Tag Archives: Retire

How Do You Replace Aging Talent? Four Options

Situation: A CEO is concerned that all her key personnel are over 50. This includes software engineers who are experts in languages which remain at the foundation of many customers’ databases, but which are no longer formally taught. How do you replace aging talent?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Look at which areas potentially limit the company’s growth. Is it technology and software expertise, or marketing and sales? Based on this assessment, rank the critical positions to be filled and start hiring staff who can grow into the most critical positions.
  • Take a cue from the Japanese. For years their aging workforce was predicted to limit the country’s growth. Instead, they chose to retain employees through their 70s and this has helped them to maintain both productivity and employment.
    • Many Baby Boomers are finding that they don’t have the savings to retire and are working well past the historic retirement age.
    • Other Baby Boomers retired but found themselves bored after a productive career and have returned to the labor pool.
    • These factors may delay the company’s need to replace aging talent.
  • The bigger question is what to do if a key player is lost. Focus on hiring back-ups to key personnel and allow several years for them to come up to full speed. Current employment trends suggest that numbers of experienced people are returning to the labor pool. Look for a few good people to add to the team.
  • What are the plans of the company’s key clients? Do they plan to stay with the company’s products and expertise, or to sunset these and replace them with new technology? Adjust operational objectives, as well as the exit strategy, to achieve desired growth given customers’ timeframes.

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What Is a Favorable Exit Strategy? Three Points

Situation: A CEO is contemplating retiring in the next two years. The company is profitable but is primarily dependent upon a single large client for whom the CEO is the primary contact. Compared to national averages the company’s profitability is very favorable. The CEO questions whether his valuation of the company is reasonable. What is a favorable exit strategy?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • The principal question from the group is whether the anticipated valuation on exit will yield the financial rewards that the CEO requires.
    • The buyer will discount the value of the current business because the CEO is too important to the business, and because they will not assume that there is ongoing value to the current business beyond 2-3 years.
    • The best option is to sell to a buyer who wants entry into the key client. They will have reasons beyond the value of the company to pay a premium for this access.
    • For planning purposes put the value at 2-3 years of the cash that the CEO takes out of the company, discounted to present value plus some premium for the entry that the buyer seeks. Look at the dollars that this will yield and decide whether this sum is a satisfactory payment.
  • Concerning the company’s relationship with the key client:
    • The company’s reliance on the key client is two-fold – they are the key customer, and they drive the market which yields a premium price for the company’s products.
    • Purchasers do not like to be dependent on a single supplier. Their purchasing department will always be looking for alternative sources.
    • During the exit window it is critical to develop new customer relationships to sustain the company’s growth and reduce reliance on the single key customer.
  • If the key client is #1, who is developing technologies that will compete with the key client?
    • What are their markets?
    • Where are they going?
    • How are they trying to exploit the chinks in key client’s armor?
    • What can the company do to secure a vendor relationship with the companies who may replace the key client?

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How Do You Replace a Sales Manager? Four Suggestions

Situation: A company’s Sales Manager is likely to retire in the next two years, but has no strict timeline. This individual is the chief rain-maker and has been for many years. The subject of replacing this individual has been sensitive when mentioned in the past. How do you replace a Sales Manager and how do you manage the transition?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Have a frank conversation with the current Sales Manager. For the company to thrive it is necessary to start selecting and training an individual to take his place when he retires. Have him help develop the recruitment and transition plan. Also involve your Customer Service Manager.

o    Hire a person like the current Sales Manager and allow for up to two years for the new individual to get up to speed.

o    Find someone who is currently associated with one of your key customers and who has contacts.

o    Adjust your compensation scheme to focus on growth and customer diversification with enhanced commissions for bringing in these accounts.

  • To ease the transition, start to build a different customer relations structure – one where the CEO has more engagement with key customers.
  • An alternative to replacing the Sales Manager is to create a different organizational structure. For example, hire a COO who will eventually take over business development as well. Think longer term about to how you want the management structure to grow. Build your future vision of the company into this process.
  • You can’t wait – start now!

