Thanks SO much to everyone who helped make Double Double happen.

The first hard cover versions arrived today – they’re being shipped to bookstores online & offline today – pretty exciting…

These are the folks I need to thank…

This is the best news about turning around the economy & job creation that I’ve heard in decades. Keep it up USA. Other countries should follow suit.

Last year while I was at a Global YPO event, I met THE go-to guy that YPO members use to help them sell their companies.

Over the year I started to learn a little more about why & when to sell…

Why Owners Sell Their Company

The Owner May Be Looking For:

• More time
• More liquidity
• Diversification of risk
• More stimulating (i.e. international?) work environment
• Access to ‘C’ suite
• Retirement/semi-retirement
• More capital (i.e. lead industry roll-up)
• Technology/Intellectual Property (IP) to gain efficiencies
• Pure old fashioned boredom

When owners start answering yes to these, then selling or mergers may be an option to consider.

Sometimes it’s even clearer and they KNOW it is time to sell

• A compelling event/reason to sell that has occurred?
• Could be a succession issue
• One of the “five D’s”:

o   Death

o   Divorce

o   Disability/disease

o   Debt

o   Disenchantment/deciding to do more with their life
How to Get the Business Ready For Sale Strategically?

• Identify strategic investors and understand how they could value the business to their shareholders at a level much higher than you value your business at
• Get your vision clarified for what a strategic transaction would mean to all shareholders
• Required vs. preferred outcomes identified (i.e. What do you NEED, and what would you LIKE) in order to sell

Why This Is A Good Economy to Sell the Company?

• Cash and corporate reserves are at the highest they have been at in the history of the world
• Private Equity firms, that have identified expertise areas/that can be strategic, are coming to a point where they need to deploy their funds, or return them (use it or lose it)
• As the world gets smaller, more international buyers emerge; leverage the international environment and how your products, intellectual property (IP), geographic location, cost advantages, technology, management skill sets bring value to international buyers
• And my opinion (and I’m an optimist) but I see a double dip coming soon, which means values drop fast…

What are you thinking of doing with your business?

Some companies I have coached on creating a Painted Picture have done an amazing job.

Red Balloon Days in Sydney, Australia, did a great job with their Painted Picture.  They made it jump off the page by having a designer use creative typography–cool fonts, animation, colors and varied type sizes–to keep the reader engaged and excited.  Email me if you’d like to read it.

Nurse Next Door in Vancouver, Canada, did a brilliant job constructing their Painted Picture. They brought it to life by creating a simple PowerPoint slide show complete with audio where co-founder Ken Sim reads out the Painted Picture while it’s being highlighted with photos and graphics. The visuals are an excellent feature, and get the reader engaged while anchoring ideas. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Tina Turner song they used (Kidding! Sort of) – but loved when they shared their Painted Picture on YouTube.

Sebastian Tondeur, the CEO of MCI based in Geneva, filmed a fantastic introduction to his company’s Painted Picture.  He stood in front of a green screen, and then had company graphics inserted.  He explained what the Painted Picture was and why he’d written it.  Sebastian’s company was operating in twenty-five countries when I helped him write the Painted Picture. Afterwards, he brought me to a company meeting to meet with the leaders of each country’s division so I could explain the idea behind the concept of a Painted Picture to them.  It was a great way to introduce the idea and instantly start to trickle it down to all eight hundred employees.

All of the Painted Picture Hall of Famers did exactly what you’re supposed to do with the exercise: they pushed beyond the drab corporate-speak and confining metrics, and answered the simple question, “What’s really possible for our company?”

See your Painted Picture as the ultimate opportunity to make your company shine.

A great example of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?’s painted picture in action was when one of our amazing marketing managers Andrea Baxter said, “Can you imagine our company name on Starbucks cups?” I thought she was kinda nuts for suggesting such an idea, but I didn’t say anything.  When she said, “Don’t worry about how it’ll happen. As long as you can see it three years from now, I’ll make it happen,” I knew she was nuts, but I loved her passion and conviction.

A few months later Andrea told us we’d soon be on ten million Starbucks cups across North America–for free–with a quote and the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? name on it.  Nice!

Here’s the cool part:  Starbucks told Andrea that they’d put a quote from our founder on the cups but not the company name. In response, Andrea told Starbucks, “No, you have to put the company name on the cup!  That’s part of our vision.  It says so on our wall!” She sent Starbucks a picture of the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? ‘Can You Imagine?’ wall and convinced them to include the company name. Her belief in the idea helped the company achieve our goal of getting 1-800-GOT-JUNK? on ten million cups of Starbucks coffee.

Brian’s quote on Starbucks cups:  “It’s difficult for people to get rid of junk. They get attached to things and let them define who they are. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business, it’s that you are what you can’t let go of.”  Brian Scudamore, CEO, 1-800-GOT-JUNK?

Make your painted picture stick.  An unwavering vision that comes to pass will be celebrated 100 times more than something you’re willing to compromise on.

At Burning Man 2010, I learned that thinkers don’t get their points across to do’ers.

Thinkers, who ramble on about their brilliant (which they are) ideas, just end up with a lot of other brilliant thinkers saying ‘ya, totally, I agree’.

However, the do’ers have no idea what the thinkers have said, are to embarrassed to say so… and nothing get’s done.

Net/Net: Lots of brilliant ideas swirling around with no one doing anything about them.

It’d sure be great if the thinkers could dumb it down for us do’ers a bit.

Thots ?

One day when I was still at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? we were adding to the ‘Can You Imagine?’ wall, and I tossed out the idea of being studied by Harvard Business School for a future case study.

I offered it up almost as a joke, but I really could see Harvard studying 1-800-GOT-JUNK? because we wanted to build a world-class brand.

When Harvard did eventually do a case study on what we’d built, it further proved that you could achieve what you conceived and believed.

‘Conceive, believe and achieve’ became a mantra for us, and when Harvard learned about 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, it wasn’t by accident—it was because of our renowned wall.

The front entrance wall was used to express our desire to be included in a Harvard case study.  Eventually someone visiting 1-800-GOT-JUNK? said, “Hey, I know someone at Harvard who approves the cases, would you like an introduction?”

If we didn’t commit to the vision by writing it on the wall, it wouldn’t have happened. Either way, what we conceived and believed—getting into a Harvard case study—was actually achieved.

I’d love to hear what you’re visions are for your company.  Share them here…

Creating a Painted Picture in order to reverse engineer your success is something that made intuitive sense to me.

I’ve since learned that it’s far from intuitive for everyone else.

Most people don’t think about the steps that are needed for personal or business success, and those that do can become easily frustrated with the planning process.

In 1998, when I was first exposed to visualization at an Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) meeting.  I started to think of this whole process as ‘leaning out into the future,’ which many people find helpful when they’re trying to understand this process. Eight years later, I heard another Vancouver entrepreneur, David Chalk, describe visualization as ‘leaning out into the future,’ too. Obviously, it made sense to people to think about the process this way.

A few of the other entrepreneurs from my EO Forum Group also got excited about this process and began to use visualization and the reverse engineering it in our own ways.

Once you’ve leaned out into the future and created your Painted Picture, reverse engineer to make it happen. A good example of how this works is the custom home construction process. In this specific scenario, the finished product—the home—is the equivalent of our Painted Picture.  But before creating it, home builders meet with clients and ask them to describe all kinds of areas of the home they want built or renovated. They get photos from clients and draft sketches based on these photos and other materials. After a few discussions to determine precisely what the clients want, the desired home begins to take shape visually. The plans, the builder and architect then draw up show a clear, painted picture of what the home should look like.

Using the plans as a guide, construction workers, electricians, plumbers and other team members build the client’s dream home, or ‘reverse engineer’ it. Custom home construction is the perfect example of reverse engineering in action: by starting with what the home should look like, all of the players on the team, from construction workers to the folks putting the paint on the walls, know exactly what they’re supposed to do. Everyone’s role is clear and the desired outcome is, too. It should work the same way in your organization and it can—but only if you use a Painted Picture as a guide.

I always mention to the CEOs that I coach that an organization’s Painted Picture should serve the same purpose for you and your employees as the plans for a custom home: it should show you the way forward in reaching your ultimate objectives for your organization.

Don’t forget: Draft your Painted Picture with care, attention, and detail. This way, everyone on your team understands his or her role.

In order to make your dreams and objectives a reality, you absolutely have to work backwards. You have to first identify and articulate your goals, and then find the means to achieve those objectives. Instead of flying by the seat of your pants, reverse engineering makes it possible for entrepreneurs to align all of their daily tasks and operations around achieving overarching objectives.

Reverse Engineering is something I use all of the time now, but it wouldn’t be what it is today if I hadn’t attended an EO meeting in 1998.  At that lunch meeting, we were introduced to the concept of ‘visualization’ in sports, which is a technique athletes use. It involves imagining what success looks like in your mind, no matter what the sport, and executing based on that. Whether you’re a long distance runner imagining crossing the finish line or a basketball player who envisions taking it to the hoop, visualization helps you make your dreams a reality. This information, presented by an Olympic coach, further reinforced my belief that if you identify what you want the future to look like—whether for yourself or your organization—you’re going to make it a reality as long as you take the steps necessary to reach your goal. In business settings, calling this the ‘Painted Picture’ demonstrates to entrepreneurs that if you commit to sketching your vision for the future, you’re well-equipped to “reverse engineer” your own success.

