Failing to Keep a List of Things that you need to do.

Freely taken from www.mindtools.com

Contact Walden Businesses

Dean McDonald, CBI

Principal
678-277-9951 x 12 voice
dmc@waldenbus.com
www.waldenbus.com

By JP Kalmeijer & Rich Koontz

Running a business is too often a solitary effort; many business owners feel that
they have to drive the business on their own power and very often face critical
external and internal challenges single-handedly.  They have never felt they have
had the time or luxury to surround themselves with a strong Executive Leadership
team across all key areas of their company – marketing, financial, operations, &
technology.

Consequently in almost all of these companies lacking this strategic leadership,
opportunities are squandered, efficiencies are missed and necessary changes are
not implemented quickly enough.

This article wants to make 3 key points:
a) Every business should have at least 2-3 C-level roles focused on developing and
implementing strategic changes for the driving the growth and profitability of the
firm
b)  Every business can afford it; it is just a matter of the right ‘dosage’ – full-time,
part-time, advisor, or board member
c) In fact each of these CxO roles will frequently become ‘self-funded’ in the first 3-9
months by indentifying and capturing growth or operational efficiencies that will
other-wise be missed.

First of all let us define the difference between a Senior Managerial leadership role
and a C-level one, be it a Chief Financial Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief
Technology Officer or any other CxO role. This is important because any organization
of respectable size will have multiple managers in its ranks to supervise staff and run
departments.

The key differences – between a CxO and a Manager – are Focus, Expertise and Skill
set of the individual. A manager can run a department or even a business unit,
whereas a CxO will have a strategic outlook, a longer planning horizon, breadth of
expertise, and strong communication skills required to build a profitable business.

Typically a business owner or even a President will spend the majority of his time
running the business, focusing on the biggest most burning issues at hand for the current
success of the business. He will be assisting the VP of Sales with finding new clients and
closing business, working with Operations to honor the commitments made to customers,
helping the Human Resources department with the latest employee issues.  He will be
sitting down with Marketing to approve the latest brochure or website and huddle with
the Finance Manager over the latest cost projections. He is running the business to
ensure success today.  He is reacting to the leadership needs at hand.

Critically lacking in this routine leadership activity is spending time – pro-actively -
with a similarly focused group of executives on developing and implementing plans
required to accelerate the business’ future growth and profitability:
- Anticipating the changes in the market to develop and implement multi-year
product plans and market strategy
- Planning and optimizing cash flow, working capital and profitability
- Planning and optimizing operational processes  – both costs and cycle time
- Planning and implementing growth strategies for existing clients
- Planning and implementing direct and indirect sales strategies

Any business owner – who takes the CEO part of his role seriously – should have at
least 2-3  ‘intellectual sparring partners’ to develop and implement a strategic plan for
building and growing their business. Together, as a multi-faceted Executive Leadership
team, they will tackle the key strategic issues identified in a 3-5 year plan, keep the
organization focused on the opportunities and priorities identified for long-term
success, and ensure company is run in such a way to stay ahead of competition.

The most common errors for most owners and CEOs from developing these Executive
Leadership team is postponing the decision until they can afford to hire a full-time
CxO for the  for the area most ‘critical  area’ to the business – that is the one with the
most problems and challenges today. However this ‘just-in time’ CxO approach still
leaves the same strategic thinking gap across the business in the all of the other key
business areas.

Recently some of the more innovative companies across several industries have
adopted a more efficient and higher ROI solution for building their Executive Suite: the
‘Leveraged CxO’. This Leveraged CxO is proven leader with the right level of
expertise, vision and skill set to impact the business immediately as a Chief Marketing
Officer, Chief Technology Officer or Chief Financial Officer – but is hired for flexible
number of hours per month, based on the size of the business and scope of business
change required to become the market leader.

In subsequent articles we will discuss what impact a well attuned CxO can have on
very specific areas of the business, like Finance, Operations, Marketing and IT, along
with the potential ROI from this critical changes and the different types of ‘staffing’
models available to each business owner for implementing right Leveraged CxO
model for accelerating their business’ growth and profitability.

• Leadership vs Management
• Three foundations of great leadership
• Strategic Planning – the GPS for your business
• Partnering – extending your leadership team
• Putting it all together – what does it look like when it works?

