Grey Snow Customer Success

Finding the path to success means knowing when to pivot. And when an entrepreneur seeks insightful, experienced partners, sometimes they have to look outside their company.

For Franklin Moore, chairman and president of Grey Snow Sovereign Solutions (GS3), he knew he needed a strategic, experienced data-driven team, not to mention powerful forecasting tools. Moore understood something else: An organizational spirit that could try, learn, adapt, and make progress, even in the face of mistakes, setbacks, or challenges, would be key to GS3’s ability to innovate, scale, profit, and succeed.

“I’m a big believer in finding people who know how to do things better than I can,” says Moore, “so I started looking for those people.”

Moore’s search soon led him to Lookahead Advisory—and a fifteen-minute phone consultation that turned into a two-hour deep dive.

Unafraid to pivot and pioneer

Entrepreneurs and innovators understand that success is never a guarantee. The road of leadership often comes with jarring bumps of failure. Moore had learned that the hard way, after a startup experience didn’t pan out and he exited.

As Moore reflected on those experiences, he knew he needed partners who could rely on each other for open discussion not only on where their strategy was working, but when they needed to pivot.

His search introduced him to Peter Gregory (Head of Strategy) and Kathy Gregory (Head of Business Planning) at Lookahead Advisory. Moore scheduled a 15-minute call with Peter to discuss ideas around renewable energy startups.

“Peter has experience in renewable energy. Our fifteen-minute call lasted a couple of hours, into the night,” reflects Moore. “I felt good about being about to share my story with someone who could empathize and understand where I came from, where I am, where I’d like to go. I got that engagement with Lookahead Advisory.”

Today, Lookahead Advisory’s team are partners with GS3, a move that Moore credits with helping him and his team be unafraid to pivot and pioneer.

“Peter and Kathy were incredible at working with us, making sure we were supported, weathering financial ups and downs, strategy changes, and the roller coaster that comes with running a business.”

Powering innovation, independence, and development

Today, with Lookahead Advisory as part of the executive team, GS3 works alongside Tribal nations. Through microgrids, training programs, and green infrastructure, they foster energy, food, and economic sovereignty, development, and innovation, as a way to improve community, personal, and financial health for Tribal members. 

GS3 itself is part of the holding company Grey Snow Management Solutions, LLC (GSMS, LLC). Chartered under Tribal law and wholly owned by the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, since 2019 this corporation has worked to increase Tribal revenues, job and business opportunities, and community development. Enterprises throughout Grey Snow focus on offering reliable solutions for renewable energy systems, fiber communications, technology services, professional services, and regenerative agriculture.

“Before when I was on my own, I liked to think that I’m methodical, analytical, and strategic,” explains Moore. “It’s different when you’re getting feedback from people with years of experience to go alongside it. They can offer input to what’s rolling around in your head.”

For Moore, Peter, and their colleagues throughout GS3, their partnership with Lookahead Advisory has helped them develop and implement a holistic approach for energy solutions and microgrid projects, including

• Grant planning

• Capital implementation

• Feasibility studies

• Budgeting

• Design

• Engineering

• Construction

Moore has seen the difference in momentum, direction, and innovation.

“You don’t always know if something’s going to work out. Now I can bounce things off somebody else. Lookahead has helped us think more strategically about decisions we’re making.”

Partners in developing not just key solutions, but hopes and dreams

With decades of experience advising clients across a range of industries, Peter Gregory knows it can be hard for companies to pivot. Whether an organization is at risk of getting complacent or if a strategy isn’t paying off, an advisory-focused partner can be no key in helping an entrepreneur find their way through hard decisions.

“You need somebody to talk to, somebody to keep you from quitting when things don’t go your way,” explains Peter. “It’s more than coaching. It’s spending the time, caring about the individual, and making mistakes with them, but also backing each other up when you need it.”

Peter and the Lookahead Advisory team view their role not just as guiding the business, but guiding the individual. After all, business is solid numbers, planning, key people, and open discussions on strategy, opportunities, and pitfalls. But Peter understands that it’s something else too.

“We delve into your hopes and dreams of what you want from this,” he says. “We’re not just doing what you want us to do, such as a financial analysis. The engagement we do, is we’re your partners, and our job is to help you succeed. We’re partners in everything.”

Identifying a mutual vision of long-term success

Initially, Moore was running a startup called Sunsource. The idea? Sell renewable energy solutions for other people, and receive a commission. However, the ultimate deal and relationship was between the customer and the energy solution provider, and Sunsource had no further involvement.

“It didn’t go the way we thought it would go,” says Moore, “but that taught us a lot. We developed partnerships, spent money developing a website that we didn’t use at all. But it was a good experience, and I wouldn’t change a thing. We now know who we are and what we want to do. We wouldn’t have figured that out if we hadn’t gone through those experiences.”

As Moore and Peter reviewed Sunsource’s model, they realized a crucial pivot that could transform the business’s potential.

“We wanted to own the customer relationship,” explains Peter. “There was more we could do than just sell for somebody else. We could deliver the system and hire contractors to install, and own the process from the beginning.”

Together, they pivoted Sunsource into development and started looking for the right people to make that happen throughout sales, design, engineering, and construction.

“Now there’s no stopping Franklin and his team,” says Peter. “You have to have the right entrepreneurial skillset, and not many people do. If you do, you need a little help from people who have experience and can help you know how to weather the storm.”

