Sales Follow-Up: The Easy Path to Exponential Revenue Growth

When was the last time you reached out to an existing or former customer hoping to make another sale? Have you bought leads, sent them one email and never reached out again? Or worse, bought the leads and never reached out to them at all?

If your answer is, “Um, I don’t really do much customer outreach or email marketing,” don’t feel bad. It just means you’re human.

Steve Rosenbaum understands. He’s a born salesman who “starts with the follow-up” but knows that “most businesses aren’t doing it. They’re ignoring the follow-up.”

And that means they’re leaving the easy money on the table. He points to statistics showing that if a company can improve its customer retention by as little as 5 percent, it can boost the bottom line by as much as 95 percent, Rosenbaum says.


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Don’t Let Your Acquisition Become Another Statistic: Ace the Integration with a Playbook

It’s widely reported that half or more mergers and acquisitions ultimately fail. But it doesn’t have to be that way. To look at why so many deals fail during the integration process and learn how to ratchet up the chances of success, we talked with three interim executives with a track record of dozens of successful mergers and acquisitions.

You can watch the video to hear everything they had to say, click over to read our edited transcript, or read on for a summary of the highlights.

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When it Comes to Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance: Will You Choose a Babysitter or a Change Agent?

You’re on a public company board and the phone rings at midnight and it’s not good news: Your CEO or CFO has passed away. The next morning, the board convenes in emergency session. There’s only one subject beyond condolences for the tragic passing: Who is going to step into the interim CEO or CFO role?

Will you choose a placeholder from among your board, or will you choose to do something more proactive?

Let’s dive into the options.

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What If You Were Judged Like an Olympic Athlete?

You’re getting ready to send the most important email of your life. You prepare, you write, you edit, you re-edit, and then it’s go-time, You hit send. And then: everyone around you holds up a card with your score for the email.

Doesn’t sound too comfortable? And yet, this is how we dissect our favorite athletes, and how the rigorousness of the Olympics treats every contestant. Brutally, dispassionately.

The measure of success: Olympic Gold.

Can the same brutal, dispassionate honesty help an organization reach the pinnacle of success?

Glen Tullman thinks so.

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Nearshoring in Mexico: Pitfalls, Potential, and Possible Problems

Thanks to global supply chain disruptions, growing hostilities between the US and China, and rising import tariffs, U.S. companies are reconsidering a business plan that calls for them to outsource so much of their production to foreign companies in Asia. Instead, they are pivoting to onshoring back in the US, and “nearshoring” production in Mexico.

This new supply chain approach calls for sourcing products closer to home. For U.S. companies, that means setting up suppliers in Latin America — specifically, Mexico.

Mexico benefits from its geographic proximity to the U.S., its well-established export-oriented industrial sector, a labor force that values manufacturing jobs, and its inclusion in the US-Canada-Mexico North America free trade agreement, notes Forbes.

The move to Mexico is happening fast. Axios reports that the number of companies making moves to nearshore their production nearly tripled last year — to 42 percent of the companies polled, versus 17 percent in 2022 and just 11 percent in 2021.

Those companies join behemoths such as Walmart and automotive giants General Motors and Tesla that are already well on the way to bringing manufacturing closer to home.

With so many companies jumping on the nearshoring bandwagon, we asked two executives with experience working in Mexico for their advice. Klaus-Juergen Wolf, who has spent 15 years as a C-suite interim executive, and Jay Winkler, whose consulting company, Brave Lion Group, works with manufacturing firms, shared the following insights and suggested questions you should ask, concerns you should address, and the possible problems you could face if you nearshore production in Mexico.

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Executive Search Services: Why Interim Executives Are Right for Fast-Growing Companies

Interim executives — experienced C-suite leaders who take on short-term roles — traditionally are found in turnaround situations, coming in to save companies on the brink. Or they are brought in to keep a company moving forward while a new permanent hire is identified and onboarded.

But there’s another leadership role that is tailor-made for an interim leader: Using their skills, experience and executive talent to guide fast-growing companies.

An experienced interim executive is the right leader for companies facing big points of change or growth. Interim and fractional executives often step in to address growing pains many organizations feel when they lack the systems and processes to scale. On the other hand, interim executives jump in as a key part of the diligence or post-acquisition integration strategy for companies and private equity firms leveraging an M&A strategy to expand.

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CFO Resignations Hit Record Highs. Who Will Fill the Role When Your CFO Leaves?

During the first quarter of 2024, 82 Chief Financial Officers of the biggest public companies left their jobs, tying a record set in Q1 2021. The difference between then and now? Many of the CFOs who resigned in 2021 were retiring post-pandemic. Today, many of them are taking over as CEO, COO, or some other C-suite position.

According to data reported by the management consulting firm Russel Reynolds Associates, 271 CFOs left their post as finance chief in 2023. And Russell Reynolds says that 291 new CFOs were appointed in 2023 — nearly two-thirds of them first-time CFOs.

That adds up to a huge demand for new CFOs around the globe.

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Why Every Company Needs a Technology Roadmap

In today’s world, every company needs to function as a technology company. eCommerce? Of course – without tech, there is no e in commerce. Auto manufacturers? You bet — carmakers spend at least as much time and energy on developing the software that runs their vehicles as they do getting the mechanics right. Healthcare? Absolutely — just ask the folks at Ascension Health, America’s largest Catholic hospital chain and the victim of a cyberattack that left nurses and doctors scrambling to take notes by hand and send patient orders by fax.

When every company is a technology company, it means that all key stakeholders, not just the IT teams, need a high-level understanding of the role technology initiatives play in achieving business goals from product development to strategic planning.

What is a Technology Roadmap?

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Resolving Conflict on the Management Team: Why it Starts and How to Fix It

Not long ago, InterimExecs was approached by a human resources professional who was concerned about the level of conflict among the members of the management team. The clashes had reached a point where they were, she said, ready to kill one another.

That got us thinking: Is conflict simply the nature of the beast these days?

Turns out the answer is no, according to Alicia Fortinberry and Bob Murray. Their company, Fortinberry Murray, is “committed to arming people and businesses with the knowledge and practical skills to build the organizations, communities, families and relationships that are compatible with our ‘design specs’ and enable people to be healthy and fulfilled.”

InterimExecs CEO Robert Jordan sat down with the duo to talk about conflict on management teams and how to handle it. This is an edited transcript of their conversation.

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Private Company Governance: Why You Need a Strong Board of Directors

Bruce Werner has a blunt message for company owners. “Owners are leaving money on the table. They’re not getting full value from their boards,” he says. “We can improve the outcomes in your business, make your life a little better, and take risk out of the business by having a board do what it ought to. And it doesn’t take that much more effort. You just have to ask a few important questions.”

Werner came up in the family business, a $500 million company that made ladders until it was sold in a leveraged buyout in the mid-90s. After the sale, Werner started, grew, and sold four companies, was a partner in a private equity fund, and served on more than 10 boards, mostly for family-owned firms.

He’s distilled all of that experience into two books, Your Ownership Journey: 12 Secrets for Personal and Business Success, which published in 2022, and Navigating Private Company Governance: The Savvy Business Owner’s Guide to Developing an Effective Board, which published in 2023.

We interviewed him in the wake of the publication of Navigating Private Company Governance and asked him about his advice for business owners wondering whether they need a board of directors for better corporate governance.

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