Ian Smith | The Portfolio Partnership

How To Manage a Rep Network

by Ian Smith | Dec 28, 2015 | Sales Management

Most manufacturers have outside reps. These are self-employed individuals or in some cases, larger businesses who employ many reps. They are not on your payroll. This in itself is a management challenge. Herding cats, managing a legal partnership, controlling a five...

What every Company should have for Christmas – A Chief Operating Officer

by Ian Smith | Dec 15, 2015 | Leadership, Scaling

Season’s Greetings to all my readers. The Chief Operating Officer (COO) position has emerged from the shadows as a fundamental role in getting things done. Tim Cook of Apple performed the role brilliantly supporting Steve Jobs in executing a brilliant vision....

M&A – The Horrible Habits of Most Acquirers

by Ian Smith | Dec 7, 2015 | Acquisitions

We’ve all read the statistics on acquisition failure. We’ve seen shareholders’ cynicism reflected on both sides of the deal e.g. Dell’s acquisition of EMC has prompted shares of VMware Inc., the company 80%-owned by EMC, to drop nearly...

Building the Perfect 2016 Budget!

by Ian Smith | Nov 30, 2015 | budgets

A classic post from last year tweaked. For many management teams the months of November and Devember represents the Budget sign off time. However they are so often badly done. Frankly they are recklessly compiled representing the classic “hope over...

The Strategic Plan – 13 Steps To Success

by Ian Smith | Nov 23, 2015 | Strategy

The Strategic Plan sounds like a big company tool, the sort of thing that IBM or Google might pull together. Well these companies have become “Pillar” companies for a reason. They plan and execute. They zoom out and zoom in (Jim Collins). Middle market companies would...