Advice for CEOs

In my last article I introduced Rick, a business owner who has just started to think about the possibility of selling the business that he has built and run over many years.

Rick checked one more time to make sure the lights were out and the doors locked, then headed across the empty parking lot to his car. Last one out again.

The Choice is Simple? It Depends. Take a look at the chart below. It shows the ten largest economies in the world by country. Tell me what these countries have in common.

In an earlier post I described how critical it is that an entrepreneur capture much if not most of the value that you create (versus your customers realizing the value because you lack pricing power).There is nothing more important to an emerging growth company than its value proposition; the reason why customers buy your good or service - versus buying another product category or another product like yours from a competitor.

Previously I’ve discussed Where Are You On the Value Grid?, a central issue that every emerging growth company must face as it works to get out of No Man’s Land: how to create a business model that enables you (and not your customers) to capture much if not most of the value you create.

Counting in a business is easy and addictive. Some companies just can't find enough things to measure. It's like watching someone paint their body with random tattoos; where do they stop? Look at this dashboard of an online business management program: