When Web Advertising Doesn't Work

Microsoft Sharepoint being advertised (I had to look twice) under the header "How Brilliant Ideas Destroy Companies". That's ironic. And kind of humorous!

Role of the Owner vs. Role of the CEO

Value = Profit that is Sustainable and Transferable.

Ask any private business owner what they want from their business and almost every one of them will tell you: "I want to maximize value.".  Then watch what they do on a day to day business.

Fight fires. Run the day to day.

In the model above, the business owner is the one responsible for the V - Value side of the equation. The CEO is responsible for the Pst side - profits that are sustainable and transferable.

The first is a strategic role. The second is a tactical, operating role.

So what happens when the owner and the CEO is the same person - something that is very common in private businesses?

What I see almost every time is that the value side gets forgotten over and over and over. Firefighting is envigorating, challenging, important. It overwhelms everything else.

When times are good, being the CEO is being the hero.

When times are bad being the CEO means being too busy manning the liferafts and avoding ice bergs.

"Value?"

"Naw. That's something to think about when times get better."

To create sustainable, transferable value the Owner/CEO must be an owner first - and a CEO second.

Being an owner first means having a clear picture of what drives sustainable, transferable value and getting a plan in place to build it, maintain it, and ultimately monetize it.

Being an owner first means being held accountable as the CEO to execute the value building plan - or to get out of the way and let someone better suited do the job.

 The Boardroom Metrics Chairman's View system makes it simpler for owners to be owners. First, it provides a snapshot on a company's value. Second, it highlights the gaps/opportunities - in a dashboard fashion - where value creating work is required. Third, it introduces a professional chairman - someone who spends a few hours a month holding the owner, and the CEO accountable for doing their roles properly.

Most owners want to maximize the value of their business. Too many are spending their time as CEO's.  The Boardroom Metrics Chairman's View System can help turn that around.

Boardroom Metrics Announces New Services, Web Site

Every business has to evolve with the times and the opportunities that are put in front of it. Boardroom Metrics is doing that.


First, we have expanded our geographic service offering beyond Toronto to include Ottawa and Montreal.

Second, we are providing new advisory expertise in employee health and well-being, and corporate learning and training.


Employee health and well-being is rapidly becoming a top priority for all forward thinking organizations. Linking employee health and well-being with corporate performance – not just benefits cost containment - is an important competitive advantage we believe our clients are going to be increasingly interested in.

Corporate learning is another rapidly evolving field. The days of standing up in front of 200 people and ‘teaching’ them are gone – thanks to much better insight on how people learn and rapidly advancing technology – whether it be in the classroom or on a Blackberry. Again, our intent is to help our clients more clearly make the connection between learning, training strategy, training execution and significant improvements in corporate performance.

Third, we have expanded our tools offering to include the Chairman’s View System.

Chairman’s View enables private business owners who are committed to transferring their businesses in some fashion down the road, to measure, visualize and increase the sustainable and transferable value in their businesses.

Most private businesses owners in the US and Canada intend to transfer their businesses to new ownership in some fashion over the next ten years. Unfortunately, a large majority won’t come close to receiving the value they anticipate unless their focus changes from day to day management to sustainable value creation.

Fourth, we have significantly upgraded our interim management capabilities. The goal of our ‘Accomplished Executives’ program is two-fold:

• First – to provide a comprehensive marketing umbrella so that senior, experienced management talent can be promoted and become known and findable to the broad, business market place.

• Second – to seamlessly provide outstanding talent in conjunction with our advisory and tools practices to clients requiring short or long term executive support – whether it be for advisory, professional Chairman, senior executive or specialist roles.

Fifth, we have launched a new website that describes our services in more detail and encourages prospective clients and accomplished executive talent to start a dialogue with us.

All of us at Boardroom Metrics are passionate about business and in that regard we hold some simple but clear beliefs.

• EVERY business has the potential to be a spectacular success.

• NO business succeeds without strong leadership.

• PEOPLE are the only competitive advantage that can’t be duplicated.

If you’re interested in spectacular success and looking for a passionate, skilled and experienced partner we would love to work with you.

Jim Crocker, CEO

Thinking of a Start-up?

Then what about starting an airline?

Here's a great post by Randy Tinseth, VP of Marketing for Boeing Commercial Aircraft.

It takes you to a site called Start-up Boeing! There's everything there for the next wannabe airline maven.

Starting an airline never crossed my mind either. But clearly more than a few people over the years think of it. And as Randy says, "downturns create opportunities".

