Most family businesses reach a point in their existence where they ask themselves: Where do we go from here?

Kathleen Pytleski helps them find the answer. She calls her Bloomington-based strategy development firm Sekstant, the Polish word for “sextant,” a maritime navigational device — “I take the [companies] through a process that helps them figure out where they are and where they want to go,” she says. At the heart of her practice is a system that helps business identify the type of market they’re in, which helps them determine the strategic plan and organizational structure they’ll need going forward.

“It’s the most distinctive business strategy tool that I’ve ever come across,” says Tom Hubler, the founder of Minneapolis-based consultancy Hubler for Business Families and the creator of the Minnesota Family Business Awards. “And Kathleen, because of her financial background, is able to demonstrate how profitability will increase as a result.”

Pytleski launched Sekstant in 2008 after working for many years in strategic business development. Earlier in her career, she’d worked in commercial finance and banking. Making loans “wasn’t the fun part, necessarily,” she recalls; what she loved was helping small and midsize businesses thrive and create jobs. That’s one reason Sekstant is “the culmination of everything I’ve done in my career,” she says.

Most Sekstant clients have annual revenue of $5 million to $150 million. That client base extends across a broad range of industries, including nonprofits. About 95% of her clients are family businesses

Her foundational tool is called the Perfect Business Match Assessment, which shows the organization’s leaders how well they’re aligned in their market understanding. The assessment is based on four market “quadrants”—a commodity market, a fragmented market, an innovation-driven market, and a market where certain companies dominate a product or sector. “How you effect strategy in each of those markets is very different,” Pytleski notes.

Once company leaders have an agreed-on understanding of the market they’re in, Sekstant helps them identify a strategy and develop a road map to implement it. Sekstant incorporates accountability and timing into the road map to ensure that each element of the strategy is completed within a set time frame.

One client that came to Sekstant was having difficulty breaking the $10 million annual revenue mark. As with many of her clients, Pytleski and her team stressed the importance of broader decision-making beyond a single leader, which requires more formal processes and controls as a company grows. Working with Sekstant, the client developed a strategy and a road map to diversify its product offerings and client base—and now, it’s a $92 million company.

“Some family businesses have never really been through a true strategy process, so to watch them grab on to the strategy and implement it is fantastic,” she says. “They’re the ones that do the work. I’m just the guide.” —Gene Rebeck

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