Category Archives: Advisory

This month, we are covering ‘Key Activities’, the seventh of the nine building blocks in the Business Model Generation as developed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.  ‘Key Activities’ refers to the most important things a company must do to makes its business model work. Key activities focus on operations.  While a CEO focuses on

This month we are covering ‘Cost Structure’, the last of the nine building blocks of the Business Model Generation developed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.  ‘Cost Structure’ describes all the costs incurred to operate a business. Here are three things to consider: What are the most important costs inherent in your business? Which key

I have studied organizational management and leadership for more than 25 years.  For the last 20 years, I have seen it in action with my own teams and clients.  I have come to understand that successfully led organizations are led from the top down and can be characterized as fostering some form of servant-based leadership. 

As many of my readers know, I enjoy reading the Harvard Business Journal and the research that comes from their organization.  This month, I read an article about the eight leadership lessons of Sir Alex Ferguson.  Sir Alex Ferguson is one of the most decorated coaches in all of professional sports and was the manager

I recently spent a week in Chicago to earn a certification in business exit planning.  I am now officially a Certified Exit Planning Advisor and I will share a lot more about this as time goes on.  This month, I want to share a concept that exit strategy IS business strategy with the following points:

Through our succession planning work with clients, we frequently have discussions about the ways to exit a business and the pros and cons of each.  For privately held companies, there are generally eight ways to exit. Before I launch into the eight options, I want to highlight some recent survey data.  In 2013, the Exit

According to the annual Business Reference Guide written by Tom West, 70-80 percent of businesses do not sell.  One of the reasons this happens is because many business owners focus on current income generation as opposed to building the value of the enterprise.  Profit or income does not automatically translate to enterprise value. Enterprise value

It’s September, the kids are back in school and football is in full swing.  We were getting ready for the opening weekend of football and watched the recently released movie Draft Day starring Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner.  I enjoy watching movies and relating them to business situations. Draft Day takes place in a span

We are coming to the end of 2014, and the 2015 strategic planning season is in full swing. It is the time of year to reflect on how we have progressed towards the 2014 goals and to determine the strategic vision for 2015.  In my experience, there seems to be a disconnect between the goals