Situation: The CEO is moving a key employee from head of engineering to a more customer development focus. To support this, she will have to bring in or promote another employee to fill the position of leader/supervisor/manager of the engineering group. The CEO seeks advice on the best way to approach finding a replacement for this key job. How do you replace a key position?
Advice from the CEOs:
• First, it is necessary to develop a timeline for finding and transitioning the replacement. Realistically, count on 6 months to find a replacement and transition the responsibilities to a new person.
• Keep in mind that anybody you find or promote will be different from the individual who currently occupies the position, and will not handle their new responsibilities the same way as the current individual. Their motivation and their approach to their new responsibilities will be different, at least at the outset, and they will not handle their responsibilities the same way that the current individual does.
• Seek an individual, either currently within the company or an outside hire with strengths that, over time, will add significant value to the organization. Prepare for this by brainstorming and developing a profile of the ideal candidate.
• If you have qualified candidates, the ideal person will come from within the organization. This has the added advantage of demonstrating to other employees that they, also, may become candidates for future positions to grow both their skills and income.
Tag Archives: Growth
How Do You Jump-Start Sales in the New Year? Four Points
Situation: A CEO has been working with his team to jump-start sales to set the company on a positive growth path. His team has come up with some interesting ideas. He would like to hear from others as to what they have done to set their companies up for a year of positive growth. How do you jump-start sales in the new year?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Set up a focused, manageable revenue target list of 30-100 existing and desirable new clients. Focus sales efforts on these clients. This is much more effective than a shotgun approach.
• Touch-up and refresh the target list on a consistent basis. Create and lay out a schedule of contacts by email, telephone or meetings and stick to it.
• Schedule regular meetings with the team to share successes and insights gained from their efforts. Compliment this by awarding points and recognition for the best contributions to the meetings. Rather than deciding on the awards yourself, have the team vote on the best contributions. This will increase the camaraderie of the team and will encourage them to support each other
• Develop a focused network to link to former colleagues. For example, if you’ve worked at other companies join or create an alumni group for those individuals on Linked-in. This can develop unexpected new opportunities.
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How Do You Purchase a Company as a Non-Owner President? Four Points
Situation: The President of a company has a long-standing relationship with the Chairman and Founder, who is also the principal owner of the company. The President joined the company at a time that the Chairman/Owner thought that he was terminally ill and needed an individual who could take over operations as well as leadership. Since then the owner has fully recovered and wants to retake control. The President would like to buy out the owner. How do you purchase a company as a non-owner President?
Advice from the CEOs:
• What role has the President played so far? The President has advised the Chairman on how to grow the company and is leading this growth through developing key customer relationships.
• What is the owner currently doing? The owner has fully stepped back into his prior role, and is micromanaging all aspects of the business, effectively shutting out the President.
• The best way to avoid a situation like this is to negotiate the full deal, including transition of authority and terms of transition of ownership, up front before the signing of an employment contract. Not having not done this, the President currently has no leverage.
• The best option at this point is to have a conversation with the owner and to see whether the owner is open to a transition of either power or ownership. If the owner is not interested, the President may want to consider other opportunities.
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Why Do We Keep Trying to Grow? Three Thoughts
Situation: A CEO is looking at the strategic plan of her company. They are planning for growth but a question arises – what is the balance between work for the sake of the work and work for the reward that it brings? What are the thoughts of the other CEOs around the table? Why do we keep trying to grow?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Step back and ask – what do I seek? Do the same with the members of the leadership team – what do we seek?
• Define what you want and what enough is. There is always the question of whether when reaching the goal will it be enough? Work with your team to discuss and seek a consensus on what their objectives are both for themselves and the company. You may be surprised at what this discussion yields. Two books may help you to deal with this question: The Gap by Dan Sullivan which deals with growth, motivation and satisfaction and Small Giants by Bo Burlingame of Inc Magazine which tells the story of a number of companies that decided that growth is defined by the impact that they have on their employees and communities as opposed to growth in revenue or profits.
