Earnouts – What You Need To Know
The Philosophy of Earn-Out deals The concept is quite simple. The buyer’s perception of value is lower than the seller’s aspiration on price. This gap is usually fueled by differing views on the potential growth of the target company. The acquirer may be...
Turning Losses into Profits – An Operator’s View
Last week Anaplan, a software business specializing in enterprise planning, with 600 employees and 70,000 users, announced that CEO Frederic Laluyaux had left the company. A board member was quoted as saying, “unbridled growth is no longer the most valued...
Why Did I Fail To Exit?
Warning, this is a big subject and this is a big post at 1587 words. There are approximately 596,000 companies in the US employing 20 people or more (28.1 million employ 19 or less or don’r run a payroll). A significant number of these companies will have tried...
Building Energy & Passion into Your Business
It starts with people. It starts with recognizing the three big reasons why people come to work: Autonomy Mastery Purpose as outlined in Daniel Pink’s excellent book Drive. So what does autonomy mean and how do you achieve it? In my view autonomy is about...
How To Drive Alignment Between Positioning, Marketing & Sales
One of the most difficult aspects of scaling a business is alignment. You could be the head of a $500m division or the leader of a 25 person manufacturer but you will struggle with alignment. Getting different departments on the same page, getting people pointing in...
Roadmap to Successfully Acquire Private Companies seminar
APRIL 7th BOSTON – RSVP HERE On April 7th I will add more value on How To Execute Acquisitions than you’ll ever get from a book, even mine! Global mergers and acquisitions were at an all-time high in 2015, with $4.28 trillion worth of deals, according to...
A Cautionary Tale for Would Be Acquirers
This is a cautionary tale for companies on the acquisition trail. As a tactic to achieve your strategic objectives, acquisitions are a powerful tool. Of course executed poorly, and it can result in disaster. In the case of SDL, a former player in the customer...
M&A – The Internal Communication Nightmare
CEOs must be visionary but they have to be operationally pragmatic. Jim Collins captured this so well in his series of books, specifically with the phrase zooming in and zooming out. I like the metaphor, you can’t afford to miss the bend in the road by looking...
Roadmap to Successfully Acquire Private Companies seminar
APRIL 7th BOSTON Global mergers and acquisitions were at an all-time high in 2015, with $4.28 trillion worth of deals, according to Mergermarket. M&A is a hot topic, but the question remains: how successful will these deals turn out to be? Whether you’re new...Operational Excellence For Exits
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