The Portfolio Partnership

M&A Success – The Secret Sauce

by Ian Smith | Nov 24, 2019 | Acquisitions

The WSJ recently published a great summary of the worst deals in history titled, “How Bayer-Monsanto became One of the Worst Corporate Deals – in 12 Charts” (Aug 28, 2019). In April 2015, before the acquisition of Monsanto, Bayer was the most valuable German company...

Increasing the Market Share of Your Customer’s Spend

by Ian Smith | Nov 15, 2019 | Sales Process, Sales Tips

Over the years there is strong evidence to suggest that increasing market share drives higher profit margins. Certainly, if increased market share translates to higher sales one would hope that would lead to potentially higher margins. However, a much more pertinent...

Fractional Senior Management – One Solution to Scaling

by Ian Smith | Oct 28, 2019 | Leadership, Management, Scaling, Strategy

Over the last 10 years, I’ve built The Portfolio Partnership (TPP) on the basis of a simple value proposition. The leadership of private companies requires experienced help at an affordable price to fulfill their potential. What they didn’t need was another report...

Deploying Competitive Value Propositions

by Ian Smith | Oct 21, 2019 | Sales Tips

The role of sales professionals is to sell products. Wrong. The role of sales professionals is to improve the performance of each and every customer (if they can). Once you believe that mindset you need to translate that thinking into action. It’s such a simple...

How To Create A Customer-Focused Business (in a B2B world)

by Ian Smith | Sep 30, 2019 | Customers

We see it on most websites. Companies are customer-centric, customer-focused, and the narrative states that customer relationships are key. There’s a reason they call it a CRM system! However, do the leadership teams really deliver on their website promises? Last year...

How To Professionalize Your Business

by Ian Smith | Aug 13, 2019 | Scaling

When we look at our favorite sport, it could be American football, tennis, rugby, track & field, football (can’t say soccer), basketball, ice hockey, there is a common thread. It’s amazing how more professional they have become. Conditioning, training, techniques,...

Post-acquisition Integration – Challenges & Solutions

by Ian Smith | Jul 29, 2019 | Acquisitions

The best part of a seminar or workshop is often the Q&A session at the end. As a presenter I love them. It’s a chance to add specific value to that one person who asked the question. So this blog post is dedicated to the Q&A session of an imaginary...

M&A – Buying a House with the Family Still Inside

by Ian Smith | Jul 22, 2019 | Acquisitions

In a recent workshop I started my chat with a statement: “Buying another company is just like buying a house, as long as you remember you’re buying the family inside it as well! I wanted to sear that image in the minds of my audience. Acquisitions fail mainly for one...

How To Scale 98% of US Companies

by Ian Smith | May 27, 2019 | Scaling

Hard to believe but 98% of US companies employ less than 99 people. To scale these companies (and of course the other 2%), the simple formula that most entrepreneurs seem to ignore is quite simple. Define your Positioning that you wish to dominate in the prospects...

Recruitment – 15 Top Tips to Attract Talent

by Ian Smith | May 20, 2019 | Recruitment

This week the WSJ confirmed that Smaller Businesses are suffering from slow job growth – Headcount rose just under 1% in April compared with 2018. Note small businesses are defined here as employing < 20 people that’s 89% of US firms – 5.3 million...