“Any day.” I don’t know how many of you would be happy today to give this answer. Maybe you will enjoy giving this answer at the point when you reach all you have wanted in life -if there is any such point- or at the day when you are reminded that you no longer need to do the daily work in the company.

If you are a businessman, you don’t have the luxury of using this answer. To be able to use these two words, you might want to sell some or all of your company shares so as to transfer together with the management responsibility the responsibility of remembering the days of the week to someone else.

Even if the potential acquirer considers positively your wish of transferring the responsibility, they will still ask you, “How many years later?” Even when you sell all of your shares the new owners would like you to be actively working in the company for a few more years.

If you think that you would like to answer this question as “any day” in the coming years, then it is now time to start for seeking a potential acquirer for your company shares.

The oldie of the week:  The Seekers – The Carnival Is Over (1967)

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In a country having prominent universities educating renown managers and having so many successful giant companies, how can a company like KODAK find itself in such a situation? An excerpt from Internet: “…arrogance and stupidity and failure at a negligent degree caused them to go from 85,000 down to 5,000 employees. First Fuji Film began to outsell them on film then they didn’t enter the digital photography market until late in the race even though they had the technology before anyone else did but chose to shelf it.”

Irrespective of whether you have 85,000 or 85 employees today, if you don’t read your market correctly and do not utilize the technological developments, that is if your management is not prudent, then the future of your company doesn’t look very bright.

When we consider giving our services to a company, the future opportunities of the company and the team to realize them interest us more than how much profit or loss was made in the past. If the future of that company does not indicate a potential for growth, then we ask the company owner whether or not he/she is thinking of closing down the company. It may seem to be a hard decision. Sometimes giving up one’s company is a more realistic solution than creeping along and trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel.

Iff you’d like to view an advertisement of  KODAK from 1960, you can click here.

The oldie of the week: Marianne Faithfull – As tears go by (1965)

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Of course, Messi did not achieve the final score by himself. There were 10 more players, moving together with him. The remarkable point is that they achieved their success by really enjoying the game. Finally, they became the world champion. In other words, the 11 players of Barcelona formed each time a better team than the 11 players of the opposite team.

Having one or more than one Messi in a company plays an important role in the success of that enterprise. However, the extent of the whole company to act as a team is more important.

When we prepare our clients to meet with prospective acquirers, we are careful to have the company perceived as a team. There may be Messis in the company, but sustainable success can only be achieved if you have a team working harmoniously together. The Messis are also human. There may be days when they are ill or out of form. They can be transferred to another team.

The famous American basketball player, Michael Jordan said: “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”

The oldie of the week: Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (1983)

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I told him that I was not against his having an energy drink but the effects he was describing were not appropriate for his case. I said that I believed another energy drink, the advertisement of which I saw in Romania, could be of more assistance to him.

Our projects take so long as they require. Unforeseeable circumstances can lengthen the process of merging with another company. The only thing to do in such a case is to understand the situation and to determine a new strategy under these conditions to reach our previously set aims. The new one might be harder to apply than the previous one. The important point is being able to take the necessary precautions without losing track of reality and without being emotional, that is without getting angry.

Finally, this project was concluded by fulfilling the expectations of my client. If you would like to view the advertisement of the energy drink that I recommended to my client, one about a cat on the tree, please click here.

The oldie of the week: Beatles – Help (1965)

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People who use such sites hope to find their ideal partners who in general have the same goal too. Tough it can also be said that these filled in parameters may not, knowingly or unknowingly, be representing the true case.

Our job is quite easier as we look for a strategic partner for a client to accelerate the growth of their companies. All the companies in the world are registered and what they do is known. Even if they are not thinking about a partnership it is possible to implant this idea into their minds. It is easier to define the parameters for the businesses. This is the reason why we can find in avarage about 200 potential partners for each of our clients.

As a result of his experiments Dan Ariely suggests to “romantic prospects” among others that they “… make an effort to do things (they) enjoy with other single people…”

If you want to order the book at Amazon you can use this link.

The oldie of the week: Scott MacKenzie: San Francisco (1967)

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They have given you a list of performers. Although money is not an issue, it is hard to make the choice. Then you get an idea. You decide to view a short recording from each of them on concerts. After viewing them you realize that there are only a few performers, who can fit in your project.

In our projects we find ourselves exactly in such a situation. On paper many companies may look similar. However, you can understand the difference when you meet the ‘performers’, the owners of these companies. Although we will always need documents containing company information, the best marketing means are our clients themselves. It is the job of consultants like us to prepare them for the stage so that they will give the right picture for a certain potential partner.

If you would like to listen to the choice of the organizers for the female violinist during the World Cup in South Africa, please click here.

Note: From today on you will find at the end of the posts “The oldie of the week”, a music video dating back to the years from 50’s to 80’s. They somehow influenced me. I hope you enjoy listening to them too.

The oldie of the week: The Doors: People are strange

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” One has to go back a while to recall a time when cars were simply means of transportation. [...] Today, cars are extensions of their owners. They make statements about the character and status of their owners.”

I don’t know much about cars. If I have any interest in the automotive industry, it is due to the advertisements given by this sector. I enjoy to follow how they position themselves in the market.

Without a question BMW is a very successful car manufacturer. I think that one of the reasons for this success can be explained by the following sentence of the above mentioned excerpt: “They (cars) elicit a wide range of emotions”. BMW knows how to find ways to satisfy the needs of the consumer for attaining such emotions.

Our clients go to the meetings with their prospective acquirers with a presentation, prepared by us. In addition to the information contained in this presentation, it is also an important “advertisement” document. An “advertisement” that focuses on the desires of the prospective acquirer to accelerate the process of turning this potential acquirer into a real one.

If you would like to view an interesting commercial about BMW that I found on Internet, please click here. (Audi fans might dislike it. )

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• Ancient Mesopotamian women were possibly the first ones to invent and wear lipstick.
• During the Islamic Golden Age the notable Arab Andalusian cosmetologist Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi invented solid lipsticks, which were perfumed sticks rolled and pressed in special molds.
• In Medieval Europe, lipstick was banned by the church, cosmetics being “reserved” for prostitutes.
• Throughout most of the 19th century the obvious use of cosmetics was not considered acceptable in Britain for respectable women, and it was associated with marginalized groups such as actresses (…).

And look at today. Interesting, isn’t it? How values change in time!

If not over such a long period of time the business owners have also changed their views on selling their shares. Not so long ago in terms of history their companies were their babies. Selling them was unthinkable. I have already mentioned in one of my earlier blogs that as I was talking about selling our company, my partner had said that “selling companies” was not in his dictionary.

Today almost all business people agree that to be able to grow their company they have to find a partner sooner or later. If they are big enough they can even go public and then have many partners.

If you want to see how a designer makes art with lipstick marks, you can click here.

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Many years later when we started our consulting work in M&A projects, I remembered Mary in some of the discussions I had with our clients. Specially in the family businesses it is possible to deduce the way female employees are evaluated in the company by viewing the behavior of the boss. In a specific case, I even saw that the owner was projecting his anger concerning his divorce on the female employees.

The subject of female employees is not the most important issue for the managers of potential prospects, who are thinking of buying the shares of our clients. However, at least before they proceed with the acquisition they consider the number of female employees and how they are treated.

I didn’t talk with Mary about this subject again but I listened to a lot of complaints from various female managers. I have worked with many females in my business life, and I must say that I have found most of them to perform better in their jobs than their male colleagues.

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