The Portfolio Partnership

Social Media & Your Employees – What’s Your Policy?

by Ian Smith | Oct 29, 2012 | Social Media, Social Media - Staff policy

The WSJ published a report yesterday covering many aspects of social media and employees. So what is your policy on social media? Are your employees clear? Your employees are now publishers, authors, bloggers, sharers, mavens, so how do you control the epidemic...

Practice Makes Perfect – The Sales Team

by Ian Smith | Oct 28, 2012 | Management, Sales Process, Training

My post today was inspired by this WSJ article by Doug Lemov, Practice Makes Perfect – And Not Just for Jocks and Musicians. As Lemov states: what drives mastery is encoding success – performing an action the right way over and over. The Sales Team Role...

Post Acquisition Integration – A Review By Department

by Ian Smith | Oct 27, 2012 | Acquisitions

We just don’t spend enough time planning how we will integrate our acquisitions. The mindset is quite simple. The mindset for integration (excluding the complete stand alone acquisition which frankly I wonder why bother) is to consider the fact you are about to...

Why Acquisitions Fail

by Ian Smith | Oct 26, 2012 | Acquisitions

In my experience there are numerous reasons why acquisitions fail. The most common reasons may surprise you. All of these examples have happened to me and therefore my Playbooks have improved over time! Here are a few thoughts: First the research: Cass Business...

How Far Can Sales Drop Before You Bleed?

by Ian Smith | Oct 25, 2012 | Breakeven analysis, Execution Tips, Operational Blueprints

A little classic today you can do at home! Every business has a different set of economics but every business has one common element, they all have a break-even point. First establish your Gross Margin %. That would be your sales less your variable costs = Gross...

Scaling CD Baby – Observations

by Ian Smith | Oct 24, 2012 | Scaling

Derek Sivers founded CD Baby in 1998 grew it to $48m by 2008 selling out to Disc Makers for $22m in that year. By 2005 CD Baby’s main business was doing digital delivery of music to all the digital music retailers: iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody, MSN, Yahoo!...

Why Salesforce Won’t Increase Sales

by Ian Smith | Oct 23, 2012 | Sales Process

Great technology can transform the productivity of any process. Just look at what spreadsheets did for financial modeling. But you need to know how to capitalize on the technology. Spreadsheets need a process. You need to be clear on your input fields, you need to be...

Building the Perfect 2015 Budget!

by Ian Smith | Oct 22, 2012 | budgets

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

10 Actions to Consider if You Can’t Attract Talent

by Ian Smith | Oct 21, 2012 | Recruitment

Change the content of your web site and the platform (if necessary) to tell a simpler story. Ensure you define the market you are trying to monopolize. Bring out your values in that messaging. Candidates love a cause, a purpose. Really talented curious people want to...

Scaling Issues – Inc 500 Case Studies

by Ian Smith | Oct 20, 2012 | Scaling

Last month Kimberly Weisul at Inc Magazine published a smart article on Managing Fast Growth. Using real examples from the Inc 500 she illustrated some great scaling issues and solutions. The issues raised are so important I’ve summarized them below: Case study...