Podcast appearances and mentions of pamela wasley

Welcome to the Process Hacker News, your weekly roundup of useful news and updates from Process Hackers who have been guests on Hack the Process with M. David Green. This week we’ve got PR misconceptions, talent strategies, book reviews, and more. Enjoy! Media Increase your focus dramatically by asking yourself this question that Jay Wong has for you. Doing things differently may just help you find your way to success. Listen to how Josh Haynam adjusted his process and approach until his company became a hit on the Make It Snappy Show. Curtis McHale has been publishing book reviews on his podcast, Should I Read It, and his most recent review is of a book by Michael Hyatt titled Your Best Year Ever. Listen in! Pamela Wasley advises entrepreneurs to be strategic with talent on the Absolute Advantage podcast. Writing In honor of International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism, and Transphobia, Michelle Kim has written a little reminder for the LGBTQI community. What are the three common customer misconceptions about public relations? You can find out from an article written by Ricky Yean. A personal story about how a friend cheated him for money is shared by Luis Congdon, and he reveals the lessons he learned from this unfortunate experience in his latest Entrepreneur article. Michelle Dale gets more personal in her recent blog post and tells about the true story of her path to confidence and self-discovery as a digital nomad. The founder of Burning Man, Larry Harvey, recently passed away, and Loïc Le Meur wrote a post in his honor. Recommended Resources One of the folks that Michelle Kim looks up to, Kimberly Bryant of Black Girls Code, has been honored at Silicon Valley Forum’s 21st Visionary Awards. Congratulations, Kimberly! Are you working your schedule or is your schedule working you? Find out on this episode of the Here and Now Toronto Podcast with guest Eric Termuende, a workplace expert recommendation made by Tara Byrne. Amy Hoy, referenced by Alex Hillman, has written a blog post ranking nine ways to make software-as-a-service (Saas) customers hate you. Thanks for checking out this Process Hacker News update from Hack the Process. If you liked what you saw, please leave a comment to let us know what processes you’re hacking.

Pamela is a serial entrepreneur, author, speaker, and CEO of Cerius Executives and Cerius Advisors. She has served on private boards, is a frequent national speaker, and has advised hundreds of companies on strategies for growth and higher shareholder value. On this episode, Pamela shares insights on building a life as an entrepreneur and the importance of communication. She offers a free resource to help listeners grow their businesses as well. Books mentioned in the episode: The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals Disrupt You!: Master Personal Transformation, Seize Opportunity, and Thrive in the Era of Endless Innovation Support the show (http://buildingabusinessthatlasts.com)

Pamela Wasley is one of the founders and CEO of Cerius Executives and Cerius Advisors. She is a serial entrepreneur who has personally sold two companies and led a management buyout of Cerius. She has advised hundreds of companies on strategies for growth and higher shareholder value, served on several private boards, and is a frequent national speaker and is published on the topics of mergers and acquisitions, the workforce of the future, and global contingent workforces. She is the author of How I Fired My Boss and Made More Money. Pam is a great storyteller and shares with us the current need for C-Suite execs and small businesses to be matched up, and how they recognized that they could tap into this new gig-economy. Click HERE to see the free gift Pam is offering up to the Thrive LOUD Community! ***** Connect with Lou:  loudiamond.net Subscribe to Thrive LOUD:  thriveloud.com          

Pam Wasley is Co-founder & CEO of Cerius Executives and Cerius Advisors. She is a serial entrepreneur with multiple decades of knowledge and experience. She has personally sold companies, led a management buyout, and advised hundreds of companies on strategies for growth and higher shareholder value. Pam has served on several private boards and is a highly sought after speaker. She’s been featured in prestigious publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek on the topics of mergers and acquisitions, the workforce of the future, and global contingent workforces. ----- If your business is currently hiring, this statement shouldn’t come as a shock to you, but talent is a big problem today. There aren’t enough qualified applicants currently on the market to fill all the positions that companies are looking to hire. What can you do about it? My guest Pam Wasley says you need to really have a strategy for your talent … which means both new hires and current employees … and how to grow that talent long-term. For most companies, talent is an afterthought when it comes to their strategy. They say, “Okay, what talent do we need to execute our strategy,” but as Pam explains in the episode, that’s backwards thinking. Companies need to integrate their talent into their strategy conversation and start thinking about how to build their talent into a long-term asset to be more profitable. This is a problem for many of the clients we work with, and we struggled with it ourselves starting out, but it can be solved without having to make expensive hires. Companies are lacking a plan for growing their existing talent. Try identifying where your strengths and weaknesses are and then develop the talent you already have to fill those gaps. Listen and learn how! That was one of the nuggets from my conversation with Pam Wasley that stood out the most to me. Please let me know which stood out the most to you. Thank you for listening today! I appreciate your time so very much. Ways to contact Pam: Free gifts: getcerius.com/absoluteadvantage

Today's guest has been an entrepreneur for most of her life and loves helping entrepreneurs and business owners avoid making the same mistakes she's made. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cerius Executives and Cerius Advisors, where she puts her serial entrepreneur knowledge and expertise to work. She has personally sold companies, led a management buyout, and has advised hundreds of companies on strategies for growth and higher shareholder values. She recently co-authored, “How I Fired My Boss and Made More Money: Insider Secrets from Successful Interim Executives and Independent Consultants.” Please join me in welcoming Pamela Wasley. In this episode we explore: her thoughts on leadership: “Leadership is an ever-learning process of motivating people to achieve a goal. Each generation is a little bit different and leadership of each generation has to be a little different.” how she went from wallflower to President of her college dorm. her ways of avoiding myopic thinking. how outsourcing has helped her build her business with success. how she segments her time to clear her head to make room for brilliant business ideas. her practice of using LinkedIn to maintain connections. Listen, subscribe and read show notes at www.OntheSchmooze.com - episode 83

Pamela Wasley:           Hi, I’m Pamela Wasley. CEO of Cerius Executives. Cerius is one of the largest North American providers of contract executives of part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. Cerius has a network of thousands of executives form operations, finance, sales, marketing, IT, engineering and human resources. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill a sudden gap, leadership, to run a key initiative or to provide specialized skills or knowledge for a temporary period of time. Cerius deals with thousands of CEO’s and over the past few years, more and more CEO’s have been telling us that they’re ready to sell the company. However, most don’t realize that they have to get a company ready for sale, and that they have many options when it comes to selling their businesses. Selling a company takes time and lots of preparation, as well as, picking the right partner to sell to. But today, we’ll be talking to four experts: an investment banker, a private equity partner, a CEO who sold his company to his employee- through an employee stock option program also known as an ESOP- and a strategic acquirer. All who can give advice to business owners considering selling their businesses in the next 1-3 years. Well Cal, let’s talk a little about the ESOP. Cal Lai:                       Yep. Pamela Wasley:           So you did that with your company, but you probably could’ve gone out and done a deal with a strategic buyer or a private equity firm or gone through a private investment banker. What was it that, what was the over-arching reason why you went with the ESOP? I mean you could discuss a little to begin with but what were those real reasons and why should any business owner consider it? Cal Lai:                       You know, we actually did have much better offers. We could’ve sold the company for a lot more money. Probably 50% more money if we took a strategic buyer and as I said earlier we got a couple of them. But as we went through the diligence process, we realized that the company would be a really different company and the founders really felt strongly that they’d spent ... the company started with one guy who built a thousand person organization, and you know one person at a time. And the company had a really strong sense of family values we really believed in doing things the right way and working hard and rewarding staff, we had great perks and benefits that people were highly incentived to perform and stick around. And we really created a family like environment. And we, we knew that once we were hired by a strategic buyer that would kind of like go away and since many, many, many other people in the company had been there through most of that time and contributed a lot to the success of the company, we didn’t think it was fair that we put their jobs in jeopardy or change the culture so I think management was willing, the ownership was willing to take a lot less because they could see the continuity of the organization that was built with a lot of pride in that. And I think if you ask the ownership that sold at the time, they would all tell you that even though they could’ve made more money they felt better about the transaction because the company was able to continue with a set of values and culture that it had built. Many of our key employees were able to continue in their roles, we had a succession plan planned out and put into effect and many of us are still around operating the business. So ultimately we just felt that it was the right decision to make a back of our employees to sell it to them, rather than to maximize our returns and leave them in the bag. So it all comes down to what we talked about before, the seller’s intentions are as an entrepreneur and as a business owner you really have to understand what your ultimate exit and goal is and you know having been through this I can tell you from my personal experiences it’s all about the money. You know, I think when you work very hard to build your company and you say yourself wow, I don’t want that change. Is there no way I can exit without changing everything I built? In that case you might take less, but you may have the satisfaction knowing that what you built remains. So, I think that’s, you know, owners always have to be clear about what they’re goals are and why they’re doing what they’re doing. You know, if your goal is maximize your financial returns that’s probably a different strategy than, you know, seeing continuity in an organization that you built. So you’ve got to think about what your goals are. Pamela Wasley:           So Cal, you weren’t ready to step down either. I think that’s one of the reasons? Cal Lai:           No, it was odd because there was basically 3 primary owners of the business. Two wanted to retire. I didn’t. If they were going to sell the company I was planning to step out anyway, and actually I was the one who had arranged the purchase from the few strategic buyers. So I’d spent 9 months working through that process. Because I thought that’s what the other two, who owned the business more than I did, wanted to do. And we came down to it, it was a matter of them deciding that they didn’t want me to leave, they didn’t want employees to leave. I still want… There’s a significant age difference. I’m probably 25 years younger than the two other founders, so I didn’t have an incentive to go sit on the beach and retire, so I wasn’t in that mode. So I think ultimately it was a really good decision that the ownership really thought about what was best in the long-term interests of the organization that they had built, not necessarily their individual pockets. Having said that they exited at a fine amount of money and were able to comfortably retire and not have to work again. So they did accomplish their financial goals as well.

Pamela Wasley:           Hi, I’m Pamela Wasley. CEO of Cerius Executives. Cerius is one of the largest North American providers of contract executives of part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. Cerius has a network of thousands of executives form operations, finance, sales, marketing, IT, engineering and human resources. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill a sudden gap, leadership, to run a key initiative or to provide specialized skills or knowledge for a temporary period of time. Cerius deals with thousands of CEO’s and over the past few years, more and more CEO’s have been telling us that they’re ready to sell the company. However, most don’t realize that they have to get a company ready for sale, and that they have many options when it comes to selling their businesses. Selling a company takes time and lots of preparation, as well as, picking the right partner to sell to. But today, we’ll be talking to four experts: an investment banker, a private equity partner, a CEO who sold his company to his employee- through an employee stock option program also known as an ESOP- and a strategic acquirer. All who can give advice to business owners considering selling their businesses in the next 1-3 years. What is some of the mistakes you see business owners make when they try to sell a company today? Steve LaRue:  Oh gosh. There’s probably four key things I’ve seen in my experience. The first and foremost is that you typically will find, especially sellers of smaller private businesses that they’re pennywise and dollar-foolish. They resist going out and hiring professionals to help themselves in the business. This is probably going to be the single most important financial transaction that a founder’s ever going to have, selling their business. So it’s really important to get professional advices and help them through the process. The second is and perhaps the most, the biggest reason why most deals in experience has failed is because of a sense of valuation by the small business owner. The founder doesn’t accept the unreasonable offer from a seller but also refuses to get a valuation resulting in an impasse [laughs]. I just had this experience, just last week trying to acquire a business and I’m talking to the founder and I finally, just had come straight out and say, “Help me understand, where you came up with this valuation number?” [Wasley laughs] And you get some really, really interesting processes that people go through to value their business. The third is that small businesses tend to have a lack of discipline and the buyer won’t do the necessary preparation in advance sales so sometimes small businesses for example don’t always follow business practices or principles, they have inadequate or improper documentation, and as a result of not having that cleaned up in advance of the sales process, that can result in either a delay or derailing of the transaction. Once the sales process starts, there’s really very little time for house cleaning and so you really need to get your house in order before you enter into the sales process. And then finally the selling process can be long and it requires a tremendous amount of commitment, prime commitment on the part of the founder and often the management team selling the company. And we found in some cases that the founders have either not have the necessary resources or willing to commit the necessary time to file the transaction all the way through to completion. Pamela Wasley:           Great thanks Steve, and Murray you’re not buying this that owner’s think that their companies worth a whole lot more than they, than you think it is. Are you? Murray Rudin:            [laughs] I tend to think a line. I tend to believe that, you know, we have as a firm pretty good idea of 30+ years of experience what the kinds of businesses we invest in are worth. Um, you know, in our view when somebody says, well I think it’s worth 50% more, you know, that’s great. If you can find somebody who will give you that valuation you should definitely take it because based on our experience that will be an extraordinary valuation and we want you to do the right thing for you. And if you get somebody to pay that, give you that kind of valuation today in cash, that’s wonderful. We’re really happy for you and you should grab that. Pamela Wasley:           [laughs] John, are you finding any other mistakes that companies are making today in selling their company? John:                            Yeah, well Steve said something I think is important and it’s what we call ‘deal fatigue’. It is a long process and at some point in this the owner gets, could get so wrapped up in the deal itself he neglects the business. And that’s one of the worst things that can happen is you’re right in the middle of selling your company, you’re starting to get into the final two months of due diligence and suddenly the growth slows down or there’s a dip in the backlog or things that come from taking the eye of the ball. And that’s always, always frustrating. One of the reasons people hire guys like us is so that they, we handle a lot of the transactional stuff so that they can keep the business going well. Um, I think the other big mistake is depth in management. Owners, entrepreneurs start a company and they build it and they know everything, they know every customer and how the product’s made and all the technology, and that’s great and it’s very satisfying to entrepreneurs. I’ve been one myself. But if you want to leave the company and go retire to a beach, you have to have someone who will run it after you. So owners really do need to identify and hire and groom a number 2 person who can step into the company and lead it forward. Sometimes owners think like I can’t spend a quarter million dollars to train a chief operating officer here, it’s too much money. But when in fact we package a company to sell it, that’s what we call it, an add-back. We would leave that person’s salary and take out the owner’s salary and say he’s there because he owns it not because he’s running the business. So it does not affect value from a math calculation standpoint and in fact enhances value because the buyer feels like he’s got an experienced manager to run the company once he owns it.  

Pamela Wasley:           Hi, I’m Pamela Wasley. CEO of Cerius Executives. Cerius is one of the largest North American providers of contract executives of part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. Cerius has a network of thousands of executives form operations, finance, sales, marketing, IT, engineering and human resources. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill a sudden gap, leadership, to run a key initiative or to provide specialized skills or knowledge for a temporary period of time. Cerius deals with thousands of CEO’s and over the past few years, more and more CEO’s have been telling us that they’re ready to sell the company. However, most don’t realize that they have to get a company ready for sale, and that they have many options when it comes to selling their businesses. Selling a company takes time and lots of preparation, as well as, picking the right partner to sell to. But today, we’ll be talking to four experts: an investment banker, a private equity partner, a CEO who sold his company to his employee- through an employee stock option program also known as an ESOP- and a strategic acquirer. All who can give advice to business owners considering selling their businesses in the next 1-3 years. So let’s meet the talent. Our first guest today is John Hammett, an investment banker with Corporate Finance Associates. As a former company owner himself, John understands the unique situation a private company owner who decides to sell. John maximizes their value by finding high-value buyers and negotiating the best price and terms for the clients. Our next guest is Murray Rudin, managing director for Riordan, Lewis & Haden, a private equity firm. Prior to joining RLH, Murray was Chief Financial Officer and Director of business development of Voxel, a medical imaging company. Previous to that, he was the principal of Valley National Investors, a private equity fund based in Phoenix. Murray also practiced law at Riordan & McKinzie, specializing in private equity funds and their portfolio company. Our next guest is Steve LaRue, Vice-Chairman of Rico Solution. His work with strategic buyers and private equity firms over the years to sell and buy companies. His many stories propel when it comes to MNA. Our last guest is Cal Lai, President and CEO of Recom Technologies, a software development shop that builds quality solutions for government and business. Established in 1980, the ownership of Recom sold its business to 600 employees through an ESOP in 2000. Do you have any last minute advice you’d give to business owners thinking of selling their companies? Murray let’s start with you. Murray Rudin:            Sure I would say, your question highlights one of the interesting aspects of our business which is that when we make the investment, that’s not the end of the road. That transaction is the beginning of the road. And where is, as for example, somebody in John’s position does a transaction he gets a seat and moves on to the next client. We, when we’re doing a transaction we’re just beginning a 5-7 year business marriage, you might call it, with the entrepreneur. So I might say the measure of our success is not when we do the investment transaction, it’s when we exit. And there is a real satisfaction. We sell companies, you know, every year. Probably something in our portfolio turns over one or two transactions depending on the maturity of the company in the light. But there is a real satisfaction after you work with a business and a management team for those many years to see a couple of things happen. Most importantly the entrepreneur realizes their dreams, they get a second bit of the apple, a windfall that allows them to do whatever they want for the rest of their lives. Which is wonderful. You see the opportunity that has been provided for the management team to have the experience of building a great business. And then typically to remain in place with the new owner. And then, you know, we try to make sure that we sell our business to typically strategic buyers where there’s a really good cultural fit and so we want to make sure there’s opportunity for everybody in the company to continue to blow their careers and make a good living. So when you have something like that, there’s a real satisfaction. And that’s probably what gets us up in the morning every day. Pamela Wasley:           Murray, can you give an example of that? A recent transaction? Murray Rudin:            Well sure. We just, in the last 12 months or so we have a sold a portfolio company called Secure Mission Solutions that provides federal agencies with cyber security services. Basically helping IT services to help protect federal agencies data and networks against hackers from places like China, North Korea, Iran and everywhere else. And we sold that company to a very large multi-billion dollar privately held engineering services company. Actually based here in Southern California called Parsons Engineering. Prior to that we had a portfolio company called Cybercoders which was an extraordinarily successful replacement recruitment business that was acquired on by assignment, a publicly held staffing and recruiting business and that’s proven to be a wonderful transaction for both us and for the, all the members of the Cybercoders team that are doing really well with their new owner. Pamela Wasley:           Thanks Murray. Cal? Cal Lai:           I don’t have any recent transactions other than the one that I did, the one that I described. I still here working on it, on the company. The advice I would give is really think about what you want to do. Surround yourself by good outside advices. I think we’ve heard that a lot today, and I think that advisors are key. One thing I heard a lot is that, “You sold your company to employees that must have been a really quick transaction.” It took a year and a half. When you have to go through the due diligence and all the legal aide work needs to be done and the creating of the trust and the refs and warrants, and the passage of liability from ownership to the company itself, it’s a very arduous process and I think the one thing is that it’s easy, easy to believe these transactions are very simple and easy to pull off but they’re complex, they take a lot of time and I think that invariably throughout the process you reach a point of exhaustion where you’re like, God this is taking a lot of effort why am I doing this? And the risk there is that you spend so much time in the transaction, and as said earlier you lose sight of operating the business. So something the key takeaway for me was we were fortunate in that we were able to pull off a complex transaction or deal and at the same time grow our business and not take our eyes off the ball. But that took a lot of thought and effort and planning ahead of time. So we had actually a team of people who did nothing but operate the business while we had an outside team primarily of people who helped advice and pull us through the ESOP transaction.  So I think creating two separate teams in that example really helped us to continue to grow the business at the same time and execute the transaction. Pamela Wasley:           Great advice Cal. Thank. John, can you give me a transaction? I recent transaction? And then any last minute advice you’d give companies? John Hammett:            Sure, let me give you the advice first. Because I’m going to give you a story that sort of relates to that. My biggest piece of advice is to be realistic about what the value of the company is and to be thoughtful in the final valuation. It’s so tempting to try to get the last half a million bucks out of a purchased price out of the last million dollars of the deal. And it does, the competitive juice get flowing, but I’ve seen two circumstances. One we negotiated a high price and the buyer couldn’t close it because he couldn’t get financing. The price was too high for financing. And in another case where we sold the company and negotiated a strong price and then went through 5 times of due diligence to buy or retrade the price. And I think they agreed to the price thinking that they can get it back again. We did a pretty good job of holding the line for our clients. But the story I want to tell you just came up about 2 weeks ago. Actually we sold a company 2 years ago and for our client who was 36 years old, and we often times most of our clients are in their 50’s or 60’s retiring. This was a young man who was 36 and his company was 20 years old. And if you do the math which isn’t tough, he started it when he was 16. It was an ennui based company started in his bedroom. And he built it up over time and took it through a number of different iterations. He was in the internet security business, a hot sector. And we sold the company for him 2 years ago. He ended up with a very interesting structure because of who he was and what his interest were. And the deal was about one-third in cash, one-third in a seller’s noted – a lot of sellers don’t like that but in this case it was good- and one-third in stock of the buyer. And it was a pre-IPO company. And he thought that stock, well I’m willing to take the risk, I like the people a lot, I like the company. So it was structured that way. Two weeks ago the company that bought him was sold to a Singaporean company. So the shares that he took, he’s probably going to get an extra 50% valuation on that second bite of the apple in this case. So that was a wonderful success form and the seller note when we negotiated that, the buyer was going to pay 4% and then we went back and said please don’t insult us to tell our client you’re only going to pay 4%. It should at least be 6. And they agreed to that. So I asked the client here, they’re going to pay the seller note. He said I don’t want them to. I got a good interest rate at 6%, I’m going to keep at another year until it matures. I couldn’t get that kind of rate anywhere else, so all the different components that he took of this thing meant something to him and solved a different need. He’s now a CEO of a company owned by his father and I’m hopeful in a couple of years we’ll sell that company for him again. But it was probably my favourite transaction with this young guy. Pamela Wasley:           Thanks John. Steve? Steve LaRue:  Yeah, like John I’d like to start with the advice. You know most entrepreneurs and founders of the company spend most time nurturing their company than they probably do their own biological children at home. So the companies become their babies. And during the selling process, especially during the due diligence process, it is a process where the buyers are looking for weaknesses in the business. And as a result it can get to be very challenging from an ego perspective for the sellers, so my advice is don’t bring your ego into sale and don’t take the process personally. There’s going to be moments during time, whether it’s negotiating the letter of intent or the process of due diligence where it’s going to get potentially adversarial. But at the end of the day, as many of the folks pointed out here on during this session, at the end of the day as the process comes to fruition it’s really about two parties coming together and putting together a deal that creates a win-win scenario for everybody. In terms of the example of a business I recently acquired, at Rico we acquired 6 companies. One of them was a company in Canada, which two brothers owned the business. They were ready to exit the business. They had run it for 30+ years and they were looking to profiticize their investment in that business. And we saw an opportunity for us to come in and acquire that company and take their product line which was very, very complementary to our own. And rapidly grow the business by leveraging our sales and distribution channel. So at the confirmation of the deal, one of the things the founder was really concerned about was not only getting a fair valuation but making sure that the employees, were really, really like extended family members for the, were taken care of. They were pleased to see that over the course of next 2 years after acquiring the business that the business grew substantially. We increased the employment up in Canada, and the manufacturing operations by over 50%. And it turned out to be a very favorable transaction for us as the buyer, for the seller’s in terms of the valuation they get. Perhaps, most importantly they got a terrific deal for the employees as well as the customers and suppliers relying on that company.  

Pamela Wasley:           Hi, I’m Pamela Wasley. CEO of Cerius Executives. Cerius is one of the largest North American providers of contract executives of part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. Cerius has a network of thousands of executives form operations, finance, sales, marketing, IT, engineering and human resources. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill a sudden gap, leadership, to run a key initiative or to provide specialized skills or knowledge for a temporary period of time. Cerius deals with thousands of CEO’s and over the past few years, more and more CEO’s have been telling us that they’re ready to sell the company. However, most don’t realize that they have to get a company ready for sale, and that they have many options when it comes to selling their businesses. Selling a company takes time and lots of preparation, as well as, picking the right partner to sell to. But today, we’ll be talking to four experts: an investment banker, a private equity partner, a CEO who sold his company to his employee- through an employee stock option program also known as an ESOP- and a strategic acquirer. All who can give advice to business owners considering selling their businesses in the next 1-3 years. So let’s meet the talent. Our first guest today is John Hammett, an investment banker with Corporate Finance Associates. As a former company owner himself, John understands the unique situation a private company owner who decides to sell. John maximizes their value by finding high-value buyers and negotiating the best price and terms for the clients. Our next guest is Murray Rudin, managing director for Riordan, Lewis & Haden, a private equity firm. Prior to joining RLH, Murray was Chief Financial Officer and Director of business development of Voxel, a medical imaging company. Previous to that, he was the principal of Valley National Investors, a private equity fund based in Phoenix. Murray also practiced law at Riordan & McKinzie, specializing in private equity funds and their portfolio company. Our next guest is Steve LaRue, Vice-Chairman of Rico Solution. His work with strategic buyers and private equity firms over the years to sell and buy companies. His many stories propel when it comes to MNA. Our last guest is Cal Lai, President and CEO of Recom Technologies, a software development shop that builds quality solutions for government and business. Established in 1980, the ownership of Recom sold its business to 600 employees through an ESOP in 2000.  What would you tell, and I want the advice of this panel, I know what some of you are going to say. But what would you say to an owner on how to prepare his or her company for sale? I mean aren’t there things you need to do before you even start talking to people? Murray let’s start with you. Murray Rudin:            So, I would say that and this touches a little upon some of the topics Steve covered exceptionally well a few minutes ago. But I would say that the owner needs to take a really honest look and then go. They have to realize that whatever flaws, warts, whatever you want to call them are on business are going to be found. They’ll be better off finding those warts themselves and finding, or mitigating or fix them before they start the process. SO that includes things like, obviously, get all your legal documents really diligently reviewed by a professional, be a lawyer not by your local lawyer. Have definitely get an audit from your financial statements, going back at least 2 or 3 years even if it costs a lot of money, you just want to have that. Because all of these things although they cost a lot of money upfront ultimately yield enormous ROI in terms of getting a better valuation on the back hand. If there are limitations in, as was mentioned, kind of the depth of your management team or you’ve got customer concentrations, supplier concentrations, major contracts that are nearing the end with customers that need to be, that really are critically valued business, that need to be reviewed in order that you get value form. Anything. You really got to be tough on yourself and on the business and say if I were the skeptic, what would I be worried about in this business in terms of predictability, revenue and earnings? And what can I do to mitigate that? And that mitigation effort will take time and therefore almost every business has some weaknesses so you really should start thinking about that whole identify the flaws and try to mitigate them a year before you really suspect to be selling the business. Sometimes more than that. Pamela Wasley:           Right, thanks Murray. Anybody else have anything to add to that? John Hammett:            Well, well your lead is Pam was a classic because so often we find donors that say, “Oh, I can sell this. I know who’s going to buy it, my competitor across town I see him every year at the tradeshow and they’ll pay me a premium to get me out of the business.” In my view, selling to a competitor is probable one of the lowest value deals you can put together because there’s nothing new brought to the game. You already compete with them, if he’d wanted to hire your salesman he’d do that, and if he wanted to sell to your customers he’d go try to find them, but the customers go buy from you because they don’t like him. And there’s a negative synergy there. We love entrepreneurs. I’ve been an entrepreneur myself and they start, create fabulous companies. But they definitely do that on their own and they think that selling the company on their own is going to be easy. Um, what they’re going up against is very experienced buyers. And they need someone on their side of the table that brings equal experience and some insight as to where find the right buyer. Murray Rudin:            Perhaps unexpectedly, I would agree with you on that. Folks might say, well as a buyer why would you want a seller to have spawn representation? But in our experience, um, the having strong representation with somebody like John actually really, first of all it improves the likelihood of the process will get successfully completed as compared to a scenario where the seller does not have an advisor. And it helps the seller understand and get comfortable with what are the norms of the deal business. Typically sellers don’t have any prior experiences selling businesses and they just don’t know what requests, what approaches, what valuation technique, anything are pretty much given standards in the MNA world. And so, by having a Sherpa, a guy who’s already been to the top of the mountain before, the seller is much more likely to have an outcome he or she is likely to feel great about. Steve LaRue:              Can’t emphasize that enough. It’s amazing how many sellers go into the process thinking it’s just a foregone conclusion, I’ll just find a buyer and there’s going to be a happy ending at the end of this journey. And it’s not an automatic. The transaction, the MNA feels littered with deal which doesn’t cross the finish line because of various errors and mistakes that were made in the process. So having an, assembling an advisory team is the single most important thing a seller can do and that advisory team needs to consist of an MNA advisor who gets the big picture, the big picture guy. Whether that’s an investment banker or broker or a consultant with strong MNA experience. The CPA is critically important that Murray emphasized earlier and legal counsel, and we’re not talking about the transaction attorney or corporate attorney. We’re talking about somebody who has deep MNA experience. In addition, Murray talked about doing a financial audit that’s also really important that you have a legal audit done as well. I can’t tell you how many deals got delayed or ended up with deal breakers or legal hurdles, issues around status of IP, reviewing the key contracts. We ended up successfully buying the company but we looked at one company where during the due diligence process we discovered that all of the distributor agreements that they had with their distribution channel had expired. And, you know, we had to go fix that before we could go buy the company. So it’s really important that they do their homework, the seller does their homework, does the housekeeping on both the financial side and on the legal side before they start the sale process. Pamela Wasley:           Yes, Steve you just mentioned due diligence. Tell me, talk a little bit more about that. What does that entail and how long does it take? Steve LaRue:              Yeah, the due diligence process is really the, it’s the risk mitigation activity conducted by the buyer. And it primarily focuses on 3 key areas: financial risk mitigation, operational risk mitigation and then legal risk mitigation. In the old days when I first started doing this it involved just a very exhaustive process of pulling together all the documentation, the information, the data necessary. Putting it in the binders, putting it in a data room. Today they have a, we have virtual data rooms. It’s all on electronically which all makes it a, a lot easier. It’s extraordinarily detailed. Very, very intrusive. It can take anywhere from a few weeks if it’s a relatively small transaction and the seller’s well prepared, to literally months if the process properly taken care of in advance. The most important thing I would know about due diligence is for the listeners which are thinking about selling their business. Perhaps, the most important thing I want to emphasize is that the due diligence submission that are entered into that data room typically become the schedule’s supporting the seller’s rep and warranty in a definitive agreement. So, it’s really important that you’re totally honest and very, very accurate in those submissions in the due diligence in the data room. Pamela Wasley:           Yeah, John you have a data room you talked about before. Anything you’d like to add there about that? John Hamett:               Yeah, yeah. I could give you a couple of antidotes. I think the advice we just heard about being brutally honest, totally complete is really, really important. Because you know you’ll have to indemnify the buyer against anything you did not disclose. Sometimes there’s a temptation to not disclose something and to think that you can scoot it by the buyer but I’ve never been a party to that happening but it can come back and bite you pretty severely. We sold a company here a couple of years ago to a Fortune 25 buyer. It was a mid-market company like most of the deals we do but we ended up, the buyer had 60 people in the data room looking at 2400 documents. And it took about 4 months to get it through right. I was astonished. They had the deal guys, the financial people, the legal people and then they had HR people in there, they had the safety person, risk management. It was the most extensive due diligence I’ve ever been through. But we got it done and we got the deal done so it turned out fine in the end. Murray Rudin: You know I might add something on that. We kind of look at the due diligence process with 2 different purposes. One of course being of risk mitigation elements that were mentioned just a minute or two ago. But what we’re really more interested in, particularly because we’re looking at going forward in a 60-40 partnership with the entrepreneur, is we’re trying to learn about business in conjunction with the entrepreneur to help map out strategy, and opportunities, needs for additional people in the organization. All those kinds of elements for what will happen going forward. And so we don’t get the diligence so much as a ‘us against them’ project as we do a joint effort to try to understand, help us understand the business and start to develop in conjunction with the owner what the high-level plans moving forward to maintain and accelerate the business’ growth and revenue and profits and value would look like. SO there’s kind of a second purpose for us in that process as well. John Hammett:            Yeah, Murray I’d like to respond to that. About half the deals we sell are to private equity and half strategic. Before I became a full-time investment banker, I was the president of a couple of companies that we sold at private equity. And the process is very interesting early in the deal you sort of share information and then you negotiate the letter of intent, it can be adversarial. Each side wants to get the best deal structure. And the adversarial thing begins with, carries over with the beginning of due diligence. By the time we get through, it becomes highly collaborative. I always enjoy watching that happen. The best private equity buyers do look at it as a partnership with the owners and they do have legitimate interest in where the opportunities are as well as the risks. In most cases it’s not a game of gotcha’, oh look what I found here, but very much a collaborative thing. It’s very nice to hear you speak to that too Murray. Murray Rudin:            yeah, particularly the issue: is it collaborative or is it adversarial is mitigated to some degree in some circumstances where the seller is rolling over a substantial portion of their equity which is typically the case in our transactions. Because conversely, when the seller is selling almost all of their positions then there’s really, the seller doesn’t really have any incentive to help the buyer become better educated and a better helper. Because there’s really no helping going post-closing. But in our scenarios we all view the second bite of the apple as the opportunity for everyone and it’s in everybody’s interest to get that process off to a strong start as possible.

Pamela Wasley:           Hi, I’m Pamela Wasley. CEO of Cerius Executives. Cerius is one of the largest North American providers of contract executives of part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. Cerius has a network of thousands of executives form operations, finance, sales, marketing, IT, engineering and human resources. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill a sudden gap, leadership, to run a key initiative or to provide specialized skills or knowledge for a temporary period of time. Cerius deals with thousands of CEO’s and over the past few years, more and more CEO’s have been telling us that they’re ready to sell the company. However, most don’t realize that they have to get a company ready for sale, and that they have many options when it comes to selling their businesses. Selling a company takes time and lots of preparation, as well as, picking the right partner to sell to. But today, we’ll be talking to four experts: an investment banker, a private equity partner, a CEO who sold his company to his employee- through an employee stock option program also known as an ESOP- and a strategic acquirer. All who can give advice to business owners considering selling their businesses in the next 1-3 years. Let’s look at it from the seller’s point of view. What are the reasons why a CEO would look to sell his company? John, let’s start with you on that one. John Hammett:            [laughs] Sure. Yeah in the first deal I was involved in as a shareholder where I was in my early 30’s and I was working for an entrepreneur in two divisions. We sold one of those. He said, and this guy was in his mid-50’s and as we were working on the transaction, he said that anytime you have an opportunity to get liquidity in a private company you need to seriously consider it because that’s a risky investment, it’s illiquid and it’s very difficult get out of that unless you go through a transaction like this. And that’s stuck with me. For owner’s create huge value when they build a business in the early stage they take risks because you don’t have as much to lose. But you get to be in your 50’s and you’ve built a company and its worth $20 million, then suddenly you become more conservative. And you do have the risk of losing it all and as you get older, you have as we call lesser runway to get it all back. If you had a bad five years, when you’re in your 30’s that’s one thing but if you’re over 60, a bad five years can really affect things. So I think owners need to always be thinking about how do I exit this investment. Doesn’t mean that the company’s bad, just that as a single investment it’s something to be concerned about. Pamela Wasley:           How many [Murray speaks] Go ahead Murray. Murray Rudin:            The one thing to always think about is really the as important as price, particularly if they’re doing a deal where they will continue to be engaged, is the caliber of the firm, the private equity firm that they’re going to partner with, the reputation, the references, the style, the chemistry, the cost. Those kinds of factors. I think the number one mistake sellers make in scenario’s where they intend to roll over significant equity is they obsess over the last few dollars valuation when the really important thing is the quality of people that you’re partnering with. John Hammett:            I absolutely agree with that Murray. That’s much more important. Pamela Wasley:           Cal, anything to add to that? Ca Lai:                        Yeah, I think as a seller you really want to know why you want to exit. I think it’s true whenever you have a chance to get liquidity it’s worth looking at but I think that there are a lot of reasons why sellers want to exit. They want to retire and building a business takes a lot of time, energy and effort and I think after 15-20 years in the seat it’s very tiring. And I know a lot of people, a lot of CEO’s and founders who built businesses, at some point put so much into it that they don’t have the passion they once had. They want to do something different, so that’s another reason to think about why it’s time to be selling. So I think a good entrepreneur is always looking at their options going forward. Time is always a risk, and the more time you’re business is out there, the greater risk you have. So if you have, most of us do, some financial goals in the sale of a business you’ve always got to be looking forward to that and understanding what the best timing for a sale is, how you can get prepared to sell and finding the right potential buyers.  

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time.   BT:                  Welcome to Business Today brought to you by Cerius Executives, one of the largest interim executive and management consulting firms in North America. Today we are joined by Donald Nobel, a technology CFO who has spent a portion of his career as an interim executive. How are you doing today Donald? Donald:            Oh terrific, terrific! Nice to meet you Raj. BT:                  Nice to meet you too! So you actually have a pre-existing relationship with Cerius Executives. We’ve kind of tapped into you to be one of our interim executives and a CFO for some of our clients. That just leads me to wonder, why continue down the interim executive path? I’m sure you get approached with full-time opportunities. Has the right opportunity not come by yet? Have you just fallen in love with being an interim executive so much that your interim executive career might become your next full-time career? I mean what keeps you going with it? Donald:            Wow. Good question. I’ll answer in part Raj, that of course I get approached by companies that want full-time work, long-term employment. I have also been approached by some of the interim companies I’ve worked for and said can you continue on as a full-term role. I am not sure I explicitly choose not to pursue those, but I do love the challenge that interim work brings to me. I am a puzzle solver. BT:                  So let me ask you this – next question’s a little hard – Give me one mantra of Don that you use or give when you go into a company that’s either hitting a plateau, or going through growing pains or in the need of a turnaround situation. A Rajisim, one of mine, is what’s the difference between a butter knife and a sword? How you use it. You got a  Donism for me? Donald:            Well there are some serval mantras that I live by but I would probably say the one I use most often is ‘hope for the best and plan for the worst’. The reason I say that and the reason I use that is when you go into any situation, whether it be a company or a life challenge or any situation, it’s OK to hope for the best outcome possible. However a good CFO, a good COO, a good management consultant should always be planning for all the scenarios that might or could happen. And I try to do that when I go in. I don’t just look for the best outcome and say that’s the one we’re going to pursue. I look at that one and say let’s pursue that one but here are five others ones that I am keeping in my back pocket. BT:                  That’s actually a really good one. I’m probably going to steal that Don, I’m going to be honest with you. Donald:            Oh I have a few more if you want them, so. BT:                  Give me one more. That was actually a really good one. Donald:            It’s interesting you should ask that Raj because one the other ones that comes up quite often, especially when both entering a company as an interim or choosing an interim, is something I heard from a CEO that I respect probably way more than he knows and it’s a simple statement that says, ‘fast, cheap or good, choose any two’. The purpose of that is you can either have it fast or good, but don’t expect it cheap. You can either have it cheap and good, but don’t expect it fast. There is very rarely a situation where you can have fast, good and cheap and I live by that because that’s true. There are many times that you have to pay more for something that you want fast and you want extremely high quality and there are times where when you come in and try to give the lowest bid whatsoever and have it done yesterday, you’re not going to get the quality. So it’s a good maxim to live by. BT:                  Well Don. I wanted to thank you for your time. We really appreciate you joining us. And sharing some of this, actually not some of this, all of this great knowledge and information with us and our listeners. For our listeners we will be back every week with a different podcast covering a different topic, so please stay tuned. Subscribe to us on iTunes, Play Store. And until next time, this is Raj Prasad for Cerius Executives.

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time.   BT:                  Welcome to Business Today brought to you by Cerius Executives, one of the largest interim executive and management consulting firms in North America. Today we are joined by Donald Nobel, a technology CFO who has spent a portion of his career as an interim executive. How are you doing today Donald?   Donald:            Oh terrific, terrific! Nice to meet you Raj.   BT:                  Nice to meet you too! So you actually have a pre-existing relationship with Cerius Executives. We’ve kind of tapped into you to be one of our interim executives and a CFO for some of our clients. That just leads me to wonder. You must have quite a few stories that have to do with startups or situations in which you’ve parachuted in. What’s one of your most memorable assignments, and the results that you achieved?   Donald:            Well let’s continue on on the example I just gave. A few years ago I was called in by a friend who had a CEO who couldn’t understand why his company was not profitable. And his company was heading over a 100 million in sales and they were doing a lot of business, a lot of satisfied customers. But believe it or not, he was considering laying off staff members because he just couldn’t figure out what the bottom line problem was. I come in and within a month after analysing the entire company, I realise the sales people were not being compensated correctly and didn’t have the correct incentives to do the job. So I proposed and implemented a compensation plan based on gross profit, not revenue. Within two quarters, gross profit tripled. This enabled the company not only to survive but thrive and continue on by expanding the product line, doing some mergers and acquisitions. And even implementing an entire professional services department.   BT:                  Well Don. I wanted to thank you for your time. We really appreciate you joining us. And sharing some of this, actually not some of this, all of this great knowledge and information with us and our listeners. For our listeners we will be back every week with a different podcast covering a different topic, so please stay tuned. Subscribe to us on iTunes, Play Store. And until next time, this is Raj Prasad for Cerius Executives.

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time. BT:                  Welcome to Business Today brought to you by Cerius Executives, one of the largest interim executive and management consulting firms in North America. Today we are joined by Donald Nobel, a technology CFO who has spent a portion of his career as an interim executive. How are you doing today Donald? Donald:            Oh terrific, terrific! Nice to meet you Raj. BT:                  Nice to meet you too! So you actually have a pre-existing relationship with Cerius Executives. We’ve kind of tapped into you to be one of our interim executives and a CFO for some of our clients. That just leads me to wonder. When you work with companies, are there types of leaders or companies that you enjoy working with specifically? Do you like have a sweet spot with personalities or industries? Donald:            Well let’s start with industries if you don’t mind, and in with regards to that even breaking it down further, I prefer the challenge of really high growth companies. Where you walk in the door and they are doing a 100, 200, 300 percent a year, and those are very exciting and challenging for me and I love them. I love being in the door and I’m already hit with 5000 questions. Those are amazing. When you expand that to the industry, one of the things I love most is technology companies and today that’s a very broad term. A technology company could be software, it could be medical devices, it could be professional services. There are so many types of companies lumped under technology but again, love it because they are very fast moving and they are usually challenged a lot. As regards to people, leaders and CEOs, I tend to work best with those that have an organization where they trust the people below them, they trust that a CFO coming in can be part of the team and not micromanage ever single detail. The worst thing in the world is for a CEO to micromanage his team. And I think its best if I and the CEO are on the same page. That there are functions for the CEO and there are functions for the CFO and that’s the best atmosphere to work in. BT:                  And what do you do if you walk into a scenario where the CEO is micromanaging and doesn’t have a whole lot of trust with the people that work with him? Donald:            I probably try to do the best I can, but then shortly I recommend somebody else coming in. Again my job is not the long-term type job situation. My job is to do best for the company and sometimes the best for the company is a change. BT:                  When we look at the interim executive industry the consulting work that comes with it, it can be challenging, obviously, which seems to be a driving factor for a lot of executives who do this type of work. But at the same time it also, it could probably have its nuisances, constantly having to look for new clients or customers or contracts or... How do you do some of that, how do get yourself out there in the market place? So people know that you’re there and these are the services you have to offer and basically how does an interim executive in today’s day and age market themselves? Donald:            A very good question. I chuckled a little bit because I remembered something that a colleague said to me once and he said, “You are either working or looking for work, you cannot do both.” And I find that to be true in the interim game where again I think a common theme of our conversation today Raj is that interims do tend to get put into situations where they have to work very hard and they have to get a lot of things accomplished in a very short amount of time. So you don’t have time to you know kind of be searching while you’re dong this work for this company. So what I tend to do is, I tend to do two different things. Obviously I have an extensive network of companies I’ve helped and I get referrals. But the other thing of course I do is I partnered with Cerius Executives and work with them because they are one of the few firms to take the extra time to match the right executive or management consultant with the company that can benefit the  most from our expertise. There are a lot of companies out there doing it but it seems like Cerius has the best model for accomplishing both goals which is utilizing the expertise and helping the company. BT:                  Well Don. I wanted to thank you for your time. We really appreciate you joining us. And sharing some of this, actually not some of this, all of this great knowledge and information with us and our listeners. For our listeners we will be back every week with a different podcast covering a different topic, so please stay tuned. Subscribe to us on iTunes, Play Store. And until next time, this is Raj Prasad for Cerius Executives.  

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time. Today we'll be talking to members of the Cerius team who are experts in either hiring or placing executives in full-time, part-time or on a consulting basis. Let's get right to the questions shall we? What last minute advice would you give business owners for thinking of hiring a temporary, part-time or contract executive? Kristen, why don’t we start with you? Kristen:                Telling them what I needed done. I’d want to know that they’re done it at least 3-5 times in other companies. I talk to those companies, I talk to the co-workers because I know that they’ve had used that expertise in those situations. Pam:                      You like the experience that they bring? Kristen:                Yeah, I want to know that they’ve got the expertise that I need and they’ve got proven results on it. Not just they’re a great person to work with and they’ve accomplished so much. Have they accomplished what I need done? Pam:                      So you don’t want somebody that just have an MBA and right out of college. Correct? Kristen:                Not just right out of college. There’s some incredible executives out there that have accomplished a lot of things. They just haven’t actually done and they have light team for balance. They haven’t actually done and been involved in my types of situation. It needs to be specific. Pam:                      Great. Anyone else have anything to add? Matt:                     I would add it. Our interims have both depth and breadth of experience in their specific discipline. The other thing that they have is that they come with usually 20-plus years of experience in a larger organizations or in large consulting firms. So what they bring to a CEO is that they bring that expertise, that is far-reaching under than just what that CEO is looking for us to come in and help them with. They can come in and provide advice on their whole organization, not just on the specific discipline that that CEO is looking for. Pam:  So thank you all for being here today sharing your expertise on some things CEOs need to know when hiring part-time, temporary and contract executives. Next month, tune in for our podcast on the advantages of boards and advisory boards, especially in companies today. Should be a great topic and one you won't want to miss. See you then!  

