Virtual CFO

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

SUMMARY:
CxO To Go, an innovative professional services firm providing on-demand C-Level expertise and best practices to client companies on a part time, flexible, and affordable basis, is proud to announce its new office in Atlanta, Georgia. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CxO To Go Opens Atlanta Office
DENVER, Colorado (July 19, 2010) – CxO To Go^TM, an innovative professional services firm providing on-demand C-Level expertise and best practices to client companies on a part time, flexible, and affordable basis, is proud to announce its new office in Atlanta, Georgia. The new Atlanta office broadens the reach of the company's full-service offering of financial, operations, sales and marketing services in the region. Nicholas (Nick) Morrow heads up the office as Practice Director. Mr. Morrow’s financial and operations leadership offers an extensive career history in manufacturing finance and information systems. Nick has over 30 years of diversified experience in public and private companies ranging from $8 billion to less than $10 million. He has broad ranging experience in manufacturing, insurance and service industries in roles including CFO, VP of Finance, Controller, Information Systems, Sales, Operations and Human resources. His tenure with companies such as Springfield Companies, Harris Graphics, Imperial Wallcoverings (a Blackstone Group portfolio company), and Blue Cross/Blue Shield has afforded Nick access to practices, technologies and methodologies that most businesses are just beginning to understand the potential. He brings to the market a keen understanding of the needs of small and medium size businesses and a strong appreciation for the importance of achieving results. Mr. Morrow stated, "I'm excited to be a part of CxO To Go. I believe that CxO To Go's unique service packages eliminate the surprises of hourly consulting and set us apart from all other professional services firms or ‘single shingle’ consultants in the greater Atlanta region. I'm especially proud that to provide guidance as a trusted advisor to the business community throughout the region." Marty Koenig, CEO of CxO To Go^TM stated “I’m very proud to expand into the Atlanta region so more small businesses can benefit from our high caliber, yet affordable virtual and interim CFO, COO, CMO service offers. We have known Nick for over a decade as a stellar performer and down-to-earth, trustworthy person – a great trusted advisor. He is perfectly aligned with our values. We look forward to serving Atlanta businesses.”
CxO To Go LLC is national professional services company headquartered in Denver, Colorado that provides on-demand C-Level expertise and best practices to client companies on a part time, flexible, and affordable basis. Contact Nick at 770.377.9284 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to discuss your business needs. See his full bio at www.cxotogo.com.
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DENVER, Colorado (July 15, 2010) CxO To Go partner, George Tyler, won an APEX award from CSIA (www.coloradotechnology.org) at this evening's "Oscars of Colorado Technology". CSIA is Colorado’s Technology Association, serving the software, hardware and IT services industry. The award: Special Thanks – To the professionals who came together for long days and nights at the Capitol to testify for our industry.

George and a host of others spent tireless hours working with state representatives and spending late nights at the capitol. The goal was to reduce or kill Colorado's proposed HB 10-1192, which taxes downladed software sold in the state. Though the bill passed, some important items were removed, such as taxing SaaS (Software as a Service) sales.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CxO To Go Secures Financing for Two Clients
DENVER, Colorado (July 13, 2010) – CxO To Go partner Keith McAslan (Denver Business Journal 2010 CFO of the Year Nominee) has secured favorable financing for two CxO To Go clients in this difficult lending environment.  Using the BankSell™ package, preferred lending sources and personally representing the Client’s with the lenders, CxO To Go was able to secure the financing.  These successful Client’s include:
A manufacturing client was not only able to renew their $500,000 line of credit with the lender but secured an increase to $700,000.  This client secured the initial line of credit one year ago with the assistance of CxO To Go to fund growth and expansion initiatives.  By working with CxO To Go as the Trusted Advisor to the CEO on an on going basis this client has increased revenues from $2.5M annually to over $3.5M and improved profitability and cash flow.
A virtual business (internet based and executive coaching) Client of CxO To Go was able to close on an unsecured line of credit with a lender to fund new product development and provide liquidity due to seasonality in the business.  Additionally, CxO To Go has been the part time CFO for this Client for over one year, helping to drive strategy and improved financial results.
CxO To Go is national professional services company headquartered in Denver, Colorado that provides on-demand C-Level expertise and best practices to client companies on a part time, flexible, and affordable basis. Contact CxO To Go at 888-745-8516, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to discuss your business needs. ###

