company vision

Aug 25, 2016

Why you need to be selling your company every day

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Originally published on August 2, 2016 as a Guest Column in The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-managing/why-you-need-to-be-selling-your-company-every-day/article31141189/

About a year ago, I was listening to a prominent accountant speak to a room full of business owners. His message was both clear and simple: “Each day you should run your business like you are in the process of trying to sell it.”

This simple message created many frowns and furrowed brows. Clearly, people in the audience wanted to respond, “But I’m not selling my business, and I don’t plan to any time soon.”

Not the point.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re thinking of selling your business. Some lucky owners get to simply pass it on to the next generation. But the real point is this: You need to think and act like you are selling your business, every day.

Why? Selling a business is an extended process, often a gruelling one. Compare it to selling a house. The first step is to “stage” the property. This means taking a hard look at your surroundings with fresh eyes, to help you recognize which furnishings and decorations add to your home’s ambience, and which are just clutter.

It’s a tough thing to do. For most people, everything in their home represents a memory or a milestone on the journey of raising a family. Prospective purchasers care nothing for memory or sentiment, seeing every unnecessary element as a flaw that diminishes the value of your home.

When you are selling a business, the process is little different. Prospective buyers go through your numbers, your assets and your records with the diligence of a home inspector. They will scrutinize your sales, margins, inventory, returns, client list, receivables and payables. They will dig through your sales history and your new product or service pipeline, looking for any irregularity, liability, trend or threat that could detract from the value they are paying for your company.

While some may see this as a tedious, time-wasting process, I see due diligence as a very positive exercise. It’s a way to identify issues before they become problems. In fact, this process shouldn’t just be limited to when you buy or sell a business. I believe that entrepreneurs should initiate a mock due-diligence process every year, preferably just before their company’s annual retreat or strategy sessions.

Think about it. Your goal as the owner or manager of a company is to increase its intrinsic value (how much the business would be worth if it were going to be sold). By rigorously and formally questioning all of your business’s habits, assumptions and processes, you’ll develop a culture that embraces change and continuous improvement – and increases the value of your business on an ongoing basis.

In my opinion, your company’s value is the single best measure of how well you are running and building your business. Value incorporates all key time horizons that buyers and evaluators employ when assessing a business – how you are running your business today, what you are doing to keep it relevant and meaningful to your customers in the short term, and how you establish and execute on your grand, long-term vision.

“When it comes time to sell their business, many business owners are surprised to receive a lower valuation than what they had expected,” notes Murad Bhimani, a Toronto-based partner with accounting firm MNP LLP. “That’s why we recommend to our clients that they should operate and build their business as though they could sell it any minute. This keeps you focused on what is critical every day, such as sound operations, diversity of customer base, building a strong management team, and proactive product development.”

If your kitchen’s ceiling is leaking, you wouldn’t wait for a home inspection to find the cause and fix it. Don’t wait to see whether your company is leaking opportunities and profits. Whether or not you’re planning to sell, take a good long look at all of your key performance indicators on a regular basis. Your bottom line (and your wallet) will thank you for it.

And some day your children may, too.

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Category: Entrepreneurship

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Nov 26, 2015

Innovation Culture

There is great interest today by organizations in developing innovation cultures.  And why not?  Creating a mechanism that perpetually harnesses the internal brilliance of your employees is a powerful thing.  Not only is this impactful for employee engagement but, done right, it will continuously delight your customers who will in turn delight your bottom line.

Creating an innovation culture is viewed by most as a daunting undertaking.  While characterized by complexities requiring detailed planning and skillful execution, it doesn’t have to be overwhelming.  Here are some simple techniques that can get you started.

Step One:  Have a Compelling Vision

Having a compelling vision starts with being crystal clear on what your future destination is, including the path to achieve it.  While the future destination should be aspirational and encompass emotional attachment, it must be accompanied by step by step plans outlining the direction in detail.  Your compelling vision should be reflective of your brand and resonate equally with your customers and employees.

Step Two:  Communicating the Vision

Once the vision is created and detailed, a robust communication plan needs to be developed and delivered to begin cascading the vision throughout the organization.  This goes far beyond sending a series of e-mails through various levels of your company.  A successful communication plan includes identification of the types of stakeholders as well as consideration for the various mediums, frequency, timing as well as messaging.  The heart of the communication should address the emotions that customers and employees will experience on the journey to the future destination.  Unaddressed emotions, good or bad, can stall the best planned initiative.  Communicating the vision is one of the first steps in creating a shared goal.

Step Three:  Always Keep the Customer at the Forefront

Like any journey, as your plan for creating an innovation culture unfolds you will face opportunities requiring pivots.  When faced with these junctures, be sure to always keep the customer in mind when determining the best route.  It is easy at times to become distracted by shiny objects along the way.  If you truly understand your customers and use them as the talisman for decision making, you should remain centered on the correct path.

Step Four:  You Just Have to Ask

Part of creating an innovation culture involves tapping into the hearts and minds of your employees.  And who better to understand how to delight your customers then those who work most closely with them.  And the best part, all you have to do is ask the right question to be able to mine this greenfield of opportunity.  Time and time again I am amazed at how few organizations have learned and are utilizing the powerful technique of asking questions.  If you haven’t yet tried this, here’s one to get you started.  Ask a front line employee “If you had a magic wand and could change one thing to make our customers’ lives better, what would you do?”.  Ask it often enough and you’ll begin to see where the pattern of innovation opportunities exist.