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time. Today we'll be talking to members of the Cerius team who are experts in either hiring or placing executives in full-time, part-time or on a consulting basis. Let's get right to the questions shall we? Matt, why would a company hire a management consultant? And what is management consulting? Mat:                      Well the reason that a company would hire a management consultant. One is that there may be difficult decisions that current management team doesn’t really want to make such as a downsizing situation or a situation where the company is in dire straits and they need to bring somebody in to help them make the most difficult decisions about how to streamline a company to make it profitable and there may very well be that the current owner is having difficulty making that decision on their own. Another one that I always like to use is, I’m the CEO of a company and my brother-in-law is in charge of sales. You know you realize that I’m never going to fire my brother-in-law but sales are stagnant. So I bring somebody in, I bring in a management consultant to head out my sales team and to teach my head of sales -my brother-in-law- how to do this job, how to go out and get new sales, grow organically and find new markets. And I get to keep my brother-in-law and the management person that we brought in at the end of the time when they’ve done their job they move on and they go do that for somebody else. As far as management consulting. Lots of different definitions, I think Kristen talked about it a few minutes ago, but management consulting is really that business where I have an expertise in a specific discipline and I no longer do it for a company, just one, but I provide that service to multiple companies. I go in, I look at what their needs are, I make an assessment, I help them put together a solution to that particular issue or problem and the difference I think between Cerius and most management consulting is that once I’ve made that proposal I move on and I go to another company and I do the same thing again. Cerius, we go in and we make a proposal on how to help them solve their problems and then we stay on and we become part of that management team long enough to actually execute a particular solution that we provided then. Pam:                      So you don’t just advise, you also execute? Matt:                     That’s correct, we do. Cerius, we do both of them. Pam:                      Great. Thanks Matt. Kristen:                 Pam, I would like to add on to that. Pam:                      Sure. Kristen:                One of the biggest challenges is that the company is hitting that plateau and it’s really hard to come up with the solutions and see your company from an objective standpoint when you’re inside of it. You need that outside perspective and as much as you can hire in individual to your company, those individuals come with needs and a handful of other company experiences because they’ve not always been there full-time. Management consultants may have experience that you get when you work with 10 companies within the given year. They can bring that perspective into your company and give a whole different view and take on things. You and I both know as business owners, sometimes it’s just too hard when you’re inside of it. You need someone from the outside. Pam:                      Excellent. Yeah, I totally agree with that. CEO’s today do not get enough outside perspective. They get very myopic. I get myopic in my business and all CEO’s complain that the same thing and they just need somebody from the outside to give them a different point of view. So thank you Kristen. So thank you all for being here today sharing your expertise on some things CEOs need to know when hiring part-time, temporary and contract executives. Next month, tune in for our podcast on the advantages of boards and advisory boards, especially in companies today. Should be a great topic and one you won't want to miss. See you then!

Pam:               I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, one of the largest North American providers of contract executives for part-time, temporary, interim and consulting assignments. These executives are available to step in the companies on short notice to fill sudden gap in leadership, to run a key initiative, or to provide specialized skills and knowledge for a temporary period of time. Today we'll be talking to members of the Cerius team who are experts in either hiring or placing executives in full-time, part-time or on a consulting basis. So let's meet the Cerius team. First we have Kristen McAlister, President of Cerius, next is Matt Saur, Chief People Officer, and then we have Maria Hillman and Kim Person, both Vice-Presidents of Client Solutions. Let's get right to the questions, shall we? Let’s do a rapid fire session here and each of you give me one answer to each of the next 3 questions. Things to avoid when hiring an executive. Maria, let’s start with you. Maria:                   Anyone that uses the word “I” too much and not “we”, meaning they’re not a team player. Pam:                      Excellent. Matt? Matt:                     Don’t hire somebody in my image. Pam:                      Ah yes. Kristen? Kristen:                I would like to be careful from recycling within your industry. You may have an expert in your industry but they’re just going to recycle ideas and other concepts that are within it and not bring a great outside innovative perspective. Pam:                      Great. Great answer. Kim? Kim:                       Hiring an executive that cannot talk about his or her accomplishments. Pam:                      Alright. Next one. Things to ask an executive that you want to hire? Maria? Maria:                   I would ask them, what would you do in the first 30 days on your job. Pam:                      Ok. Matt? Matt:                     What were you brought in to do on your last assignment, and what did you accomplish? Pam:                      Right. Thanks Matt. Kristen? Kristen:                Ask them about the results from their last couple of assignments or positions. Some one can’t come up top of their head. What type of numbers, what type of impact that they’ve had? Especially using numbers other than, I just increased morale. They weren’t measuring it then, and they’re not going to measure it for you. Pam:                      So you want specifics. Correct? Kristen:                I want specifics. Better have it all on the top of your head because if you don’t have it from your past, how are you going to measure it and monitor it for me, and get me results. Pam:                      Exactly. Kim? Kim:                       I’m just going to reiterate. You’ve got to talk to executives what can you do for the company, not what you can do for the executive. Pam:                      Oh perfect one. Thanks Kim. Alright next one. Company X needs to diversify its revenue stream. What type of an executive should they be looking for? Expertise, duration of contract, etc. Maria:                   I would think expertise would be a marketing person or an innovation officer, and 3-6 months. And somebody from, that has some industry experience but that also has other verticals that you may be looking at. Pam:                      Right. Thanks Maria. Matt? Matt:                     I don’t know that I could add any more than what Maria said. I agree completely. To me it’s sales marketing, it’s experience. It’s having experience and multiple, looking at multiple organizations and being able to look at where they’ve been, where they need to go and how to get them from here to there. So still the marketing will be the obvious but I do think that there are other disciplines that could also get, make that happen. Pam:                      Great, thanks Matt. Kristen? Kristen:                Let’s start off with a very specific strategic product individual. Someone who knows how to productize, because optimally you’re not just looking at the revenue streams not just within the industry. It’s what is the product, how I describe the product and is it marketable within that. And a great marketing product person will know that and be able to carry out the messaging, so that not just the market gets it but your team as well. And then one great news about management consultant is that from that point is they diversify more within other industries. An Industry is vertical specific to executive, so we already have the contact say they know how to do it and they’ve done it many times. Pam:                      Great, thanks Kristen. Kim? Anymore to add? Kim:                       Really no. I just, I agree with everyone but also agree with Kristen that if you can productize, you’ve got to have someone that understands other verticals and other applicability’s for the product. Pam:                      Great. Thanks Kim. Alright before we wrap up here today, let me ask one last question to all the panelists. What last minute advice would you give business owners for thinking of hiring a temporary, part-time or contract executive? Kristen, why don’t we start with you? Kristen:                Telling them what I needed done. I’d want to know that they’re done it at least 3-5 times in other companies. I talk to those companies, I talk to the co-workers because I know that they’ve had used that expertise in those situations. Pam:                      You like the experience that they bring? Kristen:                Yeah, I want to know that they’ve got the expertise that I need and they’ve got proven results on it. Not just they’re a great person to work with and they’ve accomplished so much. Have they accomplished what I need done? Pam:                      So you don’t want somebody that just have an MBA and right out of college. Correct? Kristen:                Not just right out of college. There’s some incredible executives out there that have accomplished a lot of things. They just haven’t actually done and they have light team for balance. They haven’t actually done and been involved in my types of situation. It needs to be specific. Pam:                      Great. Anyone else have anything to add? Matt:                     I would add it. Our interims have both depth and breadth of experience in their specific discipline. The other thing that they have is that they come with usually 20-plus years of experience in a larger organizations or in large consulting firms. So what they bring to a CEO is that they bring that expertise, that is far-reaching under than just what that CEO is looking for us to come in and help them with. They can come in and provide advice on their whole organization, not just on the specific discipline that that CEO is looking for. Pam:                      Great, thanks Matt. So thank you all for being here today and sharing your expertise on things CEO’s need to know when hiring part-time, temporary and contract executives. Next month tune in for our podcast on the advantages of boards and advisory boards, especially the companies today. Should be a great topic and one you won’t want to miss. See you then.  

