2. No Manâs Land: Adolescent Stage of Business
When your business is too big to be small and too small to be bigâŠ
3. No Manâs Land
The Small and Shrinking Middle Market
All in Economy
Firms
Employee Size
2000
2010
Count Change
Establishment
Change
1-19
10,582,370
18,915,551
79%
60%
20-99
650,221
659,685
2%
-3%
100-249
73,499
71,518
-3%
-6%
250-499
20,916
20,100
-4%
-15%
500-999
9,504
8,954
-6%
-25%
1000+
9,244
9,047
-2%
-35%
Totals
11,345,754
19,684,855
4. Average Growth Comparisons (2006-2010)
Based on average company in existence over all of the past five years.
On average, over the past five years, companies in No Manâs Land:
- added 8-times as many new jobsâŠ
- grew at a rate almost 4-times fasterâŠ
- expanded 3-times more oftenâŠ
âŠthan the average US business establishment.
5. Contribution to US Employment Growth (2006-2010)
Based on average of all companies over past five years.
Companies in No Mans Land account for less than 3% of business
establishments, yet they contributed 30% of new jobs added by
all US businesses.
7. Meeting the Growth Challenge:
A Map through No Manâs Land--
The Four Ms
Realign with your Market
Hire your Senior
Management
Understand your Model
Raise your Money
10. Meeting the Growth Challenge:
A Map through No Manâs Landâ
Market Mis-alignment
Company
Simplicity
Customer
EARLY STAGE/
SIMPLE
EARLY STAGE/
SIMPLE
Multiple Customers
Company
RAPID GROWTH/
SIMPLE?
Complexity
Market Mis-alignment is the natural progression of
Entrepreneurial Control
11. Blind Spot #3: Value Proposition
85%
7%
source: Newport Navigator
CEOs say their employees can clearly state their
companyâs value proposition
Leadership teams can articulate a common
value proposition
12. Meeting the Growth Challenge:
A Map through No Manâs Land-The Market Navigation Rule
The business as a whole must become good at doing
what the Entrepreneur did well with customers in order
to successfully re-create Market Alignment
.
14. Blind Spot #2: Accountability
86%
20%
source: Inc. Navigator
CEOs believe that everyone
is held accountable for
performance
Leadership teams agree
15. Meeting the Growth Challenge:
A Map through No Manâs Land-The Management Navigation Rule
The founder must hire at the top first, not the
middle, to successfully navigate through No
Manâs Land
19. The Case of the Freight Forwarding Industry
Pre-tax Profit % by Five Year Average Firm Size
$<
50
0k
$5
00
k1m
$1
il
m
il$5
m
ill
$5
-1
0m
$1
0m
il
il20
$2
m
il
0m
il50
$5
m
0m
il
il10
0m
$1
00
il
m
il p
lu
s
4.0%
3.5%
3.0%
2.5%
2.0%
1.5%
1.0%
0.5%
0.0%
Pre-tax Profit %
23. Meeting the Growth Challenge:
A Map through No Manâs Land-The Model Navigation Rule
The businessâs value proposition must be scalable (profitable
at a higher volume) to successfully navigate No Manâs Land
25. Illustration of âCapital Funding Gapâ
Capital Funding Sources and Risks for Small and Emerging Businesses
Funding Level
Business Category
Emerging
Emerging
Growth
Growth
Businesses
Businesses
$1 million
âCAPITAL NO MANâS LANDâ
âCAPITAL NO MANâS LANDâ
-Limited Cash Flow-Limited Cash Flow-
0
(âToo big to be small; too small to be bigâ)
(âToo big to be small; too small to be bigâ)
Start-up and Other
Start-up and Other
Small Businesses
Small Businesses
Business Risks
Investment Bankers
Investment Bankers
(IPO Market/Private Placements)
(IPO Market/Private Placements)
Commercial Bankers
Commercial Bankers
Private Equity Groups
Private Equity Groups
Venture Capitalists
Venture Capitalists
SBICs/SBA Loans
SBICs/SBA Loans
BUSINESSES IN
BUSINESSES IN
$250,000
Capital Sources
Lower
Risk
Very Limited Access to Capital
Very Limited Access to Capital
(Angels/Factors)
(Angels/Factors)
High Cost of Account && Collateral
High Cost of Account Collateral
Management
Management
Business Borrowing Exceeds Personal Assets
Business Borrowing Exceeds Personal Assets
Investment by Family && Friends
Investment by Family Friends
Loans Based on Personal Assets:
Loans Based on Personal Assets:
Banks/Home Equity/Credit Cards/SBICs/SBA
Banks/Home Equity/Credit Cards/SBICs/SBA
Higher
Risk
26.
27. Private Equity Faces New Challenges and
New Opportunities
Employee
Size
2010
# of
Firms
# of
% of Total
Companies Firms already
Public &
Financed
Private
Capital
Backed 2010
1 in 5 are PE
Ready:
% Bought out
1 in 10 are PE
Ready:
% Bought out
100-249
71,518
3017
4%
21%
42%
250-499
20,100
1337
7%
33%
67%
500-999
8954
928
10%
52%
104%
1000+
9047
2055
23%
114%
227%
32. Meeting the Growth Challenge:
A Map through No Manâs Land-The Money Navigation Rule
The key to raising money is reducing real
and perceived risk of the company
.
34. Blind Spot #1: Team Alignment
92%
2%
source: Inc. Navigator
CEOs say their teams agree with
and can clearly communicate
their strategy
Leadership teams can list the same
strategic priorities
When you want to get to the next level, but:
you feel like youâre losing control and youâre too involved in everything
the old rules no longer work
a lot of effort, but not the results you desire (feel like youâre caught in a maze)
you donât have enough time, money, people to do everything
your team is not on the same page and the company has outgrown some of your employees
Our observations of the transition have lead us to conclude that we can explain the transition and the Navigational rules by analyzing the transition in the context of the 4Mâs.
The rest of the presentation is to describe the transition in each of these Mâs and then offer a navigational rule that we believe is immutable , like gravity , must be dealt with if a company is going to survive the transition.
Dictionary Definition of a Market Driven Company because they are simple to do business with and they adjust rapid fire to customers needs.
When the business is in its formative stages the entrepreneur is simultaneously executing the sales, marketing and operations aspects of the company.
Mention the process of placing bets on the customer and the promises made that change the company.
What happens is the physical limit of the leader is met.
Continue with the story of the Used Aircraft Parts Distributor, itâs the discussion about the sustainable value proposition.
Story of Georges Music: chain of very profitable music stores, 5% of the retail music business in the US through a buying coop.
Ultimately this brings up the issue of management
Leadership Principle
Its about the enterprise not the individual and the leader needs make promises that stretch the enterprise and put it at risk. They have to be right.
Issues for a Down turn
Resist the temptation to buy sales
Fire some customers
Fire some products and services
This is singularly the single most emotional issue of the transitions, think about it â the folks surrounding the Entrepreneur include:
People with him or her from the start
Know there families
Many were there when there was no hope
Story of Mikes Music, any number of cases that I have spoken to
Story of the speech at Virginia Tech
Story of Coon hunting â NY
Not replacing themselves as CEO â used the aircraft parts mfg as an example
Culture is used for failure on both sides: the issue of the inner circle and a trusted decision making process
End of the letters page 77,79
Leadership Principle:
Willing to have folks that will challenge them in the true inner circle and the ticket to entry is performance not personal loyalty.
Down Economy
Time for a (RIF) reduction in force
Opportunity to steal your competitorâs best people
Lets Transition to a discussion the companies economic model
Describe what an economic model is from the book
âWhen I speak of a business model, or as some call it, an economic model, I mean something quite specific: An analysis, in financial terms, of how a business makes money. Looking at an economic model means considering the capital deployed, the revenue produced by selling products or services to customers, and the changes in these elements of revenue, cost and capital under different scenarios.â
Describe the software company preparing for Red Herring
This slide depicts what most of these Gazelles represent to start with High Performance Cheap Labor and tas they grow they throw people at the proceeses which is why they add so many emploees.
