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For ESOP Companies, and Companies Preparing for One

Most ESOPs create owners.
Very few create ownership thinking.

Ownership without financial literacy doesn't change behavior.

GRITT builds the financial literacy, leadership depth, and ownership culture that turn shares on paper into owners on the floor. Our team includes the founder of a $100M+ 100% ESOP, the Board Chair of the NCEO, an ESOP Trustee, and a past president of the Heart of America chapter of The ESOP Association.

Talk to Our ESOP Team Get the Free ESOP Culture Health Check

Confidential. 30 minutes. You'll leave with an honest read on where your gaps are.

100% Certified Employee Owned

See how ESOPs actually work in practice

PFSbrands
Built from scratch to $100M+
100% ESOP · 550+ employee-owners · 19 consecutive years of growth
AlaTrade Foods
$1.4M saved in 120 days
1,700 employees · 100% ESOP · Financial literacy deployed plant-wide
20+ Years
Inside the ESOP community
NCEO · ESOP Association · Beyster Institute · Board service
AE

"GRITT helped us implement efficiency Sprints that saved $1.4 million while significantly increasing employee engagement. The financial literacy work changed how our people think about the business - and the results followed."

Andrea Elrod, CFO, AlaTrade Foods · 1,700 employee-owners Read the case study →
Where Are You

Where is your company?

We work with ESOP companies at both ends of the transition. The gaps look different; the fix always starts in the same place.

Preparing for an ESOP

The deal closes on a leadership team, not a founder.

Trustees, lenders, and boards need to see a business that runs without the owner at the center, and employees who understand what they're about to own. GRITT builds both before the transaction, so the ESOP closes on something real.

Talk to our ESOP team →
Already Employee-Owned

The transaction closed. The culture didn't follow.

Your people have shares. Most of them can't explain what drives the value, and the annual valuation comes and goes. That's a financial literacy problem, and it's solvable in one session.

Start with Profit & Cash® →
The Problem Every ESOP Company Faces

The transaction closes. The culture doesn't automatically follow.

You can structure an ESOP correctly and still have employees who don't understand what their shares are worth, how the company builds value, or how their daily decisions affect the scoreboard. The ownership is real. The ownership thinking isn't.

→ Employees have equity. They don't know what drives its value.
→ Leaders can't explain how cash flow connects to ESOP share price.
→ The annual valuation comes and goes. Most employees ignore it.
→ Accountability is harder to build when nobody sees the scoreboard.

That's not an ownership problem. It's a financial literacy problem. And it's solvable.

The Starting Point

The fastest way to build an ownership culture is to teach your people how the business actually works.

Profit & Cash® is a 4-hour simulation that gives every employee-owner - from the plant floor to the leadership team - the financial literacy to understand what their ownership means and how their decisions affect its value.

It's not a training. It's a shift. And most ESOP companies see an immediate change in how people talk about the business after a single session.

✓ Endorsed by the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO)
✓ 500,000+ players worldwide - most played financial literacy simulation in the world
✓ Deployed plant-wide at AlaTrade Foods - $1.4M saved in 120 days
4 hrs

One session changes how your employee-owners think about the business.

Learn About Profit & Cash® Schedule a session for your team →
What GRITT Builds

Three things every ESOP company needs to perform.

Attorneys and bankers close the transaction. GRITT builds what makes it worth having - and what makes it last.

Financial Literacy

Every employee-owner understands how the business makes money, what drives ESOP value, and how their daily decisions move the numbers. Delivered through Profit & Cash®, OPEN BOOK LEADERSHIP® (OBL®), and KPI scorecards.

Key question answered: "How does what I do today affect the value of my shares?"

Leadership Depth

A leadership team that can operate without the founder in the room. Trustees, lenders, and boards need to see this. GRITT builds it through coaching, accountability frameworks, and succession planning.

Key question answered: "Does this business run when the owner isn't here?"