My interest in this blog goes beyond my interest in aircraft. There are likely millions of airplane blogs (in fact, I think I have one!), but this is the only one I follow regularly. Why? Because it does a great job of making you feel like you're getting real insight on the industry, the company and the people. It exposes you to other areas of the Company and creates an image of Boeing that certainly turned my head around.

So, not interested in starting an airline or even in airplanes? I get it.

But still wondering how companies use 'social media' (I can't tell you how much I hate that term) to promote what they do? Then following this blog is a great example how to do it.

Introducing Boardroom Metrics Chairman's View

Three out of four private businesses will not sell when they are put on the market.

For the past six months, Boardroom Metrics been working with and completing due diligence around a unique private business tool called Chairman's View.

Chairman's View is a software and industry data-based approach for assessing a private company's key value drivers, ranking them, quantifying their impact on the company's value and implementing plans for improving the highest priority drivers.

Here are some key elements of the Chairman's View approach:

• focus on value, not just profits: designed to ensure owners create strong options for sustaining and transferring their businesses - currently, three of four private businesses DO NOT SELL when they are put on the market
• outputs: include research-based quantitative ratings for 8 business drivers, 9 value drivers and almost 50 associated categories
• Value Dashboard: enables business owners to visualize company value, how key drivers are performing, and the impact on company value of making improvements to sub-performing drivers
• Performance Dashboard: enables business owners to visualize company operating data and the impact of making improvements to business drivers
  
• software-as-a-service: means Chairman's View is client-accessible and includes industry data, evaluation criteria, templates, dashboards, action plans and progress monitoring tools
• three phased approach - Phase 1 is the upfront driver and value assessment; Phase 2 is the improvement plan for the weakest value drivers; Phase 3 is transaction based - selling, merging, transferring or continuing to build value in the business based on the owners goals
• Phase 1 pricing: including full access to the tools, outputs and action plans is $20,000

Giving owners great options for their business - and frankly, seeing them get rich - has always been a primary driver of Boardroom Metrics. Therefore, I'm truly excited about Chairman's View because I believe it will significantly enhance business owners' perspective on value and how to maximize it.

Any private business owner or those advising private business owners - such as accountants, wealth advisors, insurance brokers, M&A specialists - will likely find that Chairman's View is a very helpful for discussions on succession planning, business sale or transfer.

This link to Slideshare provides more detail on the Boardroom Metrics Chairman's View offering. 

Canadian Board Index - CEO Facts Canada

Every year, Spencer Stuart sends me a copy of their 'Canadian Spencer Stuart Board Index - Board Trends and Practices of Leading Canadian Companies'. Yesterday's mail brought the 2009 study.

This years theme: 'The Route to the Top and Company Performance in CEO Transition' is and interesting look at how Canadian CEO's get to the stop, how long they stay and what they accomplish.

Some interesting facts from the study:

Internal Promotion: The rate of internal promotion to CEO has remained unchanged in the past decade (70% - which seems like a pretty good #) despite increased focus on succession planning.

Industry Background: in 2009, 83% of CEO's recruited from outside the firm came from the same industry grouping as the firm. That's up from 50% 10 years ago. One in four companies now go abroad to get that industry experience up from one in ten a decade ago.

Turnover: 13% is the 2009 # for annual CEO turnover, vs. 10% ten years ago. However, forced departures is at 44% of all turnovers, vs 27% - 30% in the past.

Tenure: the median stint for CEO's who survived successfully is 5 years. Only 10% survived seven to nine years.

Performance/Backgrounds: Interesting. In every case where a new CEO was brought in, the companies led by externally recruited CEO's performed better. Also, finance types performed the best. Sales/marketing types didn't. Period.

I'm not sure there's any real surprises here given trends in governance, performance and the economy. Thoughts?

Fortune Magazine Article on LinkedIn

"You Google other people, so don't you think they're Googling you?" LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman asks. "Part of a networked world is that people will be looking you up, and when they do, you want to control what they find." Helping you present yourself well online is just the start.

Feels like I should say "I told you so".

I won't, but I am glad to see I'm in good company.

A few days ago I posted this personal branding presentation. Today, the latest Fortune magazine showed up. With this article in it. It's titled 'How LinkedIn Will Fire up Your Career'.

Ironically, two seconds before I saw this I hung up from a great recruiter and good friend who was telling me how he'd just landed a recruiting contract with a high profile business organization here in Canada. You know how they found him? LinkedIn. You know how they picked him? On the basis of the quality of his profile. His LinkedIn profile proved to them 'he got it'. Does yours?

It works!! Get on it (yeah you. Stop acting like this stuff doesn't matter!)!!