creditors

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Never Skew the Facts to Sell the Deal

My work as the turnaround authority has given me a front-row seat to the behavior of CEOs that led them to crises. This experience provided plenty of fodder for my book, “How Not to Hire a Guy Like Me: Lessons Learned from CEOs’ Mistakes.”

One of the mistakes CEOs make, which I covered in a white paper I wrote, is that they skew the facts to boards, creditors and constituents to “sell the deal.” Now, I often have to deal with unpleasant situations and work with companies in dire straits. But no matter how bad the situation, honesty really is the best policy. Changing the facts, or omitting crucial information to get your way is never the way to go.

Here are two stories to illustrate my point. Both these situations involved CEOs bending the facts so they could qualify for financing their companies couldn’t support.

The CEO of a hard drive manufacturer in California desperately wanted a line of credit from his bank for $60 million, so he stuffed the channel in order to make his company appear more credit worthy.

Stuffing the channel is when a manufacturer oversells product to put sales on the books, despite knowing that much of the merchandise will come back unsold. This inflates the books by overstating the top line, thereby improving the bottom line.

This strategy worked. He got the loan, but when the company repurchased the inventory on the channel within 60 days, it became out of compliance on the line of credit and the bank put the company in default.

That’s when I was brought in to salvage what I could and to hopefully restructure the company. The company survived, thanks to some hedge fund loans, but the CEO lost his job because he skewed the facts and misrepresented the true financial situation of the company.

Not bending the facts is so important that it deserves this second story. Before the technology was so ubiquitous, laser tag equipment had a very high value. A Texas-based company was seeking a large loan and claimed it had more inventory on its books than it did by adding the inventory in its Ireland-based location to the U.S. books. The auditors never verified the inventory and granted the company a far larger loan than it could handle.

When the company filed for Chapter 11, I went to the “plant” in Ireland and was not happy to discover it was just an empty lot. That inventory was just a figment of the president and CFO’s imagination and the company was now $75 million short in inventory.

I immediately went to the judge to convert the case to a Chapter 7 rather than try to bring the company through bankruptcy and be embarrassed by the fraud. The creditors ultimately sued the accounting firm and recovered millions of dollars from faulty accounting, once again highlighting the blunder of skewing facts.

Don’t manipulate data to give an unrealistic picture of your company, especially when it comes to qualifying for financing. There are reasons for the rules that prevent companies from getting loans they can’t handle, and yes, those rules do apply to you.

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The Relationship Between Your Debt and Your Happiness (P.S. It’s Obvious)

In my last post about happiness, I wrote about 4 ways you can be happier and less stressed in order to run your business more effectively:

1. Do Good Deeds

2. Get Exercise

3. Get Hugged

4. Get a Pet

I want to keep on with this idea of happiness and focus even more closely on the things you can do to increase your happiness as it relates to money and finances, both personally and for your business.

It may come as no secret to you that debt makes people unhappy, but you’d be surprised at how little debt it takes to sour relationships, create tension and stress and ruin a business. Therefore, whenever possible, make sure that you and your company are carrying as little debt as possible.

To tell you to spend money paying down debt that your business doesn’t have might seem foolish, but what’s foolish is spending money that your business doesn’t have in the first place!

TIme and again I am brought in to resolve the problems of businesses with inordinate debt and money owed to a wide variety of lenders and creditors. As I look back to see what debt is really in front of us, who’s owed what and at what interest rate, when loans are coming due, etc., I often uncover a similar pattern.

Those who are in debt need not be in debt – or at least not the kind of debt they’re in.

They are in debt because they didn’t take the opportunity to pay down some of their initial debt when they had the chance. Instead, they sought to use their capital for further investment (or unsavory things), thereby driving themselves further and further into debt when paying that debt off in the beginning would have done wonders for the future of their business. That is to say, they would have been able to keep their businesses.

It is true that sometimes the answer to a cash flow problem is a loan, but I have been in numerous situations where any loan would have been throwing more money at a sinking ship.

That is why it’s important not to take loans to supplement loans. This may seem like obvious advice, but you’d be amazed at how often these are the problems I’m dealing with. When given the opportunity to pay the principal down on a loan or to pay off a credit card you’ve been using to finance your business, do it. Don’t think that buying a new piece of fancy equipment for your factory is the perfect way to grow your business faster or that hiring a new employee will solve all of your problems. Pay your debt down and continue to own your business. It will keep you focused by ultimately keeping you less stressed and helping you avoid crises and debt in the future.

