I’m not going to be misled by politicians telling me just prior to 2010 elections that the days of milk and honey have returned. I know that the shaking we feel beneath our feet isn’t an earthquake; it is the vibration from countless business plans going through the shredder. There is fear and uncertainty in the land, but we must move forward even if on a different path with a different view of our business model.

Our economic world has changed–big time. I’m not an economist so I can’t and won’t talk about what the change means. I just know the business environment in which I need to succeed and help my clients succeed is very different from the one I was operating in prior to 2009.

What does this mean if you are a CEO or a marketing executive?

I believe that companies are going to be more and more reluctant to hire permanent marketers. Instead, companies will look to fill their needs on demand. They’ll augment skeleton marketing departments with interim and contract talent as they need it.

There is too much uncertainty in the land to confidently invest in a strong and capable marketing department. There is too much volatility in the marketing programs budget to justify a fully staffed marketing department. Better to keep fixed labor costs to a minimum and bring in the rock star interims for a few months as needed. No long-term commitments, no health insurance concerns, just the perfect skills and knowledge applied to the opportunity or problem for a season.

In past years, in a different economic climate, a high percentage of executives in the U.S. would scoff at the idea of relying on interim talent in marketing. Those same executives have no choice now but to seriously consider the interim option. They can’t stop marketing or else their companies will fall prey to the competition. However, they should think twice before burdening the operating budget with a fully-staffed, permanent marketing department.

Here are two sobering stats from The Financial Forecast Center.

They forecast the U-3 unemployment rate in the U.S. to be 11% in February 2010. (A group of economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal estimated the unemployment rate for December 2010 will be 9.5%.) We’re looking at 10% unemployment for at least the next 16 months, if you wish to belief these sources.

The other sobering forecast is the GDP. The Financial Forecast Center shows the GDP improving from -3.8% in June 2009 to zero GDP growth in February 2010. I like seeing the numbers heading north, but we can’t expect much, if any, growth for the foreseeable future.

Low growth GDP and 10% unemployment is the new business environment for the U.S.

Those who adapt to the new reality will succeed. Those who manage with an eye in the rearview mirror will stumble.

Let me know directly if you’d like to discuss what an interim marketing solution might look like for your organization. To learn more about interim management within the marketing and sales function check out my book, “Leadership On Demand: How Smart CEO’s Tap Interim Management to Drive Revenue.” It’s also available through Amazon and other online book resellers in paperback and eBook formats.

This post has been republished from Charles Besondy’s blog on interim management, One Riot, One Ranger.

“Interim management is the temporary provision of management resources and skills. Interim management can be seen as the short-term assignment of a proven heavyweight interim executive manager to manage a period of transition, crisis or change within an organization. In this situation, a permanent role may be unnecessary or impossible to find on short notice. Additionally, there may be nobody internally who is suitable for, or available to take up, the position in question.”

The book Leadership on Demand, adds that interim management, while often utilized at the executive level, can also be successfully applied at the group-level position as well.

In essence, interim management is the utilization of an experienced manager to temporarily fill a gap in an organization.

The most common need for interim management occurs when an executive leaves a position for whatever reason, and the firm seeks an immediate replacement, while they search for an ideal permanent replacement.

However, an interim manager often does more than keep the seat warm. A good interim manager will add tremendous value to the organization by applying their experience and skill set to move the organization closer to achieving their goals.

Every large organization should have conversations with an interim management company like OneAccord (which specializes in marketing and sales interim management) or Tatum (which focuses on finance), so that they can tap the vast pool of experience and skills that OneAccord can provide when the need inevitably arises.

Interview with Paul Travis.

How does interim management work?

Well you know your question is so simple yet it’s indicative of much larger things that are going on. There is so much change in today’s business world. It’s very different from how things used to be thirty years or forty years ago. For example, when someone was talking about getting a new car he/she was referring to purchase – where money might have been owed but the ownership was still under the person’s name. Now in the last couple of decades, the institution of car leasing came about and therefore now you have the flexibility. Well I used this as an example because of the mechanism of employment is starting to change. Interim management is a manner or is a means of bringing in talents to accomplish specific objectives and solve specific challenges within companies. But its more like a rental, more like a lease, than it is acquiring a new asset or bringing on somebody who is going to be a long term employee. Instead of spending 3 to 12 months searching for the perfect candidate and putting them through the recruiting process, a hiring company brings in an interim manager very quickly, usually weeks instead of months and that person’s assignment is limited by definition so the interim manager seeks to complete the mission. This is really in contrast to the dynamic where a W2 executive might come aboard and then start to look for things within the organization that naturally align with what they are doing and so they sort of justify their position. In fact those individuals typically expand their division and they want to make themselves important within the company. They hire staff and all the new responsibilities that they have created, then go about filling those positions. But it’s a different thing than interim management.

What would you say are the main benefits of a company using intern management?

Well as I was just alluding to, the speed of being able to bring on talent and to solve problems is a great one. There’s also the philosophical issue of executing real work rather than keeping a chair warm. And then there’s other benefits both tangible and intangible that are pointed out in the book Leadership on Demand. For example objectivity: bringing in somebