Living for Work or Working for a Living? Six Solutions

Situation: The CEO typically works long hours and frequent weekends. This taxes family life and has resulted in neglect of activities that were previously enjoyed. How do other CEOs maintain a healthy work-life balance?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Life is more than work. Just the fact of your asking this question indicates that you already know that too much focus on work is not good for you.
  • Develop and devote time to your hobbies. The CEO and engineers in one company developed a company robotics club, and even participate in robotic competitions. This has a number of benefits:
    • It provides fun away from work while keeping their creative engineering skills sharp;
    • In the process of competing, they meet and form relationships with potential business partners and customers;
    • It builds camaraderie and cohesiveness within the team;
    • They have the opportunity to involve their kids in this activity, and
    • They translate this into a public service by assisting local schools who have their own robotics clubs.
  • Regular exercise, particularly with a group, helps you to be more effective at work. This is supported by substantial objective research.
  • Involve other people – friends and family – in your hobby or exercise activity – it will help to both strengthen relationships and resist distractions.
  • To assure that this becomes part of your life, put it on the calendar and don’t let other priorities displace it.
  • Learn to say “no” to things that would displace this activity.

Key Words: Work-Life Balance, Hobbies, Family, Exercise, Health, Priorities  [like]

How do you Prioritize Multiple Priorities? Seven Suggestions

Situation: The CEO was just promoted from COO. During the transition, the CEO is responsible both for past and new duties. There is an extensive list of Company priorities. How should the CEO prioritize this list for action?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Key Take-Aways
    • Focus on Executive Committee roles first – the roles of your leadership team.
    • Select your leadership team carefully – the team that will implement your agenda. They will help you make key choices and implement changes and programs. It is essential that this team present a united front as you roll out any changes.
    • As CEO, you are now accountable for the success of the company.
      • Put issues on the table.
      • Gather input and advice from your team.
      • Make your decision on how to move forward.
      • Delegate responsibility and accountability.
      • Rally the team around your decision.
      • Follow-up to assure that things are getting done.
    • Be focused. If you only had the resources to do three things, which would these be? What will bring the greatest short and long-term value to the company?
    • Avoid micromanaging assigned responsibilities.
    • Bring in a consultant to assist you in implementing organizational changes that are necessary for the company.
      • Defining new roles and responsibilities.
      • Correcting behavior of team members that does not benefit the team.
    • As soon as possible, promote, or hire someone to take on your old roles. You will have your hands full as CEO.

Key Words: Priorities, Leadership Team, Accountability, Responsibility, Delegation, Follow-up  [like]

What’s My Role as CEO? Five Perspectives

Situation: The CEO questions whether he is the right person to lead the Company. The Company has solid revenues and profitability, but growth is lower than expected. How can the CEO improve his situation and solidify his leadership?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The primary functions of the CEO are to assure the maintenance of company values, to provide vision, and to monitor resource allocation within the company.
  • Identify your strengths, and the most important areas where you need help. Create an organizational chart not of positions but of strengths that are needed within the company. Compare these positions with your own strengths, and focus your own activities on your strengths. Promote or hire talent to support you in the latter areas.
    • As you hire or promote and delegate, make sure that you are allowing those with new responsibility the latitude to run their areas of responsibility.
  • Should I consider hiring a CEO or COO?
    • Maybe. If you do, first identify the key leadership traits that we most want to see in a candidate.
    • If you hire a CEO, this individual should have skin in the game. They must be perceived as a leader, and there must be a clean hand-off.
    • Consider hiring a COO. This can be someone willing to take this role with the understanding that your long-term objective is to replace yourself as CEO. A person unwilling to come on as COO and to develop into the CEO may not be the right candidate.

Key Words: Leadership, Role, Strengths, Delegation, Organizational Chart, Values, Vision, Resource Allocation, CEO, COO                                                             [like]

Opening a Branch Office – Five Preparatory Analyses

Situation: The Company plans to open their first branch office. There are considering several possible locations. What are the most important considerations as they prepare?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Perform an ROI analysis for the planned office. How is the ROI for the branch office different from your primary office? Look for potential economies of scale in your business model. This may prompt a rethinking of how you generate your products or services.
  • Simultaneously, look at your potential costs per location and the level of business required to (1) break even and (2) to match/exceed home office return in the new location. As you consider different geographical locations, compare costs and potential contribution of each against the others.
  • Decide whether you need to build full operations in your branch offices, or whether you can use a distributed services model, working from a central hub that performs some operations that need not be replicated in the branch offices.
  • Once you have completed these three analyses, perform a make/buy analysis to determine whether you get a better return from setting up your own office or purchasing a local company, if one exists.
  • Lower risk by starting with a relatively low cost operation – essentially a satellite office with minimal staff. As the new office develops initial business, they can be supported by your home office operations. They will serve as local feet on the street to evaluate the true potential and local barriers to entry within the new market.