TalentTalk provides an opportunity for talented individuals like CEO's, HR Executives and business leaders to share their thoughts on talent management, leadership development, and company culture. In this episode, Bjorn Erland, Senior Director of HR Excellence, Taco Bell and Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives talk talent, leadership, employee engagement and culture with TalentTalk host and PeopleG2 CEO Chris Dyer.This show is brought to you by Talk 4 Radio (http://www.talk4radio.com/) on the Talk 4 Media Network (http://www.talk4media.com/).

Bjorn Erland, Senior Director of HR Excellence, Taco Bell and Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives share their insights on leadership and culture.

Cerius Interim Executive Solutions CEO Pam Wasely recently had a discussion with CEO’s about the business challenges that keep them up at night. Here’s what they had to say.Transcription Below:I’m Pamela Wasley, CEO of Cerius Executives, an on-demand, searchable database that matches business problems with thousands pre-vetted, part-time, temporary, interim, and contract executives. These executive level management consultants provide key insights, execution, and results to companies of all sizes and in all industries.Today, we have four CEO’s joining us on the podcast, Antoine Ford, CEO of Enlighten, located in Washington, D.C.; Jenny Rosoff, CEO of Village Green Foods, located in Irvine, California; and Dave Kearney, CEO of Boomerang, located in Palo Alto. We have a diverse group of CEO’s here today, so I’d like to give each of you 30 seconds to describe your business. Antoine, let’s start with you. Tell us a little bit about your business.Antoine Ford: Hello, how is everyone? My name is Antoine Ford, I’m President and CEO of Enlightened, Inc. We’re a technology consulting firm located in Washington, D.C., primarily focused on government contracting in the cyber security area, big data analytics, and a lot of software engineering. We do work in the top secret cleared space, as well as other government entities. We are aggressively looking at diversifying into the commercial sector. Glad to be here with the other CEO’s.Pamela Wasley:  Thanks, Antoine. Jenny, tell us a little bit about your company. Jenny, I think you’re on mute. Jenny, can you tell us a little bit about your company? Jenny Rosoff:  My company is a wholesale food manufacturing business. We make food primarily for restaurant chains and other manufacturers. We have 30 employees on the production floor where we’re cooking. We have about 150 different products we make for about 30 different clients.Pamela Wasley: Excellent, thanks Jenny. Dave, tell us a little bit about what your company does.Dave Kearney:  Thanks Pam, thanks for having me. Boomerang, for the most part we’ve been running for the last 20 years on the CEO Boomerang, and we’ve been doing online marketing, mostly around email marketing, newsletters, and so on for large and small companies as well as event management and social marketing now we’ve added recently. The other side of Boomerang is we do – for a lot of our customers we do automated marketing software consulting, so a fair amount of software enabling systems integrations and so on to make that marketing application work very well.Pamela Wasley: Great, thanks Dave. As CEO’s we run across some really tough problems that we have to deal with, such as the organization losing money, declining profit margins or sales, non-performing employees, finding and keeping the right talent, system outages, the need to reduce costs, and how to get your entire company culturally on the same page. Today, I’d like each of you talk about those business issues that keep you up at night. Antoine, so does dealing with the government keep you up at night?Antoine Ford: Yes it does. If you look at my business, being a government contractor, as soon as we have a budget crisis between the two parties, we’re greatly impacted by that. When there was a government shut-down last year, we were greatly impacted by that. One of the things that keeps me up at night is making sure the government continues to function, and to let the two parties get out of the way of folks that want to serve.That’s important, and that does keep me up at night because we have to look at not where we are now, but we’re looking at budgets in the next two to three years. You win a contract as an entity, you’re thinking about the next contract immediately because you only have a number of years before you have to perform in other places.The second thing that keeps me up at night, quite honestly, as you mentioned it earlier, was people. Your investment in people, people representing you, the other CEO’s have this same issue probably ensuring that the people that we have that are going to carry the culture are carrying it in the way that we think they should. One of the things we do at Enlightened is try to make sure that our leaders have the same DNA as the executive management. When I don’t have somebody who doesn’t have my DNA, that keeps me up at night.Pamela Wasley:  Thanks, Antoine. Jenny, being in the food business, what issues are robbing you of sleep these days?Jenny Rosoff:  Actually, one of Antoine’s issues is also one of ours because we’re regulated by the government. We have USDA and FDA in and out of our plant regularly. When the government’s not functioning well, neither are our inspectors nor are their agencies. That is something that does, from time to time, keep me up at night. Another one is that the product that we make is going inside of people. That’s one of the most intimate things that you can do with somebody.I wake up at night wondering if the metal detector’s working right, if the people running the metal detector understand what they’re doing, if everybody’s following the protocols that we’ve put in place to make sure that everything’s functioning well. I don’t – 24 years, I haven’t had it happen yet, knock on wood, I don’t ever want to get that call saying that something that we made, made somebody sick.Pamela Wasley: Thanks, Jenny. Dave, as the CEO of a service company, what issues are bugging you these days?Dave Kearney:  Well, as a services company, specifically a high tech services company in Silicon Valley, there’s the constant battle of maintaining relevancy, being relevant to our customers, and competing against a large number of companies that are well-funded. As you might be aware, the online marketing space is very crowded, with companies providing the latest tools and technology to market to your customers, to help other companies market to their customers.The things that keep us up at night are the idea that we have to constantly, constantly innovate and compete against not only the companies that have been in business for a long time, but also the very new ones that are up and coming. We have to stay relevant, and we have to make sure that the choices we make today, and the technology that we’re releasing in the next year or so are going to be the technologies that people need and want, and are going to be coming across as better than the competition.Pamela Wasley:  Absolutely, Dave, it’s even hard to keep up with technology these days. I get it. Thanks for sharing today; however, before we wrap up, I’d like to ask each of you what advice you would give to other CEO’s on how to effectively deal with tough issues. Antoine, let’s start with you again.Antoine Ford: One of the things that a CEO has to have is a good ego, and they also have to have good judgment, when to let their ego go. One advice I would give to other CEO’s is to know when to ask for help from advisors, mentors, other CEO’s because we’re all facing the same game, and although we may be in different business segments, the advice, even that I heard today, is helpful for me. Know when to let your great ego go, and ask for help.Pamela Wasley: Thanks Antoine, Jenny?Jenny Rosoff:  Something that I’ve been told for years is to surround myself with good people, preferably people smarter than I am, and at this point, people younger than I am. That’s something that I’m working on regularly is bringing on more people who can support and take the culture and the vision that we have here and move it into the next day, week, month, or hopefully the next generation, to keep it going the way I’ve always wanted it to go.Pamela Wasley: Great, thanks Jenny. Dave, what advice would you give?Jenny Rosoff:  I’d like to second the opinions of Antoine and Jenny there, but also add on in that your – to stay on top of things, relationships with other companies and other people outside. A fair amount of networking and collaborating with other groups and folks to help you grow and stay relevant in this amazingly fast-growing business is important. It’s not just to look inward, it’s to look outward as well.Pamela Wasley:  Great, thanks Dave. Thank you all for being here today, and sharing what problems were keeping you up at night. I’m sure that many other CEO’s around the world are having similar problems and appreciate your insights. Next month, tune in for our next Cerius podcast on the topic of the six business challenges that give us [00:13:18]. CEO’s and CFO’s will not want to miss this. See you next month. Thanks guys, I really appreciate all of your patience with us getting this started. Harry, if you’re still on, my apologies. We’ll try another venue next time, and we’ll have you participate. Again, thank you everyone, and have a great day.

Monday March 23rd Pamela Wasley, President of Cerius Interim Executives was interviewed by Ric Franzi on Critical Mass The Radio Show. Pam discussed how firms are using the concept of "leadership on demand" to address their executive talent requirements in a new way.