George Tyler Nominated as CSIA Champion of the Year

DENVER, Colorado (July 1, 2010) CxO To Go partner, George Tyler, has been nominated as CSIA’s Champion of the Year. CSIA (www.coloradotechnology.org) is Colorado’s Technology Association, serving the software, hardware and IT services industry. Nominee volunteers of this award will be judged on their breadth of involvement in CSIA, impact of their contribution, influence among other volunteers, and their willingness and ability to help CSIA further its mission to advance the technology industry in Colorado. Awards will announced July 15 at CSIA’s APEX Awards.

For the past 4 years, George has volunteered for CSIA’s programs, public policy and member committees. He is active in the technology and business community as a partner of a professional services company, CxO To Go. He is extremely active in CSIA and promoting business growth within Colorado. This past year, besides helping CSIA grow, he was an Ambassador for the Denver Chamber of Commerce, and volunteered for Goodwill Industries, Rebuilding Together of Metro Denver, Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC) of Metro Denver and the Vail Valley Foundation. Each spring, George gives his time as a referee for Colorado high school and college men’s lacrosse teams.  

  "Tracking your follow up determines your success"

The world's oldest profession is selling. Before anyone can purchase or use any service or product, they must be sold. Everyone in your company should be selling, as they are an ambassador for the company, no matter where they are. This is very evident in today's social media world, where employees need to heed what they post on a public web site.

When we talk with presidents, CEO's and owners of a company, we tell them that they must be selling all the time, or they are just overhead. The head of a company must constantly sell to customers, partners, suppliers, bankers, investors and employees.  

Today's companies need a tool to track their successes, failures and interactions with their customers. Creating a process with a sales tool will increase your success, plus improve the efficiency of your sales force. This article describes a series of steps to take as you evaluate different sales tools.    

Selling is perceived to be difficult. Selling is just a process that you establish, follow and track. Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth, has shown that everyday people create wildly successful companies with processes. One of the most important processes in sales is the follow up. Follow up should occur any time you and your customer interact. An interaction happens when you are either listening to them, or reaching out to touch them. Success comes from making sure that the right information flows to your customer at the right time.
Your customers go through a buying cycle. This buying process may vary, but the primary steps are need, information gathering and desire. Throughout the whole buying decision process, emotions direct the customer. People buy with their heart and then justify the decision using the gray matter between their ears. Therefore, all information that flows to your prospects and customers must guide their emotions at that particular point in time. Follow up is critical at each step.

As you provide information to potential buyers, you must focus on them. You need to please their requirements and wants. As Winston Churchill said: "If you want to profit, you must first learn to please." The sales cycle will focus on your customer and their buying cycle. You must identify their process, and find the steps your customer goes through. Then get the right information and right people involved to please your customer.

Most of us provide more than one product to a customer, as we can usually sell ancillary products and on-going services. Every customer should be looked upon as a future referral. The result is that we must focus on all customers for the long haul.  

From the owner's or boss' point of view, critical indicators to track include sales increases, number of customers, sales efficiency, and sales per customer (or better yet, profit per customer). Sales managers want metrics to measure their sales force efficiency - calls per day, close ratio, new calls, etc. Your customer only has so much money to spend, and you want as large a share of his wallet as possible. Systems should be put into place to track these vital indicators, plus others that you deem important.
       
Increased efficiencies for sales people usually mean more sales per day or week. The more that you can automate the tasks of the sales force, the more time they spent pleasing the customer, and more time in front of them. All sales tools must be easy to update from any wireless devices. Sales people want efficiency in their lives and they will spend as little time as possible entering data.  

