Business Accelerators Blog

Board to Death

Mark Gilmore — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:35:34 +0000

Does your company have any board members who are not employees, owners or family members? If so take a moment to think about who is on it, what their background is, and what may influence their input. Even if you do this may still be a worthwhile exercise. Try to put yourself in the shoes of each board member one at a time and then consider a number of challenges your company faces. Imagine what decisions might serve their personal goals or biases that might not be in the best interest of the company.

Under Cover Boss

Mark Gilmore — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:12:00 +0000

Have you seen the new TV series on CBS called Under Cover Boss? If you are looking for ways to grow your business this certainly is a great idea especially if your business is large and spread out. The premise is quite straight forward. A Boss, typically the business owner or CEO goes out “under cover” or disguised and performs a variety of roles in his or her company that are several tiers below them. In most cases these are the front line employees, manufacturing workers, or even their managers.

The Dear John Letter

Mark Gilmore — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:50:59 +0000

This is required reading for those interested in turning their business around using outside assistance.

There are several ways to avoid getting this kind of letter; one way is to not start a project until you are capable of doing the hard work of changing your company. This is a difficult process and not everyone is up to the challenge despite what they might think at the outset.

Just like a fitness instructor can't exercise for you we can't improve your business without your 100% participation and buy-in to the process. Getting up at 6AM to go running or do calisthenics is seldom fun for people who are out of shape, but you are not going to make an improvement if you stick to your old routines and eating habits. Enough of the introduction here is the letter:

Dear John,

Unfortunately changing a business is not a "comfortable" process especially when it entails abandoning ways of doing things that at one time served you well. In order for this to be a successful engagement we need your buy-in and commitment to the changes we are proposing and for whatever reason that has not been there.

Our focus has been on the "results" you wanted to achieve but it appears the process and documentation are of greater importance to you. We would not be doing our job as independent consultants if we compromised our strategy in order to better connect with a client. It is our belief that you can turn this company around, but only if you follow a strategy like we have outlined and put roles in place that are accountable for results and eliminate the need for ownership to micro manage them.

Given your desire to get different results while continuing to do things that make you comfortable we don't believe that this is a project that can be successfully. We wish you well with whichever path you choose to take.

Gilmore Lewis, LLC

Are You Documenting Your Demise?

Mark Gilmore — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:44:06 +0000

All too often I come across business owners who put the proverbial cart before the horse and get more excited about documenting processes before they actually improve them. Documenting a flawed process is like paving cow paths (that zigzag all over the place) as opposed to mapping out a more efficient, and direct path and then paving it.

Top 10 Things to Consider when Designing Sales Compensation Plans

Mark Gilmore — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:13:48 +0000

1. What behavior or results are you trying to influence? Different sales roles and different sales cycles will benefit from different influencers.
2. What metrics are the best measurements of achievement of these results or behavior you are seeking to influence?
3. How many metrics do you really need, and at what point do several become too many? There is a diminishing effect of influence when there are too many metrics or components to a compensation plan.
4. How frequently should your sales people be getting paid their bonus or commissions and are their goals monthly, quarterly and/ or annually?
5. How will you measure the results? What data do you need, when do you need it and in what format? Be sure you can get the data and in the form you need in the timeframe you need it in to pay commissions or bonuses.
6. Are your goals or quotas achievable and do your sales people realize and believe this?
7. What caveats, exclusions, or exceptions if any do you need to include in your plan so that you are not rewarding people for activities that you do not want to happen, and so people are not exploiting loop holes in the plan (they will be there in some way shape or form).
8. If an employee leaves the company on their own accord, is terminated, or transfers internally to another role what rules are in place (within the plan terms) to determine how they get paid? Look at all possible scenarios to be sure your termination clause addresses them.
9. Perform some "what if" scenarios to see what can happen in a variety of scenarios. This is often referred to as Plan Modeling and can and should be done at several stages along the way. This will allow you to not only see what people could earn at different levels of performance but also to compare different plans.
10. Put yourself in the salespersons shoes and try to see if you can find a loop hole, sweet spot, or how you would behave under this plan.

It’s the Strategy Stupid!

Mark Gilmore — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:13:33 +0000

One of the biggest mistakes business owners make in terms of developing or implementing a business strategy is that they confuse strategy with tactics. Their changes in tactics may generate minor improvements, sometimes temporary ones, or they could just be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Quotas Need to be Measurable and Attainable

Mark Gilmore — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:18:48 +0000

The better your sales reporting and analysis the more accurate your quota setting can be. When setting quotas think about the attainable outcomes and what results you desire once the actual revenue is counted. In addition to the numerical outcomes you also need to consider the effect your quotas will have on motivation and morale.

The measurable part of this needs to be thought out ahead of time. Too often this is an after thought causing an inordinate amount of work to figure out who sold what.

Quotas need to be set so your compensation plan can reward those who meet and exceed quota while letting those who under perform see how their lack of performance negatively affects their commissions.

What Do You Have to Do to Get Fired at this Company?

Mark Gilmore — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:11:46 +0000

So many companies have these people, the ones who everyone else is wondering how they didn’t get fired for their latest screw up, for sleeping on the job, or some other offence the average employee would be let go for.

In his book “Good to Great” Jim Collins said it was important to get “…the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats and the wrong people off the bus”. The last part is usually the hardest for so many reasons, especially the precedent set by their boss for not firing them for egregious offences, that now when responsible for taking the company to the next level they are incapable of letting them go.

While this may sound cold to some, the real victims of keeping someone like this employed are the good employees who choose not to rock the boat. Your covering for the bad employee is like second hand smoke slowly killing off the good employees or at least their will power to be a better employee. After all, if so and so comes in late every day, is not qualified to perform the basic duties of their job why should the other employees feel inclined to put in the extra effort.

Don't Be a Hippo

Mark Gilmore — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:07:46 +0000

In this case HIPPO stands for the Highest Paid Person's Opinion. While you may have risen to the position you are in based on hard work, skill, and/or your intellect you may not always be the most qualified to have your opinion be the “right one” every time no matter what the subject matter.

SEO- Another Over-Specialization

Scott Lewis — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:11:08 +0000

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is something that you hear a lot about and your business may be exploring or have already begun to tackle in some form. My goal in this blog is to demystify some of the jargon and technical black magic that is part of the SEO techno-swirl.