Preparing a business for exit

Dave founded a successful professional services design business that he built up to $50M in revenue over 14 years.  He wanted to prepare for exit on a five to eight-year timeframe.  While brilliant at the creative work, his management of the business needed to become more sophisticated to make the business an attractive acquisition target.  Through our work together and his own courageous determination to learn what he didn’t know, Dave systematically tackled the challenges in front of him.  

results:

Coaching allowed Dave to examine his closely-held beliefs on how his business should be run and to relax his drive for control to allow other people to step up.  He had the wisdom to know he needed help to develop himself to realize his goals and hold him accountable to stick to the path.    The result of Dave’s work was a stronger and more empowered management team; more professional financial systems; clear KPIs, metrics and dashboards; exploration of several exit strategies; and finally, execution of a plan to bring on partners to eventually purchase the business and allow Dave to realize optimal value.  

New team & a big goal

Christine is a General Manager, leading a product development group in a large software company.  Charged with building out a new, innovative product, she had to get a large team up and running quickly to deliver on time and in spec.  This was a big increase in responsibility and complexity.  Her boss made it clear that the assignment would be a stepping stone to a VP role.   Christine knew intuitively that she needed help scaling herself, and that the skills and mindsets that got her here wouldn’t get her there, in the new job.  We agreed to work together.

Results: 

Christine’s work in coaching was to look at and break through her stories about her competence.  Her negative self-talk was holding her back.  Our task was to explore these mindsets and reduce their impact on her ability to act decisively. 

In her first year on the job, Christine created a highly functional, aligned leadership team, effectively influenced stakeholders inside and outside the company, shipped a successful V.1 product and gained confidence in her ability to work at a higher level, without as much internal noise.   

moving from consulting to corporate

Simon is a partner in a consulting firm that serves large corporate clients.  He’s known for his strategic approach and ability to get things done.  He was recently offered and accepted a Chief Strategy Officer role in a public online media company.  The role is a stretch – Simon knew he needed to learn how to work effectively inside an organization and that it would be challenging given his strong independent anti-authority nature.  His boss, the CEO, suggested he work with a coach to help him be successful.  In our work, we met regularly to tackle situations as they came up in his new world. 

Results: 

Through this process Simon learned a lot about his stance, where it came from, and how to adapt it to a corporate environment.  He looked hard at his independent attitudes, keeping what was useful and learning to moderate was working against him.  He still marches to his own drummer but has found a way to perform his role very effectively inside a corporate structure, and win the respect of his peers.