Roles in your business today

• Performers
• Supervisors
• Managers
• Executive Leadership

Supervisory –  oversees the consistent execution of   tasks across multiple resources to   meet objectives
Managerial -   plans, develops, allocates and   oversees the performance of   resources across multiple tasks to best   accomplish objectives
Leadership –    plans, develops, and aligns groups of   people and/or resources   (organizations) to consistently perform   the required tasks that drive the   success of their organization

Key Questions

• what are the differences?
• how many hats do you wear?
• where do you spent most of your time today?
• where will you spend it in 2-3 years?

When you grow enough to double your current business twice  (4 times current revenue)

• How many people will you have in your company?
• How long will it take?
• What will be the roles of your current employees?

The LESSON – Know Your Audience

Most entrepreneurs or CEO‟s believe that since they have built the best “mouse trap”, the
institutional investors will beat a path to their door and become involved in a bidding process to
invest in their company.  In fact, the opposite is true.

The entrepreneur and CEO‟s must work diligently to “sell” the idea of investing in their company to
the institutional investor (the “Buyer”) who is looking for reasons to say ‘No’.

Here are the 3 most common mistakes that entrepreneurs make when seeking capital:

Failure to provide a supportable business model that generates positive cash
flow.  The key word here is “supportable”, which means things like market and or
industry data from third party independent resources.  Just because you believe
something is true, does not make it so.  The truth will come out when the investor
performs his due diligence.

Underestimating the size of the investment.  Most entrepreneurs believe that the
lower the investment, the more likely they are to receive it.  This comes from well
meaning friend, family and early stage investors who have not done the due diligence
that therefore do not totally understand need of the company or the marketplace.  If
interested in the investment, institutional investors will provide funding to ensure that the
company is successful and do not like to be forced to put in additional funds because
something negative that should have been known happens.

Approaching investors with their expectations in mind.  Entrepreneurs like to
impress people by telling how much they know about the product and the market which
results in two major flaws.
o They send out a detailed executive summary (six or seven pages) that tells the
reader everything about the company (and plenty of reasons to say „No‟ to the
investment).  The executive summary should be one to one and one half pages.
Think of it as a flyer to garner initial interest.

o They prepare and present a one hour PowerPoint presentation (60+ slides) that
details everything about the company (and gives many reasons to say no).   In a
face to face (or conference call) meeting, the investor will allow one hour for the
presentation which must include time for a Q&A session.  Therefore the
presentation should be given in 35 to 40 minutes allowing 20 minutes for Q&A.
This presentation must cover items such as the market, company niche, etc.

o Hide weak points in the company or business model.  Instead of trying to hide
these points, address them head on and give alternatives that have the result of
mitigating, minimizing or turning the issue into a positive.

In today‟s market, investors are much more conservative – there is very little if any “stupid money”
out there that will invest in anything that “sounds good”.  That does not mean there is no money
available, but it is invested in solid, well thought out deals.

If you are not familiar with raising large sums of money in this market, bring in an expert to help you
– it will be well worth your investment.

The DISC Personality System is the universal language of behavior. Research has shown that behavioral characteristics can be grouped together in four major divisions called personality styles. People with similar personality profiles styles tend to exhibit specific behavioral characteristics common to that profile. All people share these four styles in varying degrees of intensity. The acronym DISC stands for the four personality styles represented by the letters:

D (Drive)
I (Influence)
S (Steadiness)
C (Compliance)

How is DISC used?

• Discover behavioral strengths, areas for augmenting, blending, capitalizing
• Value and learn to respect the strengths of others
• Deal with conflict effectively by learning adaptive behaviors
• Enhance work group with teamwork and minimize team conflict
• Develop strategies to meet diverse needs of others
• Improve communication skills by determining communication styles
• Increase sales skills and understanding of the prospect, client, customer with people reading.
• Improve customer relationships by identification and meeting needs
• Reduce conflict and stress, in both interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships
• Manage interpersonal communication better

Used by many Fortune 500 Companies, HR professionals, consultants, coaches, trainers, dentists, clergy, government agencies, sales firms, and educational institutions.  DISC helps these clients to:

• Build productive teams
• Develop effective managers, supervisors, leaders
• Train a powerful sales force
• Improve customer service
• Ease frustrations and interpersonal conflict
• Enhance Communication
• Conflict Management resolution
• Team Development and team building
• Improves personal diversity awareness and recognition
• Improve the bottom line: productivity
• Assists in hiring, recruiting, placement, promotion, outsourcing
• Change management, Quality enhancement
• Managing, counseling, coaching

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Total Connectivity for your Business

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770.685.9982 cell

karen@amlus.com

www.AMLus.com

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