Tag Archives: Plan

How Do You Redefine the Top Executive’s Role in the Business? Four Points

Situation: The President of a family-owned business that has been in operation for over 30 years wishes to change her role by increasing delegation of responsibility and accountability within the business in preparation for her eventual retirement. Other family members in the business are happy with their current responsibilities and are resistant to taking on more responsibility. What advice does the group have for this member?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Given that you are preparing for retirement, it is important to let others know about your plans and your desire to increasingly hand off your responsibilities to others. Ideally, one or more of the others will express a desire to take on more leadership, particularly if it includes a boost in pay.
• It is important to clarify responsibilities and prioritize which ones you wish to hand off. Once this is done build and execute a hand-off plan.
• Transition current managers who are misplaced in their position to other roles. Work with them to identify alternate roles where their talents can better benefit the company. They may be aware of their current discomfort and welcome the opportunity to take on a different role more suited to their abilities.
• Focus on removing barriers to delegation that may be in place. For example, bring others into the discussion and review the projects that they are overseeing. Identify the challenges underlying those projects and ask for their suggestions on how to address these. Don’t provide the answers. Ask questions and push them to develop appropriate solutions.

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How Do You Find and Keep Good People? Seven Suggestions

Situation: A company needs to both find and retain good people to continue its profitable growth. What experience can the group share to assist the CEO in his efforts to address these needs? How do you find and keep good people?
Advice from the CEOs:
• Before starting the recruitment process create specific position profiles including desired skill sets, qualifications, and functional responsibilities.
• Set up a recruiting team to develop current and future employees and candidates. Offer scholarships to new and existing associates to continue their education.
• Once a new person is hired, create a first 90 day skill set plan. Include challenges that they have to pass, as well as scheduled training and support.
• The first 90 days is critical. If someone slips up during the first 90 days it is taken very seriously as a sign or more to come.
• Profile and hire attitudes as well as focusing on skill sets. Lots of people have skills. It is those employees who possess both the right attitude and right skills who make great hires and who will stay with the company.
• Share the company’s culture and goals. Let candidates and new hires know how they fit into both.
• To boost retention, focus on charities that employees care about. Encourage employees to participate in worthy causes and give them time to support these charities.

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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.

    • 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.

    • 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 Boost the Performance of a Life Sciences Company? Six Suggestions

Situation: The CEO wants to improve the performance of her life sciences company. She has questions about the business plan and roles within the company. She is also looking for better ways to connect with current and potential customers. How do you boost the performance of a life sciences company?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Assess both your own role and the company to ensure that there is good alignment between the business plan and the roles within the company.
  • Be strategic after assessing the company’s needs and situation. Too often companies jump to tactical considerations because they are action oriented. To be effective, tactics must align with the broader company strategy.
  • Build a foundation based on value and compliment this with effective models to communicate and leverage this value base.
  • Think outside the box. Consider options to use or increase the effectiveness of social networking. This has growing dramatically in importance as a way to reach and communicate with key current and potential constituencies.
  • Perception is important. Be aware of what others think of the company and work creatively to present the company in a light that will support objectives.
  • The visual cortex represents 75% of sensory awareness. Leverage this on web sites and in marketing campaigns.

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How Do You Downsize Intelligently? Three Perspectives

Situation: A company has run into a rough patch and needs to cut costs. The CEO is considering a number of alternatives, but wants to hear input from other CEOs on how they have faced this challenge. How do you downsize intelligently?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The key to intelligent downsizing is to take a different perspective. Look at the needs of the business in terms of a 3-5 year plan, not just at what is needed to do to survive today.
    • What key talent will be needed 3 years out? What key roles will need to be filled? Who is on-board today who will be needed in 3 years? How does this affect the decision on where to trim? Are there other options to simply laying off staff?
    • Answering these questions helps to consider options with a rational long-term view.
  • Establish a new paradigm. What do you want the business to become?
    • Is it the same as, complimentary to, or completely different from the current business model? Once the paradigm is developed plan personnel needs in line with this paradigm.
  • Look at all resources proactively.
    • For example, if you are considering moving your offices to a smaller space, look at your vision for the company 3 years out.
    • It may be more sensible to stay where you are and negotiate a new lease with your landlord that is more favorable short-term than paying for multiple moves.

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What are Attributes of a Highly Effective Sales Force? Three Points

