• Have you established a program that will recruit the people you want rather than carbon copies of the people you have?
• Do you have experienced reps on the frontline and change agents at the top?
• Is your sales compensation system congruent with your enterprise´s economics?
• Do you review sales force size regularly, particularly with regard to whether the force is flexible enough to handle channel shifts, market changes,

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Sales Questions

1. What is your TSR aspiration? Is that aspiration appropriate given the expectations embedded in your stock price and the ability of your plans to deliver improved performance?
2. How much growth do you need in order to deliver on that aspiration? What target revenue-growth rate is required in order to meet your goal given the momentum contribution of other TSR drivers?
3. Will optimizing growth and margins

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Daniel Stelter, Eric E. Olsen, Frank Plaschke
Source: Spotlight on Growth: The Role of Growth in Achieving Superior Value Creation
Subjects: CEO / Executive Questions, Finance Questions

1. Market Share. Are you gaining, holding or losing market share in each of the segments that constitute your business? Why? Against which competitors?
2. Customer Leverage. What percentage of your product is sold to customers who have significant leverage over you? Which customers are they, and why do they have leverage? Please provide a list of your top 25 customers and approximate sales volume to each.

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Steve Schaubert, William Hayes
Source: Rules For Rookie CEOs
Subject: CEO / Executive Questions

1. What fundamental value will your current plans generate? Is that performance really defensible given the competitive dynamics of your industry? Is it enough to meet your TSR aspirations?
2. What are the market expectations embedded in your stock price? Is there a gap between what you can deliver and what investors expect? If so, do you have a plan for closing it?
3. What drives valuation multiples in

… [ Read more ]

Subject: CEO / Executive Questions

• Before you engaged our services, what was your impression of our company?
• How were those initial impressions satisfied during the course of our work?
• Why did you choose our company over the competition?
• If someone called you for a quick reference about us, what is the first thing that would come to mind?

Author: Carl Hedberg
Source: How to Get Your Message Across, Soft and Clear
Subject: Customer Questions

Most companies incorporate five basic building blocks into their financial reporting: the two sides (active and passive) of the balance sheet including the asset register, a profit-and-loss statement, an investment plan or budget, and some form of competitive benchmarking. Recently, shareholder-value-management indicators have been added to the list. These six measures answer some basic questions:

• How much capital do we have, what kind is it,

… [ Read more ]

Authors: Felix Barber, Ralf Dreischmeier, Ulrich Villis
Source: Valuing the Assets of the New Economy
Subject: Finance Questions

1. Mind-engaging work
   When was the last time you got so caught up in interesting work that you lost track of time? What were you doing? What was it — about the work itself, how you were going about it, its connection to a greater good — that made this such a wonderfully consuming activity?
2. Seeing the fruits of your labor
   When you want to see the results of

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Organization Questions

• Do you know what would happen to your bottom line if you raised (or lowered) prices by 1 percent?
• Do you know which of your customers are – or are not – price sensitive and why?
• Where are the pricing leakages occurring in your company?
• What functions or departments control the final pricing decisions?
• How could you change your pricing mechanisms to build your advantages?

Source: Pricing … [ Read more ]

Subject: Marketing Questions

• What’s the nature of a customer’s need for my service or product? Under what circumstances will customers require my service or product? How often will they need me?
• How many ways is it possible for my customers to perceive risk? Is this risk confined to the service or product? Does it apply to the transaction process?
• What do potential customers already know about my service or product?

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Sales Questions

• Once this is over, what are you going to miss?
• What problems came up that you worked through and how did you do it?
• If you were to update your resume now, how would you describe the accomplishment of this team?
• What new behaviors or skills will you take to your next project?
• What did you learn about what it takes to become a high impact team?
• What would you

… [ Read more ]

Subject: Teams/Teamwork Questions