It was 1940 when Maurice and Richard McDonald opened their fast food restaurant in San Bernardino, CA. Fifteen years later they’re doing great in their single-location restaurant when a funny thing happened. At age 52, all-purpose salesman Ray Kroc was selling the...
We all understand terms like Pretax Profit and EBITDA that we use to describe our company’s bottom line, but what tells us where that profit (or loss) is really coming from? The answer is a set of numbers that rarely appears on an income statement. While the...
It was nearly 20 years ago when I first approached this topic, something just about every consultant on the planet has an opinion about. While we’ve helped a fair number of privately owned companies get sold, I’m not here to tell you if or when you should...
Management teams often disagree on key issues affecting the business, based on their own view of what’s working and what’s not. If a consensus is desired, that leaves it to the CEO to consider those views and set the best course of action. But what if it’s not clear...
The Wall Street Journal reported recently (7/18/19) that CFOs of public companies are retiring at the fastest pace in over a decade. Exit rates of nearly 18% annually are now thought to be higher than for CEOs, a historically high turnover job. The trend, captured by...
