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What is an end run and why avoid it?
Several of my clients have complained over the years about how tricky it is to hold their direct reports accountable. Impatient CEOs try to fix perceived problems or lack of information by going direct to employees reporting to others. We call these actions end-runs and they have the potential to derail your company. When you […]
Four Ways for Selling Your Strategy to Potential Investors
Following last week’s blog on “Fixing Your Financials“, Selling Your Strategy is the second of five grooming strategies. You should execute as many of these as you can when preparing your Buyable Business for an equity harvesting transaction. Selling Your Strategy is made up of seven tactics, the four of which are the subject of […]
Fixing Your Financials to Make Your Business Buyable
In my upcoming book, that I will reveal soon, there is a chapter about grooming a business for sale including 5 strategies. The first of these I call: Fixing Your Financials. Here are the four areas to focus on to cover this strategy. Provide Three Years of Financials The financial statements are the first and […]
Grooming Your Business
Here is a real-life story about what grooming your business looks like. János Gréczi is the quintessential self-made entrepreneur. He started importing apparel and nonalcoholic beverages after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and over time he developed the latter concern into a full-fledged beverage distribution business. Later he invested in production equipment using government […]
Three Ways to Build a Business
I believe there are three ways to grow a company. Each is valid and a fit for a different type of entrepreneur. Each has the potential to make a business buyable. Let’s look at each approach in turn. Build Your Business by Buying a Franchise The first approach is the “franchise prototype way,” advocated by […]
Are You Building a Buyable Business?
As you may have guessed a “Buyable business” is a company that others find valuable and would want to buy. Doesn’t that seem redundant? Why should anyone want to build an “unbuyable’ business? Why would they want a business that does not come across as valuable and desirable to others? Who would want to own […]
Don’t let Covid Be Your Excuse
In the past 10 days, three of my Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) clients arrived at exactly the same conclusion: “Don’t let Covid be our excuse”. This is remarkable and obvious for different reasons. Let me explain. Let PPP be our bonus It is remarkable to see the resilience of American companies in this […]
Why ROcKs trump OKRs (unless you run a hyper-growth tech firm)
I recently met with a construction company committed to using the “OKR” (Objectives and Key Results) approach. This reminded me, that the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) uses a modified version of OKRs, called Rocks. In my experience Rocks work better than OKRs, most of the time. The reason is, that EOS wraps Rocks into a […]
The EOS of Everything
“Can you find me the EOS of software development?” – asked Nick Beavers, the owner of a prospering software company. “I have been looking for a simple self-sustaining system for writing code and was wondering if there was one out there.” — he explained. I pinged my EOS Implementer friends on Slack, but Agile was […]