Key Words: Branch Office, Location, ROI, Economies of Scale, Make/Buy, Barriers to Entry       [like]

Working with an Off-Shore Business Partner – Six Recommendations

Situation:  The Company has an off-shore business partner. Primary concerns involve team performance, process documentation and anticipating sales/marketing problems before they become issues. What have you found effective to monitor these areas?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • At the executive level, keep things simple – identifying the major goals and pieces of projects that are the make-break points.
  • Simplify the high level summary and make sure that all of the supporting activity is aligned with and supports key project or company goals. Some members manage projects with weekly or bi-weekly meetings.
  • The benefit of keeping it simple in your own mind is that you can always return to this simplicity when dealing with detail level queries from the partner. It keeps you grounded and on track.
  • One company uses project timelines that clearly show each of the teams where they fit into the project and how important it is for them to complete their portion of the project on time and to spec. Keep everything simple and direct.
  • Sales tracking and management is different from development projects. Drive monitoring off forecasts, pipeline, and achievement of metrics that track with the forecasts.
  • In working with your off-shore partner, organize your presentations so that the key points of emphasis are readily visible. Have back-up slides to show detail aspects of particular projects or initiatives, and be prepared to cover the details if needed. This will help to build confidence between you and your business partner.

Key Words: International, Partner, Performance, Process Documentation, Sales, Marketing, Alignment, Project Management, Communications                 [like]

How do we Get our Doer/Sellers to Sell? Four Recommendations

Situation: The Company has a geographical sales and service organization. Much of the sales effort comes from the consulting reputation of the managing director of each geographical unit, but he directors’ core values usually favor consulting over meeting sales plans. How do we get these directors to meet sales goals?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Experience turning around a consulting organization with no sales culture:
    • Ours was a 5-year process. It starts with a leader who sells successfully and teaches by example.
    • As we made the transition, we selected new hires for sales skills to compliment their consulting skills. This facilitated our transition to a strong sales culture.
  • You need to commit to build a sales culture.
    • Moving to an account manager team versus an engineering/professional team was a big shift. It takes time and patience.
    • Hire effective sales people to jump-start the process. Most of the successful seller/doers will be new hires.
    • Revise your reward and recognition structure around your objectives.
    • Make rainmakers your best paid people. This will bring others out of the woodwork.
  • Bias sales compensation for doer/sellers toward variable compensation. Allow successful individuals to make over $200K per year.
    • Consider a 3-year phase-in by not increasing base pay through raises. More than make up the difference in available variable pay. Directors will now have more incentive to hit their sales numbers.
  • This is a difficult change in both sales leadership and culture. You may have to make significant leadership changes.

Key Words: Sales, Compensation, Core Values, Consulting, Goals, Reward, Incentive, Transition, Hiring, Culture  [like]

Merging or Selling the Company – How do we Retain Key Staff? Five Suggestions

Situation: The Company has a merger / sale of the company pending. While most direct staff will be retained, roughly half of the indirect staff may be at risk. The CEO’s objective is twofold: to retain key indirect talent before and during transition, and to do right by those who have made strong contributions to the company.

Advice from the CEOs:

  • One member dealt with this a few years ago. They set up a retention fund for important but potentially impacted employees in advance of the anticipated transaction. The longer the employee stayed with the company through the transition, the larger the payout for which they were eligible. In the case of no transaction, the funds were to be returned to the company.
    • An alternate version of this option is to use insurance to fund a retention package for a group of key employees. This package may or may not be required depending upon the transition.
  • For potentially impacted employees, consider a retention package that rewards them for staying long enough to train the purchaser in their areas of expertise.
  • Look at outplacement services as part of the package for employees. Let employees know that this is part of the package if they are not retained post transaction.
  • Seek outside consultant expertise to assist in the design and administration of a retention package. Also look at your own network, and seek the advice of others who are well-versed with the technical aspects of employee transition.

