Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Consultants Craig Pfeiffer (left) and Guy Moretti help business owners deal with growing pains.

Consultants share business know-how

By Clarence Cromwell

Many small-business owners lack the management and accounting skills to make their companies grow beyond a handful of employees, according to business consultants Craig Pfeiffer and Guy Moretti.

But entrepreneurs can rent those skills from the duo's Saratoga-based consulting firm, The Controller's Office.

Guy Moretti, a former chief financial officer for Basic Measuring Instruments who once worked as an accountant for Intel, founded the company 18 years ago. Craig Pfeiffer, a former tire company executive and a management consultant for 12 years, joined Moretti last September.

The two have been paid members of some clients' boards of directors, spruced up businesses to make them ready for sale and consulted with entrepreneurs founding new firms. Most of their clients are owners of once-small businesses that grew beyond the capabilities of their founders.

"[They are] people who have lost control of the company internally," Moretti said.

Individuals with entrepreneurial spirit are often in love with their start-up companies, Pfeiffer said, and sometimes that stops them from handing important functions over to their managers. But after a company grows so large, one or two people can't handle it all.

Pfeiffer and Moretti teach entrepreneurs to delegate responsibilities and ask their lieutenants for the information they need to run the company.

They also help business owners interpret the data they receive. Moretti turns the company's numbers into easy-to-understand charts and explains what the numbers bode for a business. Pfeiffer uses
his management expertise to help reorganize clients' businesses, based on Moretti's analysis.

"Change isn't easy," Pfeiffer said. "You can provide all this information, and everyone says, 'That's great; what do we do with it?' "

After a few coaching sessions, Pfeiffer and Moretti said, the proprietor can usually handle business without them. For their efforts, the duo charges about $100 per hour. They also have been paid in stock by cash-strapped clients.

The Controller's Office has served more than 60 clients just during the past eight years. Those include Atari Corp. and Warner Communications. They also helped Shelly Williams Inc. of San Jose sell a property management business, and they devised a business plan for Los Gatos-based Reliable Power Meters.

Pfeiffer was previously the vice president and part owner of Cumming-Henderson Inc., a Santa Clara tire sales and service company. He sold his interest in that company in 1989 and ran his own consulting firm, Pfeiffer Business Development, until joining Moretti.

Besides working for Basic Measuring Instruments, Moretti formerly served as vice president of administration and finance for SmithKline Instruments and president of Dental Laboratory Group. He also worked in financial and accounting jobs for Intel, Fairchild Semiconductor and General Motors, before founding The Controller's Office.

The Controllers' Office is located at 14531 Big Basin Way, Suite 5. The phone number is 867-6363.