The Increased Need for Advisory Boards
The use of social media and a digital strategy has never been more critical to businesses than it is today during this Covid crisis. Having a digital strategy ensures that we can continue to communicate with our customers, our employees, our suppliers and our stakeholders. While digital strategies may have been a ‘nice to have’ pre-Covid, it has become a ‘need to have’ since the Covid crisis hit.
Don’t Stick Your Head in Sand: Grow Your Business in a COVID World
A crisis is always a turning point in any business. Throw in a worldwide pandemic that puts all companies into crisis mode (in one form or another) and you have the makings for a paradigm shift that will leave some business in a better position and others closing the doors.
Building a Resilient Organization
Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward. In any business context, it is so easy to get absorbed in immediate project deadlines or the crisis of the day that we lose focus on the reason why we’re doing what we do, and that brings with it the risk of losing sight of the forest for the trees.
Never Waste a Good Crisis – The Time for a Digital Strategy is Now
For over ten years, large and small businesses alike have been talking about the importance of Digital Strategy. Those that have invested in digital solutions have reaped the rewards during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet many organizations still struggle with developing and executing a sustainable digital strategy in an ever-changing landscape.
It’s time for Small Business to Embrace Digital
Small business is the backbone of the U.S. economy and the driving force behind economic growth in our region. Thus, to say we are dependent on the success of small business is an understatement. They are our favorite restaurants and coffee shops, where we go for local services, and are run by our friends and neighbors. In short, they are at the foundation of our community.
Funding & Exits: Best Practices for High-Growth Companies
Funding and exit strategies are critical to high-growth companies planning to sell (or potentially sell), even if a sale is still years down the road. It allows stakeholders to exit on their own terms, for top value. But readying a company for funding and exit is sometimes seen as an expensive burden. As such, businesses go about it as if it’s a separate exercise, apart from day-to-day business – and/or wait too long to go about it at all.
3 Habits To Break Before Selling Your Business
As an advisor for companies in the $5 to $20 million range, I work with business owners at various stages of exit strategy planning. Given their companies’ revenue, these leaders generally anticipate financially rewarding exits within desired timelines. This is the plan, but it doesn’t always work out according to plan.
Loan Forgiveness Under Paycheck Protection Program and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021
The Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”), created as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES Act”), authorized loans to certain businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. If businesses use their PPP loans to pay qualified business expenses, the entire loan may be forgiven.
Follow the Money: Finding Rx Savings Within Your PBM Contract
Prescription spending used to account for a very small percentage of health care spend. Today, it amounts to over 20 percent, and is rising faster than any other health care cost components. An employer with 1,000 employees may easily generate 20,000 to 30,000 prescriptions per year, so it is important and beneficial to perform an audit of a plan’s prescription program.
What Stories Should Leaders Tell? And Why.
The CEO and C-Suite leaders are under pressure like never before given the near “black swan” event brought on by the pandemic. C-suite leaders have two broad responsibilities: make decisions and move the company forward profitably. As companies face the “next normal” within their companies and their markets, they need every persuasive tool available to them.
What’s the Value of Good Advice?
No leader can build a great business alone…and regardless of company size or industry, getting high quality advice can significantly improve a company’s chances for success. There are a number of ways to obtain advice, from informal networking all the way to boards of directors.
Bring Balance Back
Many of the executives I coach have told me they often find themselves so engrossed and overwhelmed with work that too little time is left for engaging with family and community, not to mention having “me” time. This has been especially true over this past pandemic year where boundaries between our work and home lives seem to have disappeared.
Beating the Odds: The Keys to Successful Acquisition Integration
Mergers and acquisitions have contributed significantly to business growth for many years, having gained popularity in the 1980s. For growth-minded companies, acquisitions can be a quick way to gain market share. As appealing as this may be, the reality is that the majority of acquisitions fail to achieve their integration goals. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at an Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) breakfast along with Heather Trombley, President and COO of DentalEZ on the topic of Accelerating Acquisition Integration and how to beat the odds.
Simpler Strategies Can Save a Company. A Lesson from Best Buy vs Amazon.
Best Buy overcame the onslaught of the e-retail giant Amazon by executing a simple strategy that everyone could understand and act on. There are lessons in that strategy, how it was developed, and then executed that can apply to companies in every sphere. If your strategy isn’t a simple story, then it’s harder to grow (and easier to fail!)
Aspire to a Five-Hour Workday? A Four-Day Workweek?
As we contemplate returning to on-site office work, this may be a good time to recall the pre-pandemic experience of a New Zealand company that tested a 20%-shorter workweek. The result? It made employees happier and more focused while producing the same amount of work.
Your Business Needs a Well-Visit
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” applies to personal health as well as to the health of a business. Just as a doctor takes your vitals to assess your overall state of health and to recommend corrective changes in diet and levels of physical activity, an owner should assess the overall financial health of their business regularly.
While there are numerous metrics available, I’d like to focus on two interrelated financial measurements that are vital to the long-term success and survival of a business.
Complete Brand Story: A Rock in a Snowball
I know we’re all glad that spring may actually be here and it’s a little odd to talk about snowballs right now. However, “a rock in a snowball” is a phrase shared with me in a late night conversation with Bill Hamilton, Creative Director at Ogilvy New York while I worked there. (Sadly, Bill is now departed. He came to Ogilvy from Chiat-Day, a real bomb-thrower of an agency responsible for so much good work; it’s impossible to list all their great campaigns. Let’s just say his agency created the Macintosh “1984” campaign: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984’.” Now that’s a story!)