Key Words: Merger, Sale, Employee Retention, Insurance, Outplacement  [like]

Where Can I Find a Good Salesperson? Five Suggestions

Situation: The Company wants to expand its sales force by adding “diamonds in the rough” – hungry individuals motivated by a high commission/low salary opportunity with high total compensation potential. How can they find these individuals?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Hire “out of school” and use a good sales assessment tool to evaluate which candidates have the right attitude and skill set to succeed. Create a career path through a lower paid inside sales position to eventual higher paid outside sales position while the individual gets up to speed understanding your technology and as they develop sales skills. This helps to generate revenue to cover costs while developing new sales candidates.
  • Accept that you will likely experience turnover hiring candidates out of school. High commission sales forces in other industries deal with 85% turnover over 3 years to find “keepers.” This may be a significantly higher level of turn-over than you are used to in other positions.
  • Look to sales job fairs and Craig’s List for candidates.
  • Give your current sales people a bonus for referring friends or acquaintances who will stay with you for 6 or 12 months. Pay out theses bonuses over times.
  • Find a good sales recruiter to find experienced high-producers in industries with a similar product sale.
    • The appeal to these individuals is a high earnings opportunity combined with the chance to sell a sexy product.
    • Because these people will already be high earners, you may have to create a draw system so that they do not have to make too great an earnings sacrifice by switching to your Company.

Key Words: Sales, Hiring, Training, Commissions, Referrals, Bonuses  [like]

Do You have a Disaster Recovery Plan? Ten Recommendations

Situation: The Company wants to be prepared in case of emergencies including water, fire, earthquake, and the possibility that owners or employees may have difficulty communicating or traveling to their offices for an extended period. What have others done to create an emergency response plan?

Advice of the CEOs:

  • One company developed a disaster recovery plan, including:
    • A communication plan.
    • Employees taking notebook computers home in the evening.
    • Data back-up and server restoration capabilities.

The plan was relatively easy to build and is summarized in a 4-page document in the possession of each employee.

  • What have others done to address emergency preparedness?
    • Daily systems back-ups.
    • If you use a web-based CRM, check whether they have a disaster recovery program.
    • Assuring that there are sufficient cash reserves to manage through 30 days with no invoicing or collections.
  • Drafting a full emergency plan is essential. Start simply:
    • Look at the obvious risks in your location.
    • For each that you identify, develop a back up or contingency strategy and put it in place.
    • Let the list of contingencies grow over time as you recognize more risks.
    • Start this exercise NOW.
  • Once you have a plan, drill the plan. Make sure that employees know what to do in a variety of emergencies so that they are prepared.
    • This can build the confidence that your employees will be able to handle emergencies.

Key Words: Emergency, Communications, Preparedness, Systems, Disaster Recovery, Cash Reserves, Risk Management, Contingency, Drills     [like]

We Want to be Different – Not a Commodity! Five Important Steps

Situation:  The Company has had success with a few large clients but wants to expand their customer base for long-term growth. How do they differentiate their products in what is perceived as a commodity market?

Advice of the CEOs:

  • One company created differentiation by getting to know everyone in the business – building long term relationships, based on reputation and trust.
    • They spent time up front understanding the needs of customers that they wanted to develop.
    • As opportunities arose, they built relationships and asked questions to clearly define client needs.
    • While it takes time and patience, the objective is to be able to say “We know your business” – with credibility.
  • The steps:
    • Study the business, sector, and customers that you wish to serve.
    • Leverage the success that you have had with large customers. Talk about how you helped subunits within your large customers. This makes a big customer seem more like a collection of small customers similar to your prospects and makes your experience relevant.
    • Let prospective customers know, when appropriate to the situation, that you are hungry and will go the extra mile for their business. Simply out-serve your competition.
    • Learn who currently serves your prospective clientele. Study these competitors, their strengths and weaknesses. Talk to their customers – learn what they love about competitors’ service, and what they would like to see changed. Find the holes in what they provide and fill these holes with a better offer.
    • Look for and encourage repeat business and references to new business.

Key Words: Commodity, Differentiation, Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Customer Needs, Competition [like]