Back to Focus
During 2022 and into the spring of 2023, I spent most of my time on HomeRun Maintenance and accounting/bookkeeping for Palermo Business Solutions. But when my wife received word of her military PCS, we knew a significant shift was coming, either to Arizona or Hawaii. Once we learned that Hawaii would be our new home, the decision was made to sell HomeRun Maintenance and focus entirely on PBS.
We listed Home Run Maintenance in fall 2023. Within three months, we had a buyer and closed the deal in January 2024.
The Shift
This time, I managed everything with the brokerage independently. I handled the listing, inquiries, NDAs, contracts, due diligence with multiple buyers, and even drafted the closing documents and buyer agreements. No brokers or agents involved, just me.
We relocated to Hawaii at the end of January 2024.
Leading up to that move, a client we currently work with, who’s a partner in several different organizations, referred me to one of his companies for consulting. Through that project, I began exploring outsourced accounting and bookkeeping support, allowing me to return to the cultural development and operational focus of PBS. The bookkeeping was becoming too time-consuming. I wanted to hand it off to someone who could own it.
Over the next few months, I began recruiting. That’s when I met Greg Johnson, CPA, through a job post. Our early conversations sparked something I hadn’t felt in a while, a reminder of what PBS was originally about. Culture first. Greg’s insight and alignment with the mission gave me the chance to hit reset and reconnect to the original blueprint.
Getting Back to Basics
There was a stretch where I seriously considered renaming PBS to “Back to Basics.”
We live in a business world inundated with jargon, where new buzzwords often obscure old ideas. It can be overwhelming, especially when you realize most of us aren’t performing brain surgery or engineering lunar landings. So, the idea of simplifying and grounding ourselves in the essentials felt right.
I started developing what I called the Interconnectivity Map. It illustrated the dynamic relationship between the four consulting categories on which PBS was built: Culture, Operations, Sales, and Financial Management. I mapped how those components must operate in sync, not just functionally, but as interlocking systems of resources, purposefully aligned to reinforce one another.
That’s where the Palermo Synergy Framework came from. And it was going to become our flagship model.
From Map to Model
Once the framework took shape, I began building individual services within each category. They evolved into our consulting pillars.
Operational Excellence, for example, naturally broke into three sub-pillars: People-Driven, Process-Driven, and Systems-Driven. These are the elements that support sustainable, scalable success.
We built out more than 60 services across the framework. Eventually, we scaled back to ~45, refining our offerings with additional services available à la carte, such as business planning and leadership, life, and business coaching.
This Wasn’t Just a Reset
This wasn’t just a new chapter, it was a return to what PBS was always meant to be. The blueprint. The framework. The clarity.
But more than that, it was a sign that we were prepared to build something lasting, and we had the tools to do it properly, not with jargon or flashy talk but with structure, alignment, and purpose.
Next: I’ll explain how what began as a simple update turned into the PBS Blueprint and the complete Back to Basics program. This process helped us understand not just what we do, but also why we built it this way.