Even with my earliest business ventures with College Pro Painters it was all about starting with the profit goal and working it all backwards to figure out what needed to be done to get there.  This is a core concept I use in all the CEO Mentoring I do today.

I was asked recently how I set such concrete revenue goals with confidence.  A few people asked me to show them how I ‘forecast’ to which I replied I don’t really forecast at all.  What I do is more like ‘reverse engineer’ a target that I feel like I can and want to hit.  Then I spend the rest of the year maniacally focused on hitting it.

So – here is how I set my Revenue Goal this year – and how I intend to hit it.  And why I know a 150% increase from 2009 will happen:

1) I first list out all the types of revenue I can generate from my business in its current state.  For me these include:

• Speaking Events
• Coaching/Mentoring Clients
• Strategic Planning
• DVD Sales

2) Then I list out all the types of new revenues I can generate from Projects I 100% know I’ll launch this year if I focus.  They include:

• CD Sales
• Online Webinar deployed learning
• Strategic Alliances/Others Selling my DVDs

3) Then I look at what I can charge for each in 2010…

• Speaking Events – I’ve decided to keep my fees the same for 2010 – $10,000 for Out of Town, $7,500 for Vancouver events, $6,000 for EO or YPO Chapters
• Coaching/Mentoring – I’ve raised my rates for all new clients to $4,200/Mth from $3,500/Mth (20% increase).  I’ve done this because I’m currently close to my self imposed cap on how many clients I’ll work with at the same time.
• Strategic Planning – This will stay the same as in 2009 – $10,000/Day
• DVD Sales – I’m going to raise my rates on these in 2010 – from the current $197 each – to either $297 ea. or $597 ea. (seems crazy & arbitrary – but I’m told there is SO much value in them for Entrepreneurial companies and their employees that I should charge more.  I’ll be doing some online testing with pricing – and doubt it will make a difference.
• CD Sales – This is a product that’s  being asked for and will sell for the same price as the DVDs (it’s the same content – just another way to learn it)
• Online Webinar – I know I’ll launch it this year – but there is so much to do here still that I’m not forecasting any revenue from it at all (it will be a lift for 2011 though)
• Strategic Alliances – This is where I plan to get the biggest lift this year – and have the plans already in place – I need 10 solid companies or people with strong lists promoting my DVDs to their lists – and I’ll share a strong % with them from all revenues.  This will scale…

4) Leading Indicators
I worked hard in 2009 to set up a solid base for 2010 so I’d have strong revenue predictability:

• I’m speaking at the EO GLC in Hong Kong & New Orleans (both will drive speaking events for 2010 & 2011).
• I have 2 strong Canadian Speakers Bureaus – and in December landed 2 very strong USA Speakers Bureaus.
• I’m speaking at the American Society Of Association Executives two conferences
• And have a couple of other strong platforms that will drive speaking for 2010 & 2011
• Speaking is predictable revenues
• At Events I also sell DVDs & CDs
• At Events I meet potential coaching/mentoring clients
• I have 10 solid companies that I am mentoring – 12 is my cap – so I will easily stay at my cap all year (and I’ve budgeted on 10 average – and in 2009 I only averaged 5 as it was a new model)
• Strategic Planning went really well last year with the companies I helped.  I’m not the cheapest but I deliver huge impact while doing these sessions.  Some clients have already said they’ll bring me back.  Some already have me booked.  And my speaking events will put me in front of hundreds of other companies who could use me as well.
• I have a few commitments from major online gurus like Yanik Silver who will be marketing my DVDs to tens of thousands of companies.

5) I know what my bandwidth issues are – and opportunities (i.e. 100% Net Margin DVDs) etc.  So I’m using those to leverage revenues.  And I also know there are brilliant people out there I can pay as a percentage of revenues (thanks Jack Daly for that lesson) and I’ll leverage that too.  Intro’s have already happened.

etc…..

From this rough plan that you’re reading – I already have tight action plans in place for how I’ll hit each one.  I know the exact dollar amount I’m targeting from each category.  I know what I need to do when.  I’ve spent two years building my FaceBook & Twitter followers who are already helping me.  So as you can see.  I’m not just picking an arbitrary goal.  I’m putting tight plans in place to hit it.  And I will.  As do the companies I coach & mentor.

Hopefully you have tight plans in place to hit your goals for 2010 too.  If you don’t, then your goals are merely dreams…