Tell the typical supervisor story : need more people
Remarkable that both of these companies are just past $20 million.
Data received from the Gazelle Institute data base, 2000 through 2005 -3 million business sample. Compiled from a variety of sources including US Census, IRS Corporate Source Book etc.
From a private equity perspective, fascinating when you take into affect the assets required to get a company up into the 100 million plus range etc.
Show you a slide I use to illustrate the idea of an economic model based on using people. They donât think in economic terms about their model and they hit a phenomenum during the transiton that can be quite dramatic.
What a shame to enter into a transition without understanding how long the journey is. In some cases the only way to get there is with outside equity and acquisitions.
Leadership Principle: The leader has a vision and a confidence in the economic future that he or she can clearly see and communicate.
Down Economy
Understand your business model
Restructure your model around the new reality
Create a daily report out of your command and control structure that lets you estimate your net income before the income statement is produced
Capital Gap: transition form personal credit worthiness to depending on the business
Quotes from a letter sent to a senior treasury official:
Non-Regulated Asset-Based Lender
The first interview was with a large non-regulated asset-based lender. This lender shared with us the results of a recently completed enterprise-wide customer profitability analysis. It included an analysis of the overall workload model, i.e., costs associated with Account Management and Collateral Management This analysis confirmed the decision by this particular lender to discontinue its national initiative to serve the market for asset-based loans below $1 million. The cost for this was broken down into three main categories, and included the following areas:
(1) Loan acquisition costs (allocated cost of a seasoned loan officer or originator);
(2) Asset monitoring costs (borrowing and reporting frequency workload); and
(3) Risk adjusted cost of capital to the lender.
The conclusion reached by the senior management of this enterprise was that it could not profitably provide capital to a business with asset-based lending needs below $1million at a rate below 25%. This $1 million threshold for capital associated with an overall cost to the borrower of less than 15% was also confirmed in a separate interview with a lending executive from another major non-regulated lender. One simple way to confirm our findings is to call on a random basis any number of non-regulated asset-based lenders and request information on their underwriting size and pricing models for asset-based loans.
Super Regional Community Bank Holding Company
The second interview was with a senior executive of a Super Regional Community Bank Holding Company. Again, this interview concentrated on the profitability analysis for smaller asset-based loans. The detailed information provided to us indicated the same types of cost constraints noted above for the non-regulated lenders. It should also be noted that this bank had migrated to funding asset-based loans at rates below 15% to companies that fit our definition as rapidly growing only if additional collateral from outside the business was pledged (i.e., real estate, certificates of deposit, etc.) of sufficient size and security to remove the need for constant asset monitoring by the bank. Even with this additional security reducing the cost of Collateral Management, we believe that if the true cost of Account Management were factored into the portfolio analysis these loans would at best be marginally profitable to the bank.
Major Commercial Bank
This interview confirmed the personal asset credit scoring methodology for small business loans and the Capital Gap that existed within this bank before any credit judgment methodology would be assigned to the loan request. This particular bankâs minimum loan threshold for assigning a credit officer was above our Capital Gap estimate of $1million.
Counter intuitive issue is that its all about risk not upside the complete opposite of how the entrepreneur looks at it. The key issue is getting the risks of the transition identified and controlled etc.
Always ask the CEOs to drive home thinking about the risk in the business and how they could get rid of it.
Story of EMR and the New contracts
Leadership Principle: Willing to publicly recognize and layout the real problems â the risks in the business.
Economic Downtown
Having and communicating early warning signals lowers the perception of risk
Capital market particularly the banks supporting SMB hate surprises but will work with problems.
Work to move your debt structure to higher cost lower covenant structures: make sure you have adequate liquidity. Liquidity is more important than the cost of capital in a down turn.