Turning Your Employees Into Owners
Phone: 314.283.1589
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Ardent exists to care for, mentor, and share the fate of business leaders.

As a leader, there is no substitute for your determination and sheer willpower. Still, while entrepreneurial grit may have started your company, its ongoing success requires preparing the company and your team for the future.

We provide you the information necessary to get your business and employees ready to forge ahead. We do this through communication, empowerment, and trusting with confidence. When you partner with Ardent, everyone wins: employees, owners, customers, vendors and your business.

Your business’s success is dependent on managing change. We’ll guide you through our process to maximize your future by turning your employees into owners.



Heroic Ownership

Build Your Team, Plan Your Exit, Create Your Legacy

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Have Authentic Conversations

  • Create a “we” instead of an “us vs. them” mentality.
  • Show the numbers.
  • Transfer your instincts.

Identify Your Leadership Team Bench

  • Create a structure where those would-be leaders can emerge.
  • Allow for self-selection of the team.
  • Lead change on a strategic level, not a tactical level.

Transfer Knowledge

  • The worst place to store knowledge is in your own head.
  • Knowledge is not power. Sharing knowledge is power.
  • You must share both the science and the art of business to create a foundation for legacy.

Be an Innovator, Not a Guardian

  • Leaders manage change. If it were not for change, we would not need leadership.
  • Create ways that people in the organization can make changes at the system level.
  • Your legacy is more than a set of processes; it is a mindset.

Trust with Confidence

  • You cannot trust with confidence until you have authentic conversations, emergent leadership, transfer of knowledge, and innovation culture.
  • Trusting means that there is a deep understanding of what ownership really means.
  • Setting up your business legacy requires you to have a clear definition of success and the plan to get there.

We help you achieve your definition of success.

Transitioning a company to new ownership is never easy, and studies suggest that transition is often not what owners expect it will be:

  • 50% of owners expect they will hand down the business to family members, yet in reality this happens only 15% of the time.
  • 30% of owners believe they will sell to their employees; this happens only 5% of the time.
  • 20% of owners believe they will sell to competitors, or that outsiders will purchase the company. These percentages reflect real-world outcomes.

Why the disparity? Our culture has proven we are exceptional at selling assets, however, to transfer the institutional knowledge, business savvy and capacity to carry on the legacy of your organization takes commitment. By following Ardent’s proven process you will successfully navigate this journey of transition with increased options for a providential outcome with a team of employee owners.

  • For over 10 years I’ve applied Scot’s knowledge and experience to my business strategy. Together we analyze trends in my industry to anticipate developing opportunities, and we meet annually to share big picture options for the future of my company.

    Doug Imrie, Southern Cast Products Owner

  • Scot’s intuition about business is consistently spot on. He also has the experience and wisdom to justify his intuition. But I think what makes him great is he is completely present; he is a partner.

    Eliot Frick, Bigwidesky CEO

  • Scot has been an invaluable resource to our leadership team in evaluating issues to be addressed by the management and ownership teams involved in creating our ESOP.  He continually brings value to our company by consulting on system and tool development, and assisting us with the management of our corporate knowledge base and the expansion of our team.

    Kent Bredehoeft, Argus Consulting, Inc. President