As the year winds down to a close, have you scheduled time to work on your business and not in it. As the CEO, your daily goal should be figuring out how to run your business and move it forward – not be focused on the minutia of running it daily. The best future exit strategy is a growth strategy today. Yet, the fact is that it’s easier said than done. Here is a very simplistic way of making it a reality starting right now:

Ideas for setting time aside right now:

1. Right now, schedule a half-day offsite for you and your key management team within the next 30 days or;

2. Right now, set up a series of after-the New Year Breakfast meetings on the calendar now with each of your key business area team leads.

Once you have assembled your team you can begin by focusing on the following areas and strategic conversations. They key here is to drive conversation, derive key goals for next year, and commit to key performance indicators that can measure your progress. This is a process and not a one-time event and each idea garnered from these meetings will lead to better ideas and a stronger business overall.

1. Marketing Plan
a. How many new prospects do you want to touch?
b. What market or segment will have the most focus next year?
c. What are a few Key Performance Indicators you can set to measure against?

2. Systemization
a. What systems are in place today? Are they working?
b. More importantly, if they are working is everyone using them?
c. If they are working, look for small improvements and document them.

3. Talent
a. How do you hire more A players
b. How do you plan to retrain or eliminate C players?
c. How are you communicating your expectations and realigning your expectations?

Your business is an asset that you have invested your time and money in developing. By focusing on working on your business and not in it, you can take control of your destiny and drive the value of your asset even higher.

Evergreen Advisors is a leading middle market investment bank and corporate advisory firm focused on assisting companies in the areas of corporate finance, growth and exit strategies, business valuations and CFO advisory services. As entrepreneurs and founders, we have real-world experience of the challenges our clients face and the market experience to assist them in driving value.  Give us a call today, we welcome confidential consultations with you regarding your exit strategy.

Clemson University featured Evergreen Advisors’ Mike Gill in this month’s “The Will to Lead for Clemson,” article. Here is an excerpt and link to the article:

Mike Gill came to Clemson from Baltimore in the fall of 1968 on a baseball scholarship, playing under Coach Bill Wilhelm. Today, he and his wife, Mary, support the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts with a generous endowment. Perhaps the connection between baseball and the Brooks Center is not readily apparent, but then Clemson has a way of bringing people and ideas together in unexpected ways.

While playing for the Tigers, Mike got to know Byron Harder, a young doctor working at the Redfern Health Center. Byron was a fan of the baseball team and treated many of its players. Byron was also a fan of Lillian “Mickey” Harder, whom he married and who is now director of the Brooks Center. The friendship that was struck between the Harders and Gill remains today.

Recently, Joseph DeMattos, Jr., MA president of the Health Facilities Association of Maryland (HFAM), interviewed Mike Gill, President and Chairman of Evergreen Advisors on leadership and how Mike stays sharp on a daily basis.  

Here is an excerpt from the interview and some self-reflective thoughts as we all start to reflect on 2012 and look forward to 2013.

What are the three things or actions a person could take to launch their own individual “American Recovery” in 2013?

MG:  Let me use three of the six of The Big Six, to answer this.  Jack Welch introduced us to The Big Six over twenty-five years ago.  They are ageless and timeless.  I want you to look at them through the eyes of the individual and not an enterprise.

[Read more…]

The Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development invested announced today that they have invested $200K in Pathsensors, an Evergreen CFO Advisory Client. Pathsensors manufactures biological pathogen identification systems focused on environmental testing and is located at the UMB Biopark.

“We are honored to be a recipient of capital funding through InvestMaryland. PathSensors CANARY technology is providing rapid pathogen testing  that ensures a safe and reliable supply of food products for the world’s growing population. These funds will support the development of new products for the food processing industry. We thank the State of Maryland, in particular the Maryland Venture Fund, the Department of Business and Economic Development and the Governor, for their support as we work to develop these important products.” stated Ted Olsen.

InvestMaryland is a funding source for early, mid and late stage growth companies. Through a premium insurance tax credit auction sale, the State of Maryland raised $84M to invest in early stage technologies in the areas of software, communications, cyber-security and life sciences.

Evergreen Advisors, a leading Investment Bank and Corporate Advisory Firm, announced the addition of Fred Shaw as Vice President in the CFO Advisory Practice.

Fred has diversified experience in both public and private accounting serving a variety of industries including Manufacturing, Health Care, Service and Government Contracting industries.  Prior to joining Evergreen Advisors, he worked with middle market companies at JPB Accounting Service and at KJC Financial Services, Inc., a firm he founded in 2002 to provide CFO services to small and mid-sized companies in the Central Maryland region. 

