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Where CEOs Get Straight Talk |
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A Message from The Founder
ATTENTION: BUSINESS OWNER CEOs and MANAGING PARTNERS:
Since founding THE BOARD in 1988, I have discovered that the typical business-owner CEO of most closely held companies face several challenges. Most often, I hear questions:
- To whom do I turn to when I need an honest and practical answer to a specific issue?
- How can I increase my own level of performance- in terms of accountability, greater productivity and corporate profitability, or addressing the nagging long-term problems that never go away?
- How do I gain the feeling that the company is being optimally managed with increasing returns?
There is no management seminar, no business guru who can give you the “tough” answers. However, THE BOARD provides a solid, proven technique that continues to help hundreds of CEOs find their own solutions. The catch is that this technique requires a combination of traits and attitudes that are not too uncommon among strong-minded entrepreneurial people who run closely held companies. The CEO has to be willing to:
- Admit that he/she doesn’t know all the answers.
- Tell outsiders all the details of your business, including disclosure of the two holies:
- How much the company really earned, and
- How much he/she took out of the company in any form
- Express his/her doubts and concerns without feeling that by so doing he/she will be seen as an inadequate manager
- Realize that people from different business backgrounds do not have to spend ten years in his/her industry, different as it truly is, to bring him/her challenging new ideas.
- Commit to the discipline of regular accountability for his/her actions & the company’s performance to a group whom he/she respects and doesn’t want to disappoint.
- Understand that helping him/her is a gratifying and fun experience for the invested outsiders
If you can give yourself a passing grade on most of these points, or summon the courage to stop being totally independent, then you are a serious candidate for membership in THE BOARD. I trust you will read further and contact me to discover ways in which THE BOARD can benefit you and your business.
Respectively yours,
John L. Foote
Founder of THE BOARD,INC.
About The Founder
Founder of THE BOARD, John L. Foote has over 40 plus years of experience in the management and operation of large and small businesses. During the last 25 years, Mr. Foote has been involved in small businesses as:
Founder and operator of a wholesale/retail food business in the Midwest.
A Presidential appointee to the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC), a quasi-governmental agency dedicated to the export of small business investment in third world countries.
A manager of lending relations for Maryland National Corp. (now Bankamerica) correspondent bankers and their range of small business clients in the middle Atlantic region.
Founder of THE BOARD, INC. since 1988 and counseling hundreds of small businesses CEOs in the Baltimore/Washington area.