I was in Miami last week working with one of my mastermind “20-Groups”. The particular group I was working with is a group of paint distributors, representing over $100 million in annual revenue in North America. As it was the first meeting of the year, the focus of the meeting was on budgeting and goal setting. In fact, I recorded a brief video about the meeting and posted it to LinkedIn (full LinkedIn post below).
Note: I’m headed to CCIF in Toronto this week. There I’ll be moderating a panel discussion on private equity in the automotive aftermarket. If you are in the area, be sure to attend and stop by and sell hello.
I’ve found that budgeting and planning is an often a neglected process in many privately held businesses. And understandably so. Setting budgets can feel tedious and extraneous. It can be flat out intimidating if you’ve never been through the process before.
Closely held businesses are in a unique position. Because they are so often founder driven, the tempo and direction of the business is directed by the founder. And often, the founder keeps the playbook in their head, rather than written on paper.
Making matters more complicated is that most founders are accountable to no one in their respective organizations. Direct reports report up to the founder, yet the founder has no one to report to. And this too is not surprising, as a common reason many founders took on the risk of starting their own enterprise was to “be their own boss”.
Yet these scenarios often create inherent weaknesses in a business if not properly managed. In larger private companies and publicly held companies, the solution to this dilemma is found in the structure of board governance. The board is responsible for overseeing the executive management of the company. The board meets a few times a year to review the financial and operating performance, and also to review the policies and procedures of the company. It sets compensation, guides strategy, and generally navigates the ship.
The board is there to provide guidance, help the executive team tackle especially challenging problems, and provide an independent and outside perspective to the management team. The board is also there to represent the interests of the many stakeholders of an organization, including creditors and shareholders.
At Supplement, our mastermind groups serve as your board of directors. We have a robust platform to efficiently collect and analyze your financials, as well as other critical KPIs, to help ensure you are achieving an appropriate return on investment. The peers in the room serve as your sounding board to help you tackle your toughest challenges. They also hold you accountable.
We provide guidance on business development, compensation, recruitment, and frankly nearly any business challenge you can think of. We do this in a supportive, yet challenging environment where we collectively hold every member responsible for their business’ growth and development.
In short, we leverage the experience of over $100 million in annual revenues to improve your business.
If being part of a group like this sounds like something you would like to be part of, hit REPLY and drop me a line. You can read a bit more about our mastermind groups by clicking on that link (go ahead, click it).
Until next week!