Why Fresh Eyes Advisory exists
Most SME owners I meet aren’t short on effort. They’re in the business every single day — closer to it than anyone. That closeness is exactly what makes certain problems so hard to see: slow cash conversion, quiet margin erosion, inventory tying up money it shouldn’t. Not because the owner missed something obvious, but because from inside the business, it rarely looks obvious at all.
I call this pattern Business Blindness — a condition where familiarity reduces visibility, making important issues, opportunities and decisions harder to see clearly from inside the business. It’s rarely dramatic. It builds quietly, in businesses that are otherwise functioning fine, which is exactly why it’s so easy to miss — right up until cash, margin or growth stop adding up the way they should.
Fresh Eyes Advisory exists to bring the outside view back into the picture — and turn it into a plan you can actually act on.
My approach
LOOK → SEE → ACT → SUSTAIN
I step back and take a fresh look at what’s actually happening, get clear on what matters most, turn that clarity into a small number of practical actions, and help keep that perspective in place as your business changes.
See how it works on the Services page →
The businesses that turn a corner rarely do it by looking harder through the same window. They do it by stepping back far enough to look through a different one — which is exactly what I help with.
What makes this different
Not heavy consulting. Not complexity added on top of complexity.
Fresh Eyes Advisory is built around clear thinking and practical direction for the specific problems that actually cost SME owners sleep — profitable growth, cash flow and business value — without a drawn-out process to get there.
About the founder
Rod Turnbull — Founder, Fresh Eyes Advisory
CPA · Bachelor of Business in Accounting with Distinction
I founded Fresh Eyes Advisory after more than 35 years in commercial and financial leadership — as CFO, Financial Controller and Commercial Manager across manufacturing, retail, packaging, wholesale and distribution businesses, including Amcor, Orora, Opal, Calvin Klein Jeans, STA Travel and Country Road. Most recently, I was Executive Manager – Packaging Division at the Opal Group, and before that spent close to a decade as Commercial Manager across Amcor and Orora’s packaging businesses, completing numerous acquisitions, site consolidations, integrations and new site builds along the way.
Sales pipeline discipline was a constant thread through those roles — from CRM and pipeline process improvements as Commercial Manager at Amcor and Orora, through to the specific value I was able to add at Opal in profitable sales growth and sales pipeline process, drawing on a combination of manufacturing, sales and business performance experience.
Working capital and cashflow weren’t a side project either. Early at Amcor, I developed the forecasting tools the business used for profit, working capital and capex; later, at Opal, I was providing ongoing analysis and performance feedback on exactly those same areas to Commercial Managers across the division. In both cases, it was simply part of how the business was run day to day.
And across close to a decade at Amcor and Orora, I was directly involved in a number of acquisitions, site consolidations, closures and new site builds — the kind of work that only happens once you genuinely understand what a business is worth, and what’s holding that value back.
That experience — much of it directly responsible for profitability, working capital, cashflow and capex across very different businesses — kept showing me the same pattern: it was rarely a lack of effort holding a business back. It was familiarity, and the slow, almost invisible loss of perspective that comes from being too close to my own numbers.
The clearest examples of this were the many acquisition integrations — watching packaging businesses change hands while working through exactly the kind of familiarity-driven blind spots I now help other packaging manufacturers and distributors see past.
Fresh Eyes Advisory is built on that observation. I work directly with SME owners and leaders to bring the outside perspective that’s hardest to generate from inside your own business — helping you see clearly again, and act with confidence on what you find.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Start with clarity
Most business owners wait longer than they need to before asking someone outside the business to take a look.
A calm, free conversation. Face-to-face in Melbourne, or remotely across Australia and New Zealand via Microsoft Teams.
Approximately 30 minutes. No preparation required. No obligation.