Ownership Culture

A culture where employees act like owners because they understand the connection between their behavior and business value. Built through OBL®, weekly huddles, and execution rhythms tied to shared outcomes.

Key question answered: "Do our people think and act like owners, or just employees with shares?"

How We Build It

Education and structure - the two things most ESOPs are missing.

Having an ESOP is not the same as having an ownership culture. GRITT builds both sides: the education that makes ownership meaningful, and the committee structure that makes it self-sustaining.

ESOP Education

Ownership is only powerful when people understand it. GRITT deploys a structured literacy curriculum at every level of the organization - from the executive team to front-line employee-owners.

  • –Profit & Cash® simulation rolled out company-wide
  • –OPEN BOOK LEADERSHIP®: all employees see and understand the numbers
  • –Annual valuation education - what drives share price and what employees can do about it
  • –High-Performance Huddles connecting daily work to company scoreboards
  • –Train-the-Trainer delivery for large or multi-site organizations
Download the OPEN BOOK LEADERSHIP® brochure (PDF)

ESOP Committees

The companies that sustain ownership culture over time have internal champions and governance structures - not just leadership commitment. GRITT helps establish the committees that keep the culture alive between engagements.

  • –ESOP Committee formation: charter, roles, and cadence
  • –Employee communication calendars tied to valuation events
  • –Internal champion development - people who carry the culture forward
  • –Committee training on financials, ESOP mechanics, and engagement facilitation
  • –Governance structure aligned to board and trustee expectations
The Proof

What this looks like when it works.

AlaTrade Foods · 1,700 Employees · 100% ESOP · Three Processing Plants

AlaTrade transitioned to 100% employee ownership and quickly realized the ESOP structure had no effect on behavior. Employees had shares. They didn't understand what drove their value. GRITT deployed financial literacy across all three plants, built weekly huddles that connected every employee to operational metrics, and ran targeted efficiency Sprints on the processing lines.

$1.4M
Saved in 120 days
2×
Projected retirement wealth vs. avg. 401(k)
↓
Significant turnover reduction
Read the full AlaTrade story →
See It in Practice

Financial Literacy and Ownership Mindset

What changes when every employee-owner understands how the business actually makes money.

Why GRITT for ESOP

We didn't study employee ownership. We built it.

GRITT's ESOP team includes the founder who grew PFSbrands into a $100M+ 100% ESOP, the Board Chair of the NCEO, an ESOP Trustee through Acumen Advisory Services, and a past president of the Heart of America chapter of The ESOP Association. Everything we teach was tested inside a real employee-owned company first.

100% Certified Employee Owned
Heart of America Chapter - The ESOP Association
Meet the ESOP team →
Where GRITT Came From

We didn't learn this in a classroom. We built it inside a real ESOP.

GRITT was developed inside PFSbrands - a company Shawn and Julie Burcham started from their home in 1998 and scaled into a $100M+ 100% employee-owned enterprise operating across 30 states. Every system GRITT brings to clients - financial literacy, OPEN BOOK LEADERSHIP®, leadership development, execution rhythms - was tested and refined in a real ESOP business before it ever reached a client.

When GRITT talks about ESOP, we're not describing something we studied. We're describing something we built.

Free Self-Assessment for ESOP Leaders

Is your ESOP culture actually working?

Most ESOP companies have the structure right. Few have the culture performing. Five questions. Rate each 1 to 5. We score it, show you which of the three common gaps is driving your result, and point you to the fix. Scores stay on your screen.

Rate each question 1 = not true  ·  3 = partly  ·  5 = clearly true. Honest beats flattering.
Start the Conversation

Your ESOP is a structure.
Let's make it a culture.

Schedule a confidential call with our ESOP team. We'll listen, ask the right questions, and give you an honest assessment of where the gaps are and what it would take to close them.

Most conversations start with Profit & Cash®. All of them are confidential.

Talk to Our ESOP Team Start with Profit & Cash®