Tag Archives: Expert

How Do You Change the Company’s Culture? Six Suggestions

Situation: The CEO wants to change the company’s culture. How can the CEO facilitate “buy-in” to support this cultural change? How do you change the company’s culture?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Encourage staff to think BIG – project 50 years ahead to a $2 billion company with business in 10 countries.
• Ask questions: Can we achieve it? Can you imagine that far? Is it real? What would make it real?
• Encourage participation in this exercise across all functions.
• When one company wanted to make a major change, they brought in an expert to help craft the communication of the changes and to explain it to staff.
• Move fast – don’t go slow. Let people know that it is OK to make mistakes. This is the Try-Fix-Do model that helps to encourage creativity and rapid development of new ideas. It makes going fast less of a risk to the individual.
• Let people know that it’s OK and necessary to challenge each other. Their involvement and input are what’s important. Keep it real and civil.

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How Do You Align Cash Flow with Growth? Eight Points

Situation: A Company is growing faster than its cash flow allows. This concerns the CEO because this growth involves promising technologies and products critical to the company’s future. What can the company do to improve current and new cash availability? How do you align cash flow with growth?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Every growing company has experienced this problem and solved it; so can this company.
  • Grow more selectively. Review the available opportunities and select the most promising and profitable for focus. Restrict progress on less promising options for available time.
  • Search the Internet for books and resources that on this topic. For example, try “101 Techniques to Manage Cash While you Grow”.
  • There are experts, consultants and “Rent-a-CFOs” who specialize in this. Work with trusted contacts and/or search the Internet to identify appropriate resources who are familiar with the company’s industry and market.
  • Explain the situation and challenge to your vendors. Ask for opportunities to extend payments and “borrow” from them.
  • Explain the situation to customers and ask for better payments terms.
  • Borrow from an aggressive bank, factor payables, and/or find additional lending sources that offer attractive payment terms.
  • Be aware of and watch out for pitfalls that may cause serious problems. For example, an extended market contraction can leave the company stretched for cash.

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What Software Version Do You Launch First? Three Suggestions

Situation: The CEO of an early-stage software company has two versions of its software that they could launch. It has an alpha site set up and is configured to serve up to 10K simultaneous users. There are two beta versions that they could launch next. What software version do you launch first?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Use the more basic version for the Beta launch.
    • Restrict the Alpha to individuals within the company until the major bugs are resolved. Once this is ready, proceed to Beta launch.
    • The right target users will be both early adopters who are effective sneezers.
    • Select a segment of the market that is the home of both enthusiasts and sneezers – for example, if it were the music market target dance music – a crowd that is easy to attract.
    • Target a service that many in the game and related early adopter worlds like. At the right time they will sneeze frequently to their friends and contacts.
    • Let the creative audience know that the Beta version is an artist-centric site, but that it will be followed soon by a consumer link that they can tell their fans about.
  • Assemble a knowledge bank of experts to guide the company as it progresses through Beta. These experts can and to help the company prep as fully as possible prior to launch.
  • Crossing the Chasm – when the company is ready for this.
    • Find an appropriate venue that attracts target users. Again, as an example, in the music world this could be American Idol. Through American Idol, the play would be to allow fans to access and download the songs that their favorite contestants sang this week, plus other songs from their favorites.
    • An approach like this quickly opens a large market for a new app.

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How Do You Prepare for a Potential Acquisition? Three Areas of Focus

Situation: A CEO has been approached about a potential acquisition of his company. The offer was a surprise, and the team within the company is split on whether they are interested in a sale. They are currently very happy with what they do. How do you prepare for a potential acquisition?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • How does a company best position itself in advance of discussions?
    • Rebrand the company to boost the value proposition. Make what the company does best the focus of its value proposition. Position the company as the “experts” in this area.
    • Look at a series of possible scenarios that could develop and determine who on the team can best contribute each scenario. This will help to evaluate the implications of each scenario and to rank them in terms of favorability on the company’s terms. It will also help to quickly exclude certain scenarios if they come up during discussions with acquirers.
  • What research should the company conduct on the acquirer?
    • Do a deep dive into the potential acquirer. Research is simplified if the acquirer is public. Go online and look at their SEC and public filings. Look at their revenue trend as well as their profitability or losses.
    • What is the acquirer’s history of acquisitions? Interview people from companies that they have purchased.
    • Don’t pitch anything to the acquirer until you understand what they want to buy – this is critical so that the company positions itself well.
  • What is the best approach to take once the conversation starts?
    • Quick first step – send the company’s financials to the acquirer with a 3-year projection. Ask them, based on this, for a price range that they would consider for the company. If the range is outside of expectations, the conversation is over.
    • Determine whether this looks like a strategic vs. a financial buy. A strategic buy yields a higher price.
    • Cut a deal structure with a bonus tied to success post acquisition. This means a reasonable upfront payment with big payments for future success. This creates golden handcuffs to motivate the company’s staff to stay post-acquisition.
    • There should be multiple options on table – addressing both financial considerations and the future of team.
    • Always be ready to say no!

