Nobody can wear all the hats in an acquisition. Most CEOs need and want advisors to help them in their M&A efforts. How well you can work with those advisors may determine the outcome.

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Startups require a mind-set from their CEO that is very different from that appropriate to larger, more established companies. It’s hard to fathom now, but back in 1994 the future of internet e-mail was still in doubt.  At the time Jeffrey Morrison, now CEO of Stage One Partners in Los Gatos, piloted a startup e-mail firm called Siren Software.

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Doing business in Asia is unique, and those newer to this environment should heed some key principles.  On a recent trip to China, I had a chance to put these key ideas into practice.

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Why don’t CEOs insist on great top teams in their own organizations? Are they too tolerant of failure and/or poor performance? A talk to the Alliance of Chief Executives by CEO Jim Pouliot of CSAA inspired this exploration of why CEOs continually struggle with the issue, and what they can do about it.

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Small business owners often dive into a business with just enough knowledge and passion to avoid failure, but not enough to really succeed.  The owners of OCSC Sailing were held in that position for a long time, until five years ago, when they began breaking out of the invisible cage.

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Gene Miller, Chairman and CEO of Miller, Starr & Regalia, knows the importance of dealing with important clients face to face. Many of these contacts have no obvious or dramatic outcome, but they all serve to strengthen critical underlying relationships.

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Lori Bonn Gallagher and CEO husband Bill Gallagher of Lori Bonn Design made the shift to iconic branding and watched their brand value soar. It’s a simple fact: buyers base their purchasing decisions on emotion.

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Rich Barbee, CEO of K/P Corporation, changed the company focus from equipment and physical capabilities to personal service and incredibly gifted employees. Your people’s core values mean more to your customers than the size of your printing press.

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CEOs must carefully assess the gap between expectations and reality, whether it’s taking a new CEO position or buying a company.  Learn from Tom Oliver at CoolSystems who worked his way through a difficult  situation he walked into. 

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Founders of companies display a passion that their successors may not.  Partha Sarathy of Aztec Software had to deal with just such an issue as he chose to bring in his own replacement.

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