Maybe the future sales tracking tools will allow voice entry and then be automatically transcribed for the database. Then the sales people would just speak into their phone for 1-2 minutes after a call. All future actions would be scheduled and the call report finished.     
Part of the tracking process is capturing information about the customer. Customer information includes customer dynamics, demographics, history of interactions between your companies, customer needs, buying habits and how often the customer is touched. Touching a customer or prospect includes face-to-face discussions, phone calls, emails, ordinary mail, your website, blog postings, tweets, and other information your customer can find out about you. Do you know what your customer is posting on their blogs, websites or in tweets?

The focus of your selling cycle is to match the buying cycle of your customer. The first step the customer goes through is identifying that they have a need to solve a problem. Your sales force must identify the customer's problems before they can start their selling. Listening is an important attribute at this stage. By listening to what the customer says, types in an email, posts on a blog or a tweet, or places in printed material, you can learn plenty about your customers.
Once the customer has found that they have a problem, they gather information. During this stage of the buying cycle, specific information must be fed to the prospect. Too much irrelevant information forces the prospect to look elsewhere for a solution. The whole company can be involved in providing the right information such as product benefits and features, demonstrations, trials, customer support, referrals, etc. During this gathering stage, the desire for a solution builds within your prospects, as they want a solution. Experienced sales people will build upon that desire and direct it towards their solutions. Tracking the interaction with an automated tool will increase the efficiency of your sales process.  

Knowing the buying cycle is paramount for success and you need to map this cycle to your unique customer. Some significant points to know about your ideal customers are:

• Industry
• Geographic coverage
• Size (revenue & employees)
• Company history
• Lifestyle
• Psychographic (Values)
• How do they buy?
• What problems do you solve for them?
• Who are their ideal customers?
• What are their key products?
• Who else sells to them?
• Why would they buy you over your competitors?

The more you know about your customers, the more you can please them during the buying cycle and after they have purchased your product. Knowing the correct information, you can follow up with them with the right information at the right time. Your touches to your customers will determine the relationship with them.

As you touch your customers, you need to understand who else touches them (departments and other employees in your company). In addition, it is important to know how and where the touches take place, and how these touches correspond to the buying cycle (need, information gathering and desire). Tracking this process is helpful for success, and today's automated tools can do just that.

You know your customer, you know their buying cycle, and you know what your company strategy is. The interaction between you and your customers is a series of touching and listening. Listening to your customers and prospects is getting more complex every day, as you must track what they are saying verbally as well as electronically (websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Do you have a process in place to listen to your customers? The more listening you do, the better you can touch the prospect and provide what they need and want. The goal is to create a great flow of the appropriate information to capture a larger share of your customers' wallets.
Today's automated sales tools assist in expanding upon your success and improving the efficiency of your sales process. Tools for small one-person companies can be drastically different from those used by 100+ person sales forces. Before you implement any sales tracking and customer information systems, you need to understand what we have just covered.   

Having started several companies, I have found for a one or two person company, the simpler the tool the better. For one business, I started with Outlook and the business contact information. As we became more sophisticated and had to share knowledge, we used a free online CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. This allowed multiple people to track customer information, as well as tracking input from our hired telemarketing team. I know other startup companies have used Wiki's, or shared spreadsheets. The more customers you have and larger your company, the more sophisticated the tools must become to increase the efficiency of your sales efforts.      

Automated tools are wonderful to track the success of marketing and/or sales campaigns. Maybe you start with an electronic newsletter (using tools such as Constant Contact and SwiftPage). This is followed up with a special offer on your blog. Then you send out an updated offer announced on Twitter. Tracking the success of this campaign can be tied to your automated sales tool and help you retool the program to better focus and achieve grander results.

To start using a CRM tool, start with the simplest and easiest tools first. Then, find out what you like and do not like.
In your review of your own sales process, you have uncovered what your minimum requirements are, and you can eliminate some tools as being too simplistic for your needs. Have every department and/or person who touches your customer provide input, as they will be using the tool. Use a small segment of your sales force, if you can segment them, to test one solution for a short period. Then you can add a couple other departments to the testing phase. Eventually, you can find a tool everyone can use and accept. The usefulness of the tools will only be as good as the information kept, and everyone has to participate.  