• Repeat this discussion with the team at least annually. Expectations develop and change over time. An annual review of plans and opportunities empowers the team to make interesting and valuable contributions.
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How Are You Preparing for Next Year? Two Approaches
Situation: A CEO and his team are preparing for next year. There is a lot of uncertainty as to how the year will unfold and what the economic and financial environment will look like. What are others doing to plan for next year and beyond? How are you preparing for next year?
Advice from the CEOs:
One company built a 5 year plan to 2028 about a year ago.
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- They are now reviewing the plan. Their core has been growing faster than anticipated as a result of the new sales effort. For next year and beyond they are revisiting the plan and revising it both to take advantage of the new sales effort and to leverage this success into other areas.
- Within the plan, priorities for growth have been identified, and the company is on target to double the size of the company in 5 years.
Another company established a Strategic Priority Team a few months ago.
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- They started by setting goals for 2025 to 2030. They followed this with a plan for what they need to do year by year until 2030 to realize this plan. They recognize that there may be speed bumps along the way but have established the internal discipline and capacity to address these.
- Within the plan, they are looking at expanding ther facilities in 2nd half of 2026, and plan to double both their space and staff over the planning period.
- An additional area where they will focus is their current and new business development effort.
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How Do You Frame a Make Versus Buy Decision? Two Thoughts
Situation: A CEO is facing a decision whether to make or buy key technology frequently used by the company. What have others done when faced by similar decisions? What are the most important factors that impacted those decisions? How do you frame a make versus buy decision?
Advice from the CEOs:
- In considering either option evaluate the opportunity by asking whether the technology:
- Complements the company’s core strategic focus – the company’s “Main Thing” – what you are passionate about, what drives your key economic denominator, and what can you be best at in your market.
- Supports the key economic denominator – the single factor that has the greatest impact on the company’s profitability and growth.
- Complements the best use of the company’s critical resources.
- Protects the company’s process secrets.
- Feeds your passion as CEO.
- In evaluating a buy decision look at the strengths of the people who come along with the opportunity.
- Do they complement the company’s strengths or not?
- Will they fit the company’s ecology and culture?
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How Do You Improve a Company’s Profile and Diversify the Customer Base? Seven Points
Situation: The CEO of a high tech company wants to improve the profile of his company for prospective clients. He also wants to diversify the company’s customer base. How do you improve a company’s profile and diversify the customer base?
Advice from the CEOs:
- Develop a good description that easily expresses the company’s value proposition.
- Test this with potential customers to assure that they easily grasp what the company has to offer – and are interested in paying for!
- If the company is early-stage, focus on funding and proof of concept as early milestones.
- If the company has a novel idea or capability, focus on proving the value of this capability to a buying customer base of sufficient value to interest investors.
- Study and define customers’ needs before trying to communicate what the company can do for them.
- Similarly, define the channels that will be most effective in reaching these customers.
- To monetize the business focus on the seekers – those who need and will benefit from the product or services that is being offered.
- If the company offers a free or low cost service, develop a premium offer for enhanced services.
- To market a core set of skills to different customer markets, focus on a theme of reliability.
- Flavor this theme differently through a branding exercise to address the needs and desires of specific customer segments.
- It is both feasible and desirable to market the same set of skills differently to different customer markets.
- Follow the money – it leads to the heart of customer purchase decisions.
- Growth, momentum and the ability to change are essential parts of a successful business model.
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How Do You Improve Morale and Performance in a Professional Services Company? Four Observations
Situation: The CEO of a professional service company says that his employees have been through a lot of stress over the last few years. He wants to improve company morale to boost performance and is interested in how others have done this. How do you improve morale and performance in a professional services company?
Advice from the CEOs:
- Manage Morale and Employee Feedback – In times of economic change and adjustment, it is important to have a good handle on what employees are thinking about their jobs and the company as a whole. The use of anonymous surveys administered via computer or a neutral 3rd party generally yields more objective and honest feedback than 1-on-1s with the CEO. They offer employees an opportunity to anonymously share their concerns, and to offer constructive feedback on how to boost company performance.