Restructuring operations and vision

Moore and Lookahead Advisory transformed Sunsource’s original initiative to focus on design, construction, and implementation of their own microgrid and other renewable energy solutions. Through Peter’s network, he and Moore realized there was another partner out there: Tribes, such as the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.

Through discussions with the Tribe, Lookahead Advisory understood they had access to grant funding, incentives, and other capital for projects such as renewable energy implementations. Peter helped bridge their needs and resources with the technical and construction know-how that Moore had with Sunsource.

Moore pivoted Sunsource to focus on solar solutions for commercial businesses and nonprofit entities. Peter coordinated GS3 as a joint venture that could bring these multi-million dollar solutions to life. The Tribes could build energy policy, and Sunsource could develop a new approach to growing its business.

“The joint venture leverages the strengths of both entities,” says Peter. “In this case, one and one is eight.”

Peter and Moore both sit on the Board. Lookahead Advisory is engaged as a fractional CFO and CCO for controlling and accounting, as part of their engagement with GS3, Grey Snow, and Sunsource.

“Lookahead Advisory is instrumental in making it all come together and grow it from here,” says Moore. “We went from zero to sixty quickly. We didn’t take seed capital or from the Tribe. We built it from sweat equity and strategic acquisitions.”

Building business that benefits Tribal communities through real-time planning, forecasting, and iterating

While it’s important to have a business plan and a guiding vision, Peter encourages entrepreneurs to always remember that they have to be able to change their plans in real time.

“The Lookahead Advisory story is that you have to draw the line and look ahead,” says Peter. “You have to identify where you have holes and fill them.”

Peter and Moore had recently reviewed cash flow, for example. They gauged where GS3 is currently, and how to prevent any potential cash crunches based on different business scenarios.

“A real-time review of what you’re doing shows you how to adjust operations based on meeting your plan,” says Peter. “It’s balancing operations and plans.”

Moore views these touch points not only as ways to pivot, but to check progress on how GS3 scales. The key is to align impact with approach. For Grey Snow, GS3, and Lookahead Advisory, that’s not only about growing a business and implementing energy solutions. It’s about building Tribal sovereignty.

“A lot of sustainability and self-determination come with Tribe to Tribe partnerships,” says Moore. “From a growth and cost perspective, there’s a lot of benefit to a tribe having ownership in developing these projects.”

From grant management to strategizing cheaper, more reliable power systems, Lookahead Advisory’s guidance has enabled Grey Snow to move forward with its initiatives of economic development and greater Tribal sovereignty.

“The benefits to the Tribes are realized in lower energy costs, reliable infrastructure, and workforce development,” says Moore. “At the core of all that, this is remaining with the Tribal community.”

Complex yet digestible forecasts and modeling show the way to capital and the right people

Lookahead Advisory regularly checks in with Moore on new forecasting and financial modeling, to help GS3 match important numbers to its progress and goals. For Moore, it’s brought him a structured approach to financial planning and forecasting.

”That’s what ensures that the initiatives we’re pursuing aren’t just feasible short-term, but sustainable in the long run. That’s what’s so important to this work,” he explains.

Moore credits regular check-ins, forecasts, and modeling as ways to make sure they’re not getting over the tips of their skis.

“It’s vital to make sure we’re structured to meet project timelines, execute and deliver on these large projects that we’re promising to develop with these partnerships,” says Moore. “It’s a big undertaking.”

While working with complex financial models and variables, the Lookahead Advisory team prides themselves on packaging and presenting the information so that it’s not overwhelming, but approachable. Forecasts become jumping-off points for review and discussion.

“Since they can present these complex financial models in a digestible way, we can present solutions in a digestible way,” says Moore. “We can strategize the grant financing, partnerships, lending, and people who can make this happen.”

And for Moore, a major benefit of the Lookahead Advisory team is finding those people.

“Bringing in the right people is key to success, but you don’t always know the right people,” he explains. “Lookahead Advisory knows those right people. They can say who they think are the right people to bring in.”

From there, Peter and the Lookahead Advisory team understand that bringing in the right people is only the beginning. They work with Franklin to refine working relationships, develop contracts, and navigate challenges, conflicts, or negotiations.

“People think through how to build a business. Then we bring in people who can exponentially work on that value,” says Peter. “We talk things out, strategize, re-strategize. You have to have somebody to go over things with.”

Building sustainable energy and a sovereign economic future

GS3’s work focuses not only on economic development, but increasing sovereignty and sustainability for Tribal nations. Moore keeps that focus front and center on his work with GS3 and Lookahead Advisory.

“Advancing tribal sovereignty is showcased in the partnership model we’ve developed,” says Moore. “Through Tribe-to-Tribe partnerships and a special entity, we bring Tribes into strategy, process, ownership, and company development. They have ownership from day one.”

As Moore and Lookahead Advisory pivot and iterate, they focus on building a GS3 that is a leader in Tribal-owned energy development and operations.

“We’ll have multiple successful microgrids implemented and more in the development pipeline,” says Moore. “We’ll have worked with Tribes, such as the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska that we’re working with now, to have their solutions running. And we’ll pioneer workforce development initiatives that power the Tribal communities that we’ve formed these partnerships with.”

That sense of shared vision not only motivates Moore and his team. It’s something he sees as a natural result of startups, entrepreneurs, business leaders, or pivoting enterprises working with an advisory partner. For other leaders considering an advisory partner, Moore has some advice.

“You can do it. Engage early. Start as soon as you can. You’re in the perfect place,” he says. “Having the right partner to structure a business in a way that supports long-term success is invaluable.”