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How Do You Create a Roadmap for a New Business? Four Suggestions

Situation: The CEO of a new company is building her business. She has a business plan but is struggling to bring in new clients. How do you create a roadmap for a new business?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Creating a new business is a numbers game. Draft a 3-year plan that will generate $1M in billings.
    • The bottom line of the plan is bringing in new clients.
    • Create a financial template that is driven by how many clients it takes to reach the financial goal in three years. Fill out the annual numbers including where new prospects will come from and set quarterly and monthly goals and activities to generate those clients.
  • Develop a marketing “hook.” For example, in the case of business services:
    • Fixed cost business tune-up – a low-level retainer with limits on time and services offered (up to x hours work per month or quarter on y projects)
    • Fixed fee in-house service for small business – again with limits on the services offered
    • Additional services beyond the limited services will be at the company’s normal rates, possibly with a discount to those on the basic retainer service.
  • Create a list of desirable new clients – the company’s sweet spot. Next look for people who can connect the company with these clients.
  • How to get to the target client?
    • This is a funnel question. To build the funnel take three sources of clients: referrals, current business contacts, networking. How many contacts are needed from each source to generate 10 new clients per year?
    • Make presentations to groups which may produce clients or referrals.
    • Get to know the local business people who make referrals.
    • Write articles for magazines that these business people read. Be an expert.
    • To save money, use student interns from nearby colleges and universities to do some of the basic work – target client research, researching and writing articles (make then co-authors on the articles – looks great on their resumes!) This is an inexpensive win-win for both the company and the intern.

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How Do You Manage Conflicting Demands from a Client? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is struggling to manage conflicting demands from a key foreign client. The client frequently changes targets and priorities; however, the performance contract with the client does not allow variations from plan. In addition, the CEO and client have different expectations concerning ROI. How do you manage conflicting demands from a client?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Recruit or access expertise from an individual who knows both cultures to coach you on intercultural communications. This will help you to avoid inadvertent miscommunications where your well-intended queries are negatively interpreted by the other party.
    • Cultural interpretation is an increasingly important factor for multi-national business growth.
  • Are there elements of the client’s structure and the agreement with the client that offer significant benefit, but which are underappreciated by company staff?
    • Access to capital?
    • Access to funding or allowance on expenditures that allow the company to increase staff to meet company demands?
    • Assure that staff are aware of these benefits and how critical these can be to the company’s, and their future growth and income.
  • Meet with the client’s leadership to outline the conflicts that the company faces meeting the client’s needs and demands. Explain to them how these conflicts are compromising the company’s ability to meet their needs. Once the conflicts in priorities are clearly expressed this may help the client to understand and resolve the conflicting demands.
    • This may involve a considerable personal risk and cost to the CEO. However, if the effort is successful it will, in the long-term, benefit both companies.

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How Do You Brand a New Product? Seven Suggestions

Situation: An information services company wants to launch a new product in an existing market. Their current brands are well-recognized with excellent reputations. Should they tie the brand to the company name or current products? How do you brand a new product?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Brand specifically for each product or market – just as consumer product companies brand the same product with unique names for each consumer or commercial market.
  • A brand name is not the company’s identity – Apple as a company has created separate brand identities for computers, iTunes, iPods and serves multiple markets.
  • Attend conventions and survey the target market and current providers. Network to meet people and ask questions about what is important to them and to their buying process.
  • Think about the marketing funnel. The first element is awareness.
    • What are the company and its current brands now known for?
    • Build a brand with value that leverages the reputation and expertise currently valued by customers.
  • Define the current and planned market segments and tie branding to them.
    • Who are they?
    • How do they do it?
    • How will the new product fit?
    • Look at ROI for each market and create a strategy for the optimum combination of speed and profitability of market entry.
  • Tying meaning to a name can be a mistake. When one CEO named her company and service around a specific capacity, she limited the way that it was perceived. She is now considering a complete rebranding to open new markets.
  • Hire expert consultants with experience in developing brands. While this is an investment at the outset, these individuals are better, cheaper, and faster than doing this yourself.
    • Monitor the consultants to assure that they are spending the company’s resources wisely and addressing the company’s needs.
    • Hire someone with a network to gather the data necessary to support the branding exercise, a project manager. Use more expensive resources to plan and manage the exercise, and less expensive resources to gather the data.

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