With the proper tools, you can listen very carefully to what your customer says and touch them when needed. You can provide them with the appropriate information when they want it and create a desire for your product.  and keep your company name at the top of the customer's mind. The result is more sales, and a more efficient sales effort.  


References for further study and assistance:

Good information sites:
www.CRMGuru.com (goes to www.customerthink.com)
www.crmbuyer.com
www.comparecrm.com
www.bnet.com (good general business information)
www.business-software.com (comparison/ranking of vendors)
www.alimetergroup.com (consulting firm focusing on Social CRM)
www.forrester.com (good research firm, search for CRM on their site)

Search on web for terms: "CRM", "Social CRM"
Search on FlickR for term: "Social CRM" and find numerous diagrams of CRM systems. Here's a good example:

 George Tyler is a partner with CxO To Go, a national professional services company headquartered in Denver, Colorado that provides on-demand C-Level expertise and best practices to client companies on a part time, flexible, and affordable basis. George is an executive-level market developer with in-depth experience marketing new products and establishing strategic marketing programs that significantly increase revenue and capture greater market share. He is a serial entrepreneur with extensive marketing and sales experience for technology companies. Besides building and launching start up firms, George has developed global strategic alliance programs and successfully launched new OEM technologies, hardware components, and software products for leading Fortune 500 enterprises to increase revenue. Contact George at 720-259-1111.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Keith McAslan Nominated for 2010 CFO of the Year

Keith McAslan, Partner, CxO To Go

Introduction:

One of the first steps in the merger and acquisition process after executing a confidentiality agreement or non-disclosure agreement is the non binding letter of intent.  A letter of intent, commonly referred to as the LOI, is a document that is given to express the interest to take the next steps in a transaction, such as to purchase or merge a business. 

An LOI is a nonbinding agreement that not only expresses interest, but typically details the initial terms for the contemplated transaction, timing for due diligence, contingencies, and the timing to execute a final definitive agreement.  

While it is not legally binding, the LOI is an important part of a purchasing process because it typically means that both parties have fundamentally agreed on a purchase price, basic terms of the deal and have agreed to negotiate exclusively with each other. 


Example:

The following is a very “vanilla” example of an LOI for reference, but it is strongly recommended that legal counsel prepare the LOI to ensure the business is protected during the M&A process.

Date

Owner’s / Seller’s Name
Company
Address

Dear Mr. Seller:

This letter puts forth the non-binding intent of Buyer Name (Buyer) and Seller Name. (Seller) to enter into an Agreement whereby Buyer would purchase essentially all of the tangible and intangible assets, operations, and company name for the sum of Total Price, plus (or minus) the amounts for inventory, accounts receivable, accounts payable, and work-in-process (at cost) at the time of closing.  Such amount to be paid for as follows at Closing:

$XXX deposit on date executed by Buyer and signed by Seller and shall be applied as part of the payment at closing, but shall be refunded if no closing occurs on or before DATE.
$XXX note payable to Seller at a X% rate for XX  months,
$XXXX, (plus or minus adjustments), to be paid in certified funds.

This offer will remain open until 5:00 p.m. on DAY, DATE, and will automatically expire unless accepted before that time.

It is the intention of Buyer to offer employment after the sale to all of Seller’s employees.

The above purchase price shall include inventory of $XXX at Seller’s cost.  If the actual amount is more, then the note payable to Seller shall increase accordingly. If the actual amount is less, the purchase price and down payment shall be adjusted accordingly.  In no event shall inventory exceed $XXX.

The above purchase price shall include accounts receivable of $XXX on the date of closing. .  If the actual amount is more, then the note payable to Seller shall increase accordingly. If the actual amount is less, the purchase price and down payment shall be adjusted accordingly. In no event shall accounts receivable exceed $XXX.