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How are You Planning for Baby Boomer Retirements? Six Considerations

Situation: A company has a number of key employees who are nearing retirement. These employees possess software skills and company knowledge which will be difficult to replace. How are you planning for baby boomer retirements, and what advice would you have for this company?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Following the loss of investment value after the 2008 market crash, Baby Boomers may retire very differently from their parents. Many don’t have the savings to support themselves during retirement and may well work 10 years later than their parents did.
  • Brute economics will force Boomers to continue to work. However, Boomers may want to work their own hours and on their own terms as they age. The focus may switch to part-time jobs just to maintain cash flow.
  • One solution is to offer more flexible working arrangements that allow individuals to keep working but with more freedom to work as they wish.
  • To replace in-house talent, develop mentor and apprentice programs now to pass your knowledge base on to younger workers.
  • The Internet has significantly changed the picture. People considering retirement may relocate to less expensive regions but virtual employment or virtual office solutions can keep them working.
  • Rising health insurance costs and questions about the viability of Medicare under the Affordable Care Act are concerns for Baby Boomers. This is another factor that may keep them working.

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What Questions Do You Ask to Build an Exit Strategy? Five Topics

Interview with Norman Boone, CEO, Mosaic Financial Partners

Situation: Many entrepreneurs who started companies in financial services and other industries are now 55+. They may be ready to move on, but not necessarily ready to move out. What questions should they be asking as they plan their exit strategies?

Advice from Norman Boone:

  • The most critical question is what you want to do with the rest of your life. Most people don’t give this enough thought. It all starts with what is most important to you.
    • Start with a self-inventory assessment – what are your resources, options, and what do you want to do or accomplish?
    • Discuss with your significant other or partner what will work for both of you.
    • Answering these questions helps to lay out the alternatives. Now, thinking about your company, what is important to you? Is it legacy, the future of your employees and business partners, the future of your clients?  Does your business continue, or to you see a sunset?
  • If your business will continue, do you see an internal succession, or sale or merger of the company? If internal succession, here are the issues.
    • Who will be the new leadership? Do you have good candidates on staff, or do you need to hire someone who will take over?
    • Be careful not to expect your successor to be a mini-you. They need to be able to bring their own talents and perspectives to the leadership role, not try to duplicate you.
    • Do you need to beef up the training of current staff to increase their managerial capacities?
    • Is an employee buy-out an option? There is a variety of choices to investigate.
    • What will be your role during and after the transition? Will you accept that new leadership may take the company in new directions?
    • To be most effective, this needs to be a 5 or 10 year process. Ideally you will have two to four successor candidates to evaluate.
  • Do you sell to the highest bidder? Many of the questions here are like those above.
    • Will you sell to the highest bidder, or to the bidder who seems the best fit for your stakeholders and clients?
    • How much voice, if any, will you offer your employees and / or clients in the selection process?
    • What due diligence will you do on potential buyers?
  • Do you merge with a similar company?
    • If you can find a compatible merger partner the combination may be the best of two worlds.
    • What is the culture? If different, what will be the impact?
    • A merger of like companies may assume that the other party has a commitment to ongoing operation: but this is not guaranteed.
    • What will your role be, and what is the transition plan? How will you involve your key people in the transition?
  • The other option is to sunset the company. Here you must have enough in savings so that you can forgo future income from the business.
    • What about the other stakeholders and clients who’ve invested their careers and business in you?
    • Try to time your exit with the expiration of leases and other obligations to minimize exit cost.
    • How will you assist the transition of stakeholders and clients to new opportunities and providers?

You can contact Norm Boone at [email protected]

Key Words: Entrepreneur, Retire, Exit, Self-assessment, Options, Alternatives, Succession, Buy-out, Sale, Merger, Sunset, Staff, Stakeholder, Client, Plan, Control, Culture

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