Want to be happy at your job? Then keep your business debt free.

Is your business buried under debt or has it been? What did you do about it?

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3 Key Findings of a Major Investment Strategy Firm

I recently received an invitation to review the forecasts of an investment firm and research company as they saw things developing in 2012. It shared three key findings.

It would be weird to say that I was overjoyed at reading these findings as they’re not particularly positive, but I was justified in my own assertions that this bear market isn’t going anywhere and that we better prepare to navigate it successfully or fall by the wayside.

I want to share each of these 3 key findings with you in my own words.

1. You’re going to have to do a lot to get a little. That’s been the case for a while now, and it’s not going away any time soon. Count on four years, and don’t be surprised by six. Because it’s just not going to get better out there, that means you have to make things better for yourself by ending waste, embracing austerity and adjusting to this New Norm. As I list those three objectives, I smile to myself because they’re each different yet at the same time they’re all faces of the same die. Evaluate your situation in business and at home and take actionable steps to make your money and efforts last longer.

2. Stocks have been lousy for a while and bonds are following suit. If you thought things were going to get easy, think again. Do you know the saying, “when life closes a door, it opens a window?” Well, in this case, when life closes a door, it also nails the window shut. That’s not a reason to panic, but it does cause me to conclude the following, which, incidentally, is similar to finding 3: “You’re going to have to make your own doors.”

3. It’s trite but true: Cash is King (read parts One, Two and Three of Vic Taglia’s series on the subject). Cash is also the number one asset of a turnaround professional. If there’s no cash, there’s no payroll, there’s no business and there are a lot of angry creditors chomping at the bit to get a piece of what’s theirs. As a business owner, it’s your job to do what you need to do to generate cash flow. There’s little in this world that I’m better at doing, and I’ve even shared one of my best tricks with you before. If you want investors to stick with you and your company, you’re going to need to learn to seek non-traditional ways of staying profitable and maintaining cash flow.

I wasn’t shocked to review these findings. Heed the cautious tone, and start thinking about what you can do differently to keep your business ahead and growing. If you’re already experiencing challenges, face your harsh reality, and start thinking creatively. It’s going to be a long and bumpy ride – but I’m here for you.

What do you think about these ideas?

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5 Big Blunders CEO’s Make That Lead to Crises

My last white paper was about the faux pas of CEOs in crisis, but in writing that paper I started thinking about some of the biggest mistakes CEOs, presidents and business owners make that result in crises. Since you may not be facing a crisis right now – and I hope you never are – I wanted to share these blunders with you so that you could either avoid them or start rectifying them.

1. Growing a Business Without Proper Equity or the Right Financial Structure

It’s never wise to try to grow your business without enough money. I once carved an injected molding company in Toledo, OH like a Thanksgiving turkey because the president sunk $2.5 million into his pet project: making the perfect bottle-cap. He effectively leveraged the entire company by borrowing against it to pursue this dream. Not only did he bet the ranch, but he tried to grow and evolve his business without sufficient funding to keep it running. Let that be the first lesson: make sure you have enough capital before making any big moves.

2. Growing a Business Without a Sufficient or Competent Management Team

The corollary to having enough capital to grow your business is having the right management team to do so as well. I’ve run Ocean Pacific twice. The first time was because they were expanding overseas without the proper personnel who understood sourcing and distribution in international markets. Though they lost a ton of money before we arrived, we were able to scale back to domestic manufacturing and refocus the company on design and licensing.

Many years later we were brought back in for a similar reason. Not only had the company lost control of its brand, entered into poor licensing arrangements and become embroiled in trademark issues, but they had accumulated a ton of debt. Once again, the management team couldn’t handle its responsibilities. The company was restructured through bankruptcy, selling its licenses to a private equity firm. Learn from Ocean Pacific and don’t embark on new strategies for growth without acquiring the right management team first.

3. They Allow Idiot Family Members to Run Key Divisions of the Business

Putting family members in key positions of your business can be dangerous without written expectations and a timeline for control, advancement and responsibilities. It takes a unique father and CEO to balance the intersection of a family and a business. Problems arise in many places, but particularly as it comes to entitlements, compensation and selling the business.