Step Five:  Celebrate Successes

Creating an innovation culture takes time.  Along the way you need to mark the milestones with celebrations.  This will help refuel your employees and reinforce the new behaviours you are trying to operationalize into your daily routines.  When creating an innovation culture you will need to celebrate near successes as well as the slam dunks.  Positively calling out selective “almost” wins will help reinforce “trial” behaviour and increase tolerance for risk by reducing fear of failure.  All essential characteristics of an innovation culture.

Creating an innovation culture is one that engages your employees to continuously delight your customers.  While not a simple undertaking, the destination is worth the journey and these five steps will help you get started.

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Category: Culture

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Oct 1, 2015

A good crisis can make for great opportunities

Originally published on September 4, 2015 as a Guest Column in The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-managing/a-good-crisis-can-make-for-great-opportunities/article26204036/

A few weeks ago, I went to Brazil to speak to a large group of manufacturers on the perpetually-topical subject of innovation in a time of crisis. The forum, held by FIERGS (Federation of Industries of Rio Grande do Sul), addressed the well-known struggles of the Brazilian economy. Unfortunately, those same issues are now being faced by the Canadian economy.

With the recent announcement that Canada is in a “technical” recession, these two resource-driven economies are slowing to a crawl. The good news? For me, there’s never been a better time for businesses to embrace innovation. And the best way to succeed in this perpetually challenging area is to look at innovation through the lens of crisis – or turnaround – management.

Innovation has always thrived in hard times. Desperation forces people to question the status quo. In good times, people may be less inclined to rock the boat, but when investors and customers are bolting for the doors, you have no choice. That’s probably why some of the world’s great companies were founded during recession – businesses such as General Electric, IBM, Disney, Microsoft and Adobe.

One of the world’s most successful innovators, Apple, wasn’t founded during a recession. But the same principle applies. When Steve Jobs returned to take the reins in 1997, Apple was facing crisis: too many products, too little focus, not enough revenue. What saved the day? Steve Jobs shaved Apple’s product lines by 70 per cent. Even the best companies can become bloated and undisciplined during the good years and forget the core competencies that made them great.

To stay true to your strategic core, you could do worse than look to the process of strategic turnarounds. Once a company has accepted that it has lost its way, a successful turnaround requires an extraordinary commitment to self-analysis, questioning, reflection and day-to-day change. The same turnaround tools can be adapted to meet the enormous market pressures all businesses face today.

The main reason many companies fail is lack of focus. They start off doing one thing well, and then get attracted to – or distracted by – other opportunities. Some may be successful, others not. But all of them distract the business owners and leaders from what they set out to do. And all too often these shiny new opportunities are well removed from the business’s original roots. That means there is little synergy with established operations, and way too much to learn – about new products, suppliers, distribution channels, markets and customers. It’s falling into this pit of guesswork and improvisation that leads most companies to call in the turnaround experts.

It takes courage to admit that your company needs to reverse course. But successful turnarounds require everyone involved to face the brutal truth.

The best turnarounds usually begin with a strategic review that asks: What are our strengths? What do we do best? Where are we losing money? What operations are most profitable? Where can we grow? Successful change also requires that you reconsider some of the specific actions that got you into trouble. Stop doing the same old things; one definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting different results.

Here are some of the key elements of a successful turnaround:

  • You need the right people on the journey. A winning turnaround starts with shedding employees who aren’t contributing sufficient value, or lack passion for their job. Once you get rid of the complainers and the complacent, your company has a better chance to bounce back.
  • You need a “change champion” to manage the turnaround – someone who owes nothing to the old, failed ways of doing things, and is prepared to listen carefully, consider many new ideas, and take direct action. His or her objective must be to stop the bleeding and get the company moving in the right direction. This is usually a hard job for the original owner/manager to do. Regardless of who takes charge, they require a formal process. As outlined in my book, The 90% Rule, that means knowing where your organization came from, knowing what it’s best at, and finding more ways to create value for more customers.
  • Focus is key. Trimming marginal operations is imperative – as Steve Jobs knew when he cancelled 70 per cent of Apple’s product lines in order to focus on only the best and biggest opportunities. In crisis, protect the core. Pull the plug on non-core activities.
  • Review prices and margins. Many companies are afraid to raise prices or set minimum margins for fear of losing customers, but it’s the best way to figure out who your best customers really are, and to clear out the unprofitable ones. Every penny of these exercises goes directly to the bottom line. No surprise, then, that the companies I have seen do this all wish they had done it sooner.
  • Refocus on the customer: What do your customers want and need? What are their biggest pain points, and how can you relieve them? Get out and talk to the customers. (It’s a shame so many companies wait till they’re in trouble to do this.) Once you have identified new ideas, opportunities and solutions, let the customers know the new directions your company is taking – and how they contributed to its success.
  • Keep employees well informed of the company’s plans and decisions. In the absence of facts, fear breeds confusion and negativity. Keep everyone informed, involved, and marching forward.
  • Paint a clear picture of what you’re trying to do and the process you are following. Share this vision with all your all stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, investors, bankers, etc.). You want everyone to know that there is a better future ahead, and that their sacrifice, hard work and faith will not be in vain. Make sure to offer a specific reward at the end, whether it’s increased job security, bonuses, profit-sharing, and/or a blowout party to end all parties.

Diamonds can only be created under great pressure. Whether your company needs a major rethink or you are simply looking for new opportunities for growth, crisis thinking can create the new opportunities you and your team are looking for.

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Category: Innovation

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