Take Five #043: Which KPIs are the most important, according to someone who has acquired 37 businesses, and more
Take Five #043: Which KPIs are the most important, according to someone who has acquired 37 businesses, and more
Top five must-reads this week in the world of SMB acquisitions and operations
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Take Five #043: Which KPIs are the most important, according to someone who has acquired 37 businesses, and more
1. How To Write An SMB Operating Procedure That Works
From Josh Schultz’s new blog on SMB operations & systems: “How To Write A Procedure That Works!” His expertise on small and medium-sized businesses in the industrial and manufacturing space is unmatched:
Few people write down how to do different jobs in their business. Fewer still write them in a way where they are useful and used.
The upside to writing procedures is that if you get it right, you can continue to grow and not have to revisit these jobs. As you hire, as you get further downstream from these tasks, as you scale... you won't be the one training each new person how to do things... IF you write procedures that work.
Better still, remember that mistake you made that caused you to add a double-check in your approach, or changed how you make a part? Wouldn't it be nice if everyone did that check too so you didn't have to experience that same mistake with each new member, each new customer, or each new order? Writing a procedure that works prevents repeating mistakes and engrains lessons learned into the process.
Writing down how to do something is one thing... structuring it in a way that gets used, can be found, and is referenced is an entirely different matter. I am going to show you how to do the latter.
2. Everything you need to know about Gross Margin in 3 minutes
“This is the power of gross margin conversion factors. And this is often where the hidden gold is in margin. The most disciplined and successful businesses have great operations teams focused optimizing gross margin efficiency every day.”
3. Which KPIs are the most important, according to someone who has acquired 37 businesses
4. One searcher’s look back at the last 5 years, post-acquisition
From Jan Riehle’s “Update on our acquisitions from 2017”:
It has been 5 years since we acquired and merged two Brazilian beauty-tech companies to form “B4A” (Beauty for All). Our announcement of the acquisition can still be found here, taking us back to the start of this exciting journey. Now, it is time to reflect on our past experience and provide an outlook on the future. This write-up is intended to provide new search fund entrepreneurs with a firsthand account of the search, deal and operating phases, offering a practical learning experience. To make it easier to follow, I will break the following down into chapters:
1. Search- and Dealphase (2017)
2. Post-Acquisition restructuring (2017-18): Looking for break-even
3. Preparing for growth and implementing a new vision (2019/20)
3.1 Consumers
3.2 Influencers
3.3 Beauty Brands
3.4 Team Building
4. Doubling in size every year (2020/21/22)
5. Adapting for difficult times (2022)
6. The importance of culture and values as a leadership instrument
7. The operator in his playing-field
8. Crazy entrepreneur or investors with a lack of vision?
9. Where are we going with B4A?
5. Top people to follow on SMB Twitter right now
Upcoming Events in the SMB & Business Acquisition Space
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