I had a mechanical engineering company in New York that was in the middle of a restructure that included a large union shop. The father had died and put his wife in charge as CEO. The son, resentful of his diminutive role due to a lack of delineated expectations and a board-approved succession plan, and, in his eyes, inadequate compensation, was stealing a lot of money. When we confronted good ol’ Charlie, he took a kitchen knife to his mother. Fortunately, she lived, got a restraining order, and kicked him out of the company.

Mixing business and family is not easy. Be careful and have the sense to know when someone is incapable of doing the job he feels entitled to do, family or not. Always manage expectations by putting everything in writing.

4. They Skew the Facts to Boards, Creditors and Constituents to “Sell the Deal”

As I’ve discussed before, honesty really is the best policy. The CEO of a hard drive manufacturer in California desperately wanted a line of credit from his bank for $60 million, so he stuffed the channel in order to make his company appear worthy.

Stuffing the channel is when a manufacturer oversells product to put sales on the books, despite knowing that much of the merchandise will come back unsold; this inflates the books by overstating the top line, thereby improving the bottom line. This strategy led to the loan, but when the company repurchased the inventory on the channel within 60 days, it became out of compliance on the line of credit. Once the bank defaulted the company I was brought in to salvage what I could and to hopefully restructure the company. The company survived thanks to some hedge fund loans, but the CEO lost his job because he skewed the facts.

Not bending the facts is so important that it deserves a second story. Before the technology was so ubiquitous, lazer-tag equipment had a very high value, and a Texas-based company seeking a large loan claimed it had more inventory on its books than it did; the company added the inventory in its Ireland-based location to the US books. The US auditors never verified the inventory and granted the company a far larger loan than it could handle. When the company filed for Chapter 11, I was brought in as CEO; within weeks of my new position I discovered we were $75 million short in inventory. I immediately went to the judge to convert the case to a Chapter 7 rather than try to bring the company through the bankruptcy and be embarrassed by the fraud. The creditors ultimately sued the accounting firm and made millions of dollars from faulty accounting, once again highlighting the blunder of skewing facts.

5. The President/CEO/Owner Can’t Keep It in His Pants

I have more examples for this one than any other lesson I know, but I’ll highlight this case with two basic stories to indicate how easy it is to get caught and how ruinous it always is. The president of an apparel manufacturer had other interests: he wanted to design the perfect yacht. He certainly succeeded in making a great one, such that he ended up in a prestigious yachting magazine. However, when he and his innovative yacht were photographed for the cover shoot, he failed to ask his girlfriend to get off the yacht or at least cover up her delightfully revealing bikini. When his wife saw the cover of the magazine, she filed for divorce and he lost control of the company.

In another case I was brought in to resolve as president, the CEO and Chairman of the Board of a retail establishment was caught with his kids’ babysitter while his company was going through a Chapter 11 restructuring. Once the matter became public, he lost focus on the business and the employees and the creditors lost faith in him. Ultimately, the business was sold off in pieces.

Gentlemen: keep it in your pants. Not doing so can be very expensive. For the record, I have similar stories about the other gender, but I’ll save them for another time.

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Never Complain, Never Explain

As managing partner of GGG and the Turnaround Authority, I get the pleasure of providing guest posts by our other partners. The following post is by our newest Partner, Vic Taglia.

Never Complain, Never Explain

Henry Ford II, the founder’s grandson and Ford Motor’s president or chairman for 34 years, is credited with this saying, though he may have been preceded by Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th century British prime minister. While few of us have Mr. Ford’s money or attitude or Mr. Disraeli’s political philosophy, this advice is nonetheless well worth heeding.

Explanations = Back Pedaling

I have found that when I have to explain anything to my banker, my wife or my vendors, I seem to be backing up.

If I have to explain something, it is generally because something isn’t clear on its face, which means I have failed to make some issue so crystal clear that even a caveman can understand it.  Not to confuse my banker, my creditors or my dear wife with cavemen, but if I have to resort to an explanation, I am in a bad place.

Avoid Explanations

If the notes to my financial statements are not so clear then my creditors have to ask questions and I have to explain, which means I am wasting time that could be used to get better pricing, longer terms, market intelligence or just running my business.