Situation: A CEO wants to improve the effectiveness of her sales team. As CEO of a young company she faces a choice between using contract versus direct sales reps. She seeks the advice of other CEOs as to what has worked most effectively with their sales approaches and teams. What are the attributes of a highly effective sales force?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Spend time vetting either contract or your own sales reps:
    • The choice of contract vs. direct sales reps is driven by market conditions and end desires.
    • Utilizing a contract rep is an effective way to gain entrée into the customer. Even though they are 1099s, they must be managed as though they were company employees.
    • It is important to spend considerable time vetting candidates for direct sales. Attitude, desire and commitment are much more important than experience and technical prowess. Spend as much time as necessary to make sure that you are hiring the best people. Test them, check references from employers and customers alike. Leave no stone unturned.
  • Measure:
    • What gets measured get done. Determine what behaviors are necessary for success and develop metrics for these behaviors. This enables you to manage success.
    • For one CEO, the biggest challenge is selling above the gap – selling high and wide within the customer organization. Most reps concentrate their efforts on a few people in the client organization – generally low and mid-level people – and fail to establish relationships with senior management.
    • It is important, and rare, to have those senior relationships. Getting them requires deep understanding of the customer’s business combined with confidence, determination and persistence.
  • Respect and manage reps:
    • Many companies treat sales as a “necessary evil,” setting up an antagonistic and ineffective relationship between sales and other departments. This causes the salespeople to hide much of their information or spend time “scamming the system” rather than working as part of the team.
    • The best companies treat sales as a revenue engine and encourage, value and respect input from the salespeople. This encourages sales to be part of the larger team.
    • There can be challenges transitioning people from a pure product sale to a long term service business relationship – a transition from Hunter and Farmer. Most believe that these are two very different personalities. It may be better having hunters who bring in the business and then transition the customer relationship to account managers to maintain long-term relationships.
    • It may be necessary to design two compensation plans to incentivize the desired behavior of each group.

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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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How Do You Interview for New Hires and Promotions? Part 2, Eight Points

Situation: A CEO seeks advice on interviewing both for new hires and promotions. What advice and guidelines do others suggest to improve interviews? How do you interview for new hires and promotions?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Use an interview process that is consistent with the company’s plan and culture.
    • Start with the company’s mission statement.
    • Next develop the value system.
    • Draft a hiring plan that is consistent with the company’s mission and values and develop a process to support this.
  • Monitor the process over time and improve it through experience.
  • Assure that position descriptions reflect the individual(s) that the company wants to hire.
  • Before starting the hiring process, ask “What problem am I solving?” The answer will help to define the talents and attitudes desired in candidates.
  • Utilize “listening with a plan”.
    • Be clear on how the person being interviewed is delivering their message. Is their language positive, proactive, energized, or lethargic? Do they take responsibility for their own actions? Do they look at positive aspects of the company they work for and the people they work with? The objective is to make sure that the individuals sought for the job display these characteristics.
  • Hire for growth potential, not just to fill the current slot.
  • Hire consistent with the values and culture that the company wants to create and foster.
  • Hire to skills needed rather than value to yourself and the firm.
    • Don’t just hire on cultural aspects. Evaluate and check the skill set against what this person is supposed to accomplish. Getting the skills set right is just as important as getting the culture right.

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How Do You Manage Major Projects? Seven Points

Situation: A company conducts both engineering feasibility studies and development projects. These are high budget projects and must be managed diligently to prevent cost overruns. What have others done to assure that projects are planned and managed to budget? How do you manage major projects?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • What is the structure of most contracted projects?
    • Most projects are fixed price. They come from feasibility studies which are essentially “marketing” for future sales. Typical terms are 30% up front, with the other 30/30/10 upon achievement of milestones and completion of the project.
  • Get complete buy-in from the customer as part of the initial negotiation.
  • Stay ahead of expenses by billing in time to maintain positive cash flow from the projects.
  • Structure pricing so that custom work is profitable if the project mix is 50/50 custom vs. standard work.
  • Push-back if the customer wants to reduce project cost up-front.
  • Carefully document work papers – above what is required by the contract. Get buy-in for this in advance, during the initial negotiation.
  • Once the feasibility study is completed, revise the scope and deliverables of the work agreement based on findings from the study.
  • Separate the “concept” phase from the execution phase and charge a premium for the concept work.
    • Position this as a value to the customer.

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What are the Basics of a One-Page Sales Plan? Four Points

Situation: A CEO wants a simple, one-page plan for her sales organization to help coordinate the company’s sales and marketing efforts. The objective is to boost revenue growth and market penetration with consistent sales messaging. What are the basics of a One-Page Sales Plan?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The key elements of construction are: research, identification of revenue sources, and construction of a Road Map.
  • Three Examples of a One-Page Sales Plan are:
    • The Customer Survey-based Sales Plan – Ask the top 15 customers what the company’s current share of wallet (SOW) looks like and what they need to do to gain additional SOW. Use the responses to identify additional revenue sources and construct the Road Map.
    • The Service Extension Sales Plan – Construct a grid representing the company’s products and services currently offered to potential customers – particularly the company’s top customers. Create a separate grid showing services that the company does not currently offer and ask customers what the company needs to do to make those services appealing to them. Use the information gained to construct the Road Map.
    • The Current and Potential Revenue Sales Plan – Construct a grid representing the customers and markets currently served and by what product or service. Look at additional customer markets not currently served. Estimate the size, new business closure rates, and the total potential market opportunity. Use the information gained to construct the Road Map.
  • The advantages of a One-Page Sales plan include:
    • One page simplifies the process.
    • Summary of current and new targets.
    • Easy to track and measure.
    • Increases the chance of success.
    • Key people get on the same page.
    • Filters out undesirable customers.
    • A plan that can be completed and implemented quickly, cost effectively with a high ROI.
  • Additional Observations:
    • The company’s principal challenge is prioritizing business opportunities. Creating an “Ideal Customer Profile” helps to produce the desired result.
    • The company has limited resources to invest in new projects. Using an effective, low-cost tool helps to maximize the impact of investment.
    • The ideal customer profile will change over time based on the business environment and the company’s long term goals.