- NOW is the time to act – whether the economy is positioned for a rebound or another dip. Employees have dealt with a lot over the last few years and may be starting to look at opportunities outside the company. Therefore, it is important, right now, to put programs in place to:
- Retain high performing employees, and
- Communicate to employees what the company is doing to position itself for growth so that they see a bright future for both the company and themselves as employees within the company.
- Professional services are people-to-people businesses. Focus on relationship building to increase market presence. Recognize and reward employees for their efforts to build new relationships with clients. Use these as examples to inspire other employees.
- Many more women have entered and become an important component of the workforce. Conduct group meetings to compare the experiences of male and female sales people in relationship selling situations. These will differ between purchase decision makers in different markets and situations where one gender vs. the other predominates. Sharing experiences offers the potential to learn from and to support each other as well as to improve performance. Ask employees how these meetings should be conducted and whether they prefer same or mixed gender meetings.
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How Do You Quantify Niche Market Potential? Five Suggestions
Situation: A CEO’s company focuses on a specialized niche market. One of his challenges is that there is little public or chamber of commerce information available on the size and characteristics of their market. How do you quantify niche market potential?
Advice from the CEOs:
- Define the product / service very specifically. To narrow and refine estimates of market size look for the low hanging fruit.
- What are the high growth segments of the target market?
- What are the high growth industries of the target market?
- To determine whether the market opportunity is $100M or $500M:
- Define the company’s market more clearly – particularly the initial beachhead market where there is the potential to gain the most traction.
- Recognize that there may be two markets: a high end market – relatively low gross sales dollars but high margins, and a low end mass market – relatively high gross sales but low margins.
- Contact the originators of available market data to get their assumptions, comparative data and any other findings that may not be published but are beneficial.
- Work closely with customers to build category / industry revenue estimates.
- Segment the most active customers and increase the company’s share of their purchases.
- Develop web site transaction capabilities to offer the company’s line as an adjunct to customers’ web sales.
- Establish a Customer Council or Round Table to better understand the market dynamics and to differentiate the company within the market.
- Sell the product and services’ features and benefits to the C-level, not just to engineers.
- Sell to the CEO / CFO focusing on increasing shareholder wealth.
- Determine a return rate for conversion to the company’s technology.
- Reach out to professional segments that will naturally see value in the company’s process.
- Seek an exclusive relationship with an industry leader to quickly launch new products.
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How Do You Navigate Communication Style Differences? Four Points
Situation: A CEO seeks advice on how other CEOs work with employees who have significantly different styles of communication. He suspects that this is a source of conflict between employees and wants to reduce that conflict. How do you encourage employees to be more open and receptive to other employees? How do you navigate communication style differences?
Advice from the CEOs:
- Conduct regular personnel reviews. In reviews work with the individual to develop personal growth plans in addition to professional development objectives.
- It may be necessary to create enough stress in an interview situation to prompt the real personality to show.
- Recognize that sometimes an employee who meets professional goals can still be a poor fit for the team. This can impact other, productive team members. Don’t be afraid to fire a bad hire.
- How much can you expect to mold another person’s communication style?
- There must be personal motivation to change – the impetus must come from within.
- To prompt the conversation acknowledge that something isn’t working – or isn’t as effective as expected.
- Communicate to the individual that the consequences of not changing are potentially worse than the effort to change.
- Breed adaptive communication skills throughout the organization.
- Use an assessment tool to start the conversation and align tasks.
- In dealing with an individual who is confrontational, probe to determine what is motivating the individual’s question or position on an issue. Does the individual genuinely need additional information or are they using a wall of questions as a roadblock to moving on?
- Work with the individual to organize their answers or input into a plan.
- Communicate values and goals as they pertain to individual contribution and appreciate the impact of different departments’ actions on each other.
- Be flexible – some people need more definition and reinforcement than others.
- Understand that changes and transitions in the company’s focus can shift roles.
- Review each individual’s role periodically to insure that it fits the company vision. This can increase the individual’s understanding of how they are contributing to moving the company forward.
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