If I have to explain to my banker why the existing financial covenants need adjusting, I am backing up. Explaining non-compliance with anything my banker wants makes more work for him. It also makes him start to ask what else is wrong. It distracts him from getting me more money on my credit line. He’ll have to write some report instead of playing golf with me.

If I have to explain to my wife why I’m late for dinner (again) or why my American Express bill has some peculiar charge from QAT Consulting Group (ask Elliot Spitzer), I am going downhill fast.

Definitely Don’t Complain

Complaining is even worse. Your wife and banker may be sympathetic to your plight, but they are only human, and they have a limited amount of patience for people who don’t measure up or can’t deliver.

I always tell folks I have a limited amount of sympathy and patience, and it’s reserved for my children. Try to save whatever sympathy and patience your wife and banker have for really big problems.

In short, try to measure up to their expectations, deliver what you promise and avoid situations that you have to explain.

When has explaining in your life been indicative of larger problems?

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5 Warning Signs That It’s Time to Call the Turnaround Expert

As managing partner of GGG and the Turnaround Authority, I get the pleasure of providing guest posts by our other partners. The following post is by our newest Partner, Vic Taglia.
In business, it can be hard to see the forest through the trees, especially when it’s night time and you have no flashlight, the only supplies you have left are bubble-gum and a rubberband but your wife always tells you you’re no MacGyver, and the forest creatures are attacking you with cries of “blood!”
If you just said, “That sounds about right,” or “What the heck is this guy talking about” then you may want to read these 5 warning signs and see if it’s time to bring in some professional help.
  1. Fatigue – yours and your creditors. One late Friday afternoon, you’re beat, and you realize that you’ve spent the entire week talking to your vendors. You’re not placing orders or negotiating terms. You’re not swapping stories; you’re begging for extended credit terms. You’re pleading for deliveries without knowing how you’ll pay the over-90-day balances. You’re talking to the credit manager, not the sales manager.  And you have a new bank officer visiting Monday morning from some new department called “special assets.” This is creditor fatigue.
  2. You’re out of new ideas, and the old ones don’t work. You used to be able to cajole deliveries from vendors based on a promise, and you could make your promise reality. Not so anymore. Your product collateral looks old and tired. Your website’s most recent news refers to a 2008 press release about a new salesman (who you fired in 2009). And worst of all, you haven’t anything new to add that you want to share.
  3. A different look in your employees’ eyes. The old-timers wonder where your magic went. The newbies wonder how you ever got anywhere.
  4. Longer hours, less progress. You haven’t had a vacation in three years.  The lake/mountain/beach house is just a pile of cancelled checks and fond, but fading, memories. You’re missing ballgames and ballet recitals with your children. You haven’t had a nice dinner with your spouse since your anniversary; but maybe it was the anniversary two years ago. And the inventory in the warehouse seems to be growing in size and dust.
  5. Less cash, more debt, fewer receivables, more payables. You’re calling customers and finding they aren’t paying because your shipments are late/wrong/incomplete. Bankers’ reference letters refer to your account as “low five figure” as opposed to “high six figure.” You ask your CPA /attorney/friends for some advice on a new banker “who understands this terrible economy/insane competition/horrible cost pressures” better than the banker you’ve been with for ten years.

If any of these describe what you’re seeing, it’s time to call your friendly neighborhood turnaround professional.

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Lions, Tigers and Creditors – Oh, my!

I’ve written before about optimism, but I think this cartoon catches a different element of the word.

Note the suited man (or man-like figure) buried up to his waist in the midst of a barren desert. Another soul is not in sight, yet he declares, “Someone will come.”

Not likely, my friend, not likely.

As I’ve mentioned, optimism is important, but it requires a dose of realism. This guy needs help. He needs a bailout. He needs a rescuer.

But he’s not going to get any of that in the form of a handout.

It’s people in this situation who are my specialty: people who are, in a word, screwed.

This guy has an emergency situation. The only thing that’s different about him and the people I deal with is that those I’m dealing with are generally missing a proverbial arm, buried up to their chins, and there are lions, tigers and creditors – oh my! – coming from all directions.

Have you ever been in an awful situation like this? Was it worse or better than this guy’s situation?