The above purchase price shall include accounts payable, which the Buyer shall assume, of $XXX on the date of closing. .  If the actual amount is less, then the note payable to Seller shall increase accordingly. If the actual amount is more, the purchase price and down payment shall be adjusted accordingly.  In no event shall accounts payable exceed $XXX.

The obligation of Buyer and Seller to consummate the transaction anticipated by this Agreement shall be subject to the following:

Execution of a definitive Contract for Sale acceptable to both parties on or before DATE, which specifies the assets and liabilities to be acquired from Seller by Buyer and contains the customary warranties, representations and other provisions for a transaction of this type.

Seller warrants that at the time physical possession is delivered to Buyer, all equipment will be in working order and that the premises will pass all inspections necessary to conduct such business.

The Seller warrants that it has or will have clear and marketable title to the business being sold, except for the Genesis II measuring system.

Adjustments and pro-ration shall be made at Closing for rent, utilities, and property taxes.

Buyer must find acceptable financing for a portion of the purchase price.

Seller shall assist in delivering, and Buyer must receive, a lease agreement with rates and terms that are acceptable to the Buyer for the property at ADDRESS.

Buyer, and/or his agents, shall have the right to review all books and records used in the preparation of the financial statements and tax returns for the last three years.

Owner shall stay on for a maximum of XX months at a compensation rate agreeable to both parties.

Buyer shall pay all sales tax on fixtures and equipment, if any.

Seller shall execute a 5 year non-compete agreement.

Closing shall be on or before DATE at a place and time agreeable to all parties.

From the signing of this letter of intent until Closing, Seller shall operate its business under the normal course of business and Seller shall not present, enter into discussions, or offer to sell its business to any other party.  This paragraph shall be binding on the parties although the balance of this letter only expresses the intentions of the parties.


 
Conclusion:

The LOI is legal document containing the initial agreement of both parties to complete a contemplated transaction that is non-binding in its nature.  The author is not an attorney and does not purport to offer legal counsel, but only provide a general overview of the letter of intent as part of the overall M&A process.  Therefore, it is strongly recommended that legal counsel be engaged and represent both the buyer and seller during the entirety of the M&A process to ensure all legal rights are protected. 

Keith McAslan is a Partner with CxO To Go a national professional services company headquartered in Denver, Colorado that provides on-demand C-Level expertise and best practices to client companies on a part time, flexible, and affordable basis.

Keith is sought after to provide advisory services as the trusted advisor to Owners and CEO’s. By utilizing his extensive experience as a successful financial and operational C-level executive, McAslan brings a results driven leadership style to complex situations.  McAslan’s expertise includes: financial advisory; management consulting; part time, interim & virtual CFO, COO and CEO; debt and equity financing; turnaround management; acquisition and divestiture advisory.

 Most recently Keith, was instrumental in the successful sale of Western Forge to Ideal Industries. As the interim CFO with finance and private investment transaction experience, guided the management team through the sale and due diligence process completing the sale from prospective buyer presentation to close within 60 days.  

 Harriet L. Donnelly, President, e5 Marketing

How many people in your organization can describe what your company does in a few sentences? How many different descriptions do you hear and how many of them are correct?  Typically, you can pick a sentence off of one and mesh it with another that you wordsmith with the third and it may still not be right. But, this may not be how you ultimately want people to think about you and your company...

Your first introduction, whether in a business meeting or in an elevator, is the most critical and sets the tone for any continuance of the business opportunity or the conversation. Within those first seconds you need to establish your credibility and evoke enough interest for a follow-on conversation. 

 By Mark Francischetti, Partner, CxO To Go

• beginning of the sales year fast start programs/incentives 
• end the year with a “bang” programs product/service
• specific incentives to drive the sale of newly launched solutions
• create/refresh interest in an existing line 

• Transfer
• Additions
• Eliminations
• Reorganizations occur
• Customer profiles change (M&A, bankruptcies, funding levels)