Recent Articles
Create Rapid and Measurable Value in Your Portfolio Companies
by John Kopeck
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Keep What You’ve Got! Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
by Dana Borowka, MA
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Nothing Happens Until Somebody Sells Something
by Bill Merrow
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Bank On Your Business And Not On Your Bank
by Andrew J. Birol
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Monthly Tips for the Top Executive
Competing Against Offshoring
Recently, we evaluated a project where an Indian offshore engineering firm successfully won a local contract against several small US engineering firms. The interesting thing about this project was that the customer was a small local startup firm and not a multinational corporation. The Indian company also had a sales office in Colorado. .....more
Create Rapid and Measurable Value in Your Portfolio Companies
Value is created through change. It is as simple as that. Adding rapid and sustainable value to a business is not for the faint of heart. Many investors only want to buy companies that already have the growth and profitability levers in place to create value quickly. .....more
Go Take a Vacation
As entrepreneurs and business executives, the mere thought of taking a vacation away from our responsibilities can stress many of us out. What between preparing to leave, worrying while away and facing unknown disasters upon our return, is really it worth going? Of course it is, but just as much for business reasons as for personal reasons. Time away breaks up your routine and can offer you a fresh chance to practice more control over both your professional and your personal life. .....more
Hitting the Ceiling
The inability to delegate, to “let go,” to trust that others can do a job well, puts a ceiling on the size of many small businesses. These firms grow rapidly, driven by the supercharged overachieving founder. They are profitable because control is tight and well within the span of the founder. .....more
How to Get Control of Your Organization
Over the years, we have enjoyed meeting with CEO Forum members to share what we have learned about building healthy, “high performance” organizations. Quite often, we have learned a great deal from their experience. During one Forum session, members were asked to list their biggest issues in running their respective organizations. The overriding theme from the responses was a feeling of “lack of control.” The Forum members were frustrated with many aspects of their enterprises such as weak leaders, ineffective sales, poor service, and inappropriate systems. For many, the business they had started as a dream was rapidly becoming a nightmare. .....more
Keep What You’ve Got! Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
During the next 10, 20, and 30 years finding qualified sales and customer service people is going to get more difficult, thanks to a shrinking workforce and a maturing population. So… retention of your top people is more important than ever. Attracting talent, retention and training (or on boarding individuals) all fall into one big melting pot. Finding, supervising and keeping employees are not stand alone items – each affects the other. .....more
Lease Negotiations: The Six Biggest Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Who is your best friend when it comes to lease negotiations? Well, it’s not the friendly landlord. Did you know that last month alone an estimated 70% of the tenants that signed leases in our town of San Ramon, California did so without any representation? And the balance was represented by companies that have close ties with landlords. Would you hire a double agent to protect one of your firm’s biggest dollar commitments? .....more
Next In Line – Are You Ready?
Often large, publicly held companies have formalized succession planning processes. Their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders compels them to do so. However, private companies often overlook the need for this important activity even though their fiduciary responsibility to themselves, their families and their employees is no less than it is for larger corporations. If anything there is an even more heightened sense of emotional obligation, yet seldom is succession planning addressed in smaller companies. .....more
No Need to Starve for Top Talent: Lessons on How to Eat Cake
It’s no wonder companies have trouble finding and keeping top talent when even the business experts didn’t know until recently that compensation isn’t the biggest motivating factor after all. Not that compensation is irrelevant; it needs to be competitive. But it’s only one of many things people consider when deciding whether to accept employment with your company, or whether to stay. .....more
Nothing Happens Until Somebody Sells Something
How Will You Sell? Marketing textbooks discuss the 4 P’s of Marketing - Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Well, three out of four’s not bad, but the real issue regarding Place isn’t where you sell, but how. It’s about mastering the four stages of any sales call - building trust, investigating needs, demonstrating capability and gaining commitment. .....more
Sales Tips for Small Business Startups
You have a dream and you are transforming it into reality by starting a business. You have a great product or service and a small but mighty staff. You worked day, night, and weekends to get the business up and running. Now what? As a sales consultant and small business owner, I’m often asked to suggest what the small business startup should focus on most. My answer? Focus on becoming profitable as quickly as possible and sustaining that position, not to mention your sanity, through consistent business development practices. Here are three sales tips I wish I’d known years and years ago. Good luck and super selling! .....more
When Brands and Technology Collide - Understanding the Fusion Factor
When we think of examples of great creativity at work in business, whether it be a hot new product, new service model, or new type of business altogether, we often sit back and wonder, how did they do it? .....more