Something feels wrong in your business. Let's figure out what — while you still have options.

Most restructuring professionals approach a situation from a legal, accounting, or lending perspective.

I approach it from the ownership side.

I have personally dealt with lenders, partners, creditor pressure, capital shortages, distressed projects, and difficult restructuring decisions.

Owners under pressure often have no one to talk to. You can't tell your employees. Your friends don't run businesses. Your family worries but doesn't see the details. I've sat in that chair — and sometimes the most valuable thing I offer is a confidential, experienced person to think it through with before the decision gets made.

My role is not to replace legal or financial advisors. My role is to help ownership think clearly, make decisions, and navigate the situation.

Some businesses reach a point where normal operating decisions are no longer sufficient. The situation has changed. The pressure is real. And the usual approaches are no longer working.

• –Sales look fine, but cash keeps getting tighter and nobody can explain why.
• –You're the only one who knows how serious it is — and you're carrying it alone.
• –Cash flow is tightening and difficult decisions can no longer be postponed.
• –The lender is asking harder questions and patience is wearing thin.
• –Creditors are becoming more aggressive — suppliers want cash up front, or contractors have started filing liens.
• –Key shareholders or partners no longer agree on the path forward.
• –A major project is consuming capital but not producing results.
• –A leadership transition has created uncertainty across the organization.
• –You're unsure whether to continue, restructure, refinance or exit.
• –Restructuring is on the table — but nobody involved has been through it before.
• –Everyone has opinions, but nobody is making decisions.

These are the situations where I do my best work — bringing calm, practical judgment from someone who has been through them, not theoretical advice.

I haven't just advised owners under pressure. I've been one.

In October 2008, as the subprime crisis hit, a lender declined to renew a $2.1 million development loan and gave me 45 days to repay it. If you've ever looked for new financing after your lender walks away, you know every new lender assumes you're hiding something.

On another project, my operating partner went bankrupt mid-construction. The city made me redo his work — $100,000 and six months — which pushed me past another bank deadline. Hat in hand again.

Then, through Alberta's long downturn, my rental portfolio went from earning $10,000–$15,000 a month to losing $25,000 a month, for three years. I covered it out of my own pocket, refinanced everything I owned, answered lender cash calls, and couldn't sell even at a loss because nobody was buying.

Through all of it, there was nobody to talk to.

I also led the Calgary racetrack and casino project that became Century Downs through CCAA. But it's the years of carrying my own losses that taught me what owners actually need: someone who gets it.

I once paid a mentor $40,000 to help me turn my rental business around. He had me reinvest in better renovations to attract better tenants. What he missed was that I hated being a landlord. The right answer was to get out.

I don't want to make that mistake with you, so I look at two things together.

Practically: put out the fires, make the best decisions about the assets you have, then decide what the business should look like three years from now — as if you were starting it from scratch today. Don't just rebuild yesterday's company.

Personally: the right decision also has to fit you. If you hate managing people, a plan that has you managing more people isn't a good plan, no matter what the spreadsheet says.

Darcy Marler has spent more than 25 years inside real businesses — working through turnarounds, distressed situations, ownership conflicts, capital restructurings, and leadership challenges across real estate, development, and private business.

His experience is not advisory from a distance. He has been the person responsible when the lender is calling, when the partners cannot agree, when the capital has run out, and when the decisions are difficult. He has navigated major creditor negotiations, capital restructurings, shareholder disputes, and distressed projects personally — not as an outside advisor, but as the person in the middle of the situation.

He has seen both sides. Some situations were turned around; others, including some of his own investments during Alberta's long downturn, could not be saved. That combination — the wins and the losses — is why owners find him easy to be honest with. He works with founder-led and privately held businesses primarily in Calgary and across Western Canada.

He is not a consultant selling frameworks. He is someone who has been through serious business pressure — and can help ownership and leadership navigate it.

The following are examples of the types of situations I have worked on or alongside — directly or in an advisory capacity.