As John Grossmann writes in an article we have just published, Scott McGohan, chief executive of McGohan Brabender, a health insurance and benefits broker with 120 employees and annual revenue of more than $25 million, hired a salesman about seven years ago who lacked experience in benefits consulting. Even so, in a field with a tough learning curve, the new salesman thrived.
The salesman was a type of employee sometimes referred to as a destructive hero. “He was probably the best salesman in the history of the company,” said Mr. McGohan, whose company is based in Dayton, Ohio. “Honestly, we were kind of drunk on revenue, infatuated by the results. He was very successful at bringing business in the door — but very combative regarding how business moves through the organization.”
Sometimes, the salesman would tell prospective clients that he could get them a financial projection by the end of the week, even though it generally took the company’s research analysts three or four weeks. Work backed up. Employees in the hero’s wake grumbled. But because the salesman had received so many accolades, the employees did not complain to management, at least not right away. Even when they did, Mr. McGohan — who acknowledged that he, too, was once a destructive hero — found excuses to skirt the mounting issues.
Please read the article and tell us if you had experience with similar employees. What approaches did you try?
Shaan Kandawalla, a native of Pakistan who lives in New York, is used to challenging gender norms.
As a teenager in Karachi, she excelled at competitive swimming — something only boys were encouraged to do. She qualified for the 1996 Olympics but was not permitted to compete because Pakistani officials objected to a woman appearing in public wearing a swimsuit. She brushed off the disappointment and went to Wellesley College and then to Harvard Business School.
That background would seem to have prepared Ms. Kandawalla to succeed as an entrepreneur in technology, where she once again stands out in a male-dominated world. In 2012, after years working at Hasbro and Nickelodeon, she started PlayDate Digital, which makes educational apps for kids. A short time later, she found out she was pregnant. And that, she said, is when the tone of meetings with potential investors, partners and clients — most of them male — began to change.
“It suddenly called into question all these things that a man would never have to face,” she said. “Would I be committed? Could I handle the challenge?” In response, she said, she relied on her experience crossing boundaries in Pakistan. Read more…
In the summer of 2013 I wrote a post about whether it was time to revamp my website. Ultimately, I decided I should, and more than a year later, that project is now complete.
In my next few posts, I plan to explain how I approached my upgrade: defining my goals for the project, choosing the web developer and aligning the site content with our operational capabilities. One post will give you an opportunity to see the new site, which is not yet open to the public, and comment on what you think works and what doesn’t.
If your business is like mine, your website is your store. It’s the first piece of information that prospective clients encounter about you. Whatever you put up will make a huge difference in whether your business succeeds or fails. My project took longer than anticipated — and cost more — but I’m happy (so far) with what has been built. Read more…
In my most recent post I wrote about an electrical distributorship that was for sale. The investment banker on the sale, Kevin Short from Clayton Capital Partners, thought the business would probably bring a multiple of four to five times Ebitda.
As part of the sale process, Mr. Short helped his client understand that the value of his company was likely to be $16 million to $20 million. At the same time, however, Mr. Short decided he would pursue what he calls “the outrageous sales strategy” to see if he could sell the company for an even higher number.
Remember, this business distributes parts to electrical contractors. It’s not a sexy business, and you wouldn’t think it could be sold for an outrageous amount of money. Read more…
An old-line business tries to compete in a high-tech economy.
Even as I was having my conversation with the client who can’t pay us, I was doing the math in my head about what this client’s lack of payment for past work and lack of orders for future work would mean for our cash flow. And that led to concerns about the number of employees we have.
In this type of situation, you have to watch the financials closely, but at the same time, you already know something is going to have to be done. I realized that I have at least three people who suddenly don’t really have enough to do. Sure, they can help on other lines, and that offsets some of the financial bleeding, but lack of volume is still lack of volume.
I mentioned this on a morning bike ride with some business buddies. They were clear: Do not wait. And cut more people than you think you need to, because you don’t want to do another layoff a month or two from now if you can’t get more work into the shop. Continuing reductions in force really sap morale. Read more…