“I’m very excited to welcome Fred Shaw to our team as Vice President in our CFO Advisory Services practice. Fred has an outstanding background in the accounting and financial services industry, having been a partner at KPMG, a CFO at some major companies, and most recently a financial advisory consultant to a number of companies in the mid-Atlantic.” remarked Mike Gill, Chairman.

[Read more…]

The University of Maryland MIPS Program announced that our client, Plasmonix, has been awarded a MIPs project, which teams companies with universities across the state to focus on advancing commercially promising technologies into the marketplace. 

“The MIPS award is a critical component of Plasmonix’s product development and introduction plans.  The award is hugely important to the Company’s ability to hit the ground running as we enter 2013.” Says William Gust, President and Chief Executive who has raised $1.5 million for Baltimore-based Plasmonix.

Plasmonix was also selected to present at the upcoming Mid Atlantic Bio Conference on September 27^th and 28^th.

Sitting for More Than Three Hours a Day Cuts Life Expectancy – WSJ.com

In the mid 80’s I read an article in Fortune magazine about Lou Gerstner, Jr. Who at the time was president of American Express.  Gerstner eventually went on to become Chairman and CEO of IBM, where he retired in 2002.

In the Fortune magazine article, Gerstner said that his favorite quote was, “From behind the desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world”. I “borrowed” it from Gerstner and have shared with the world ever since.

The article that appeared this week in the WSJ by Andrew Seidman should be the companion piece to the Gerstner quote.    I’ve always said that you can’t find out what your competition is doing, how your customers feel about your products and your company, and how your people in the field are doing, when you’re inside the four walls of your company………if that isn’t enough to get you off your derrière, Seidman now tells us we’re “gonna die” the longer we sit.

I guess the “bottom” line, no pun intended is if you get out of your chair you’ll do a better job running your company and live longer!  Do It!

 

 

 

Business owners typically focus on creating sustainable value that would endure even in their absence. After all, a buyer will only pay for the value of an enterprise which can actually be transferred in an acquisition. “Goodwill” is a concept that is often raised when positioning a business for sale, but what does is mean and what are its implications for the sale of your business?

In this context, goodwill is an accounting concept that is generally defined as the value of an acquired business over and above its identifiable tangible and intangible assets. If a business is purchased for $10 million but has identifiable (net) assets of only $7 million, the difference of $3 million would be recorded by the acquirer as goodwill. In an economic sense, goodwill is the value created over and above the identifiable net assets residing in a business enterprise.

In a corporate acquisition, goodwill can be identified as either “personal” or “business” goodwill. The value of goodwill may be attributable to the owners personally, to the company, or to a combination of both. Whereas a cardiology practice is likely to have more personal goodwill, a branded consumer products company would be likely to have more goodwill attributable to the business.

So what’s the difference and why does it matter?

[Read more…]

Congratulations to finalists of the 12 Annual “Maryland Incubator Company of The Year” awards.

The finalists are selected by the Maryland’s most prominent industry leaders and early-stage investors including Evergreen’s Rick Kohr and Advisory Board Member Paul Silber. Entering in the competition provides emerging companies with a rare opportunity to present their business plan and vision to the most influential panel of early-stage investors and industry leaders in the region.

 

 

 

Recently  Mike Gill connected with a long-time friend Bob Paff. Bob is a nationally known Motivational Speaker and former host of the popular CBS Radio show, Communicating To Win and current co-host of Fox News Baltimore’s Morning Show segment the Competitive Edge, seen every Thursday morning at 9:20.

We have posted an excerpt from Bob’s blog on this encounter.

While catching up with an old friend last week, he shared a lesson with me that he learned from the master himself, legendary CEO Jack Welch. Mike Gill is chairman of Evergreen Advisors and has been known to many in Baltimore and the surrounding communities for years. When I first met Mike, he was founder, president and CEO of Americom Telecommunications, a company he and his partner later sold.

Never one to be idle, Mike has reinvented himself multiple times, finally into his current position with Evergreen. We reconnected when Mike sent me a handwritten note congratulating me for being nominated for Corridor’s 2011 Person of the Year. While we go back some 20 years or so, our paths rarely cross, with the possible exception of seeing each other across a crowded restaurant or business event. Such is Baltimore, the village trying so hard to be a city! When we met last week, Mike seemed as full of life as ever, just the executive I remembered meeting many years ago. Honored that he remembered me, I told him that neither time nor the responsibilities of life had dulled his charm. We met briefly, but before he departed, Mike shared a little something with me – something he lives by every day and that I too will now incorporate into my daily life. “The Big Six,” from Jack Welch. I think I’ve read it 100 times since Mike pulled it out his pocket and gave it to me with such pride that you would have thought it was a great stock tip! Or maybe better!