
He starts with the basics: inventory, assets, revenue, cash flow, employees and the like. Buckman said he’s often been surprised by how many business owners aren’t aware of what they have.
Buckman said one client didn’t even know how many vehicles his landscaping business owned.
Getting business owners to delegate duties is another challenge Buckman faces. He said one client told him how much he hated doing the accounting every month. Buckman suggested delegating the dreaded duty so the owner could spend that time doing something that made money for his business.
“I preach to clients that you don’t waste money, you invest it wisely,” he said.
Scheduling employees to work when a business is busiest is something else Buckman teaches owners by analyzing their own data.
“Most companies have the information but they don’t know how to track it,” he said. “If you’re not managing your personnel, you’re not managing your business.”
Talking to employees often reveals problems the business owner doesn’t know or disclose, Buckman said.
“I like to see the whole picture,” he said. “I’m horribly inquisitive.”
Ethics and reputation also rate highly with Buckman. It’s hard to build a reputation but easy to “screw it up and doubly hard to restore it,” he said.
Buckman said he won’t do business with any client who accepts or expects kickbacks or does anything else illicit or illegal.
“If you can’t do business honestly, go do something else,” he said.
Learn more
Contact The Buckman Consulting Group Inc. at 360-579-2572, 360-914-0998 or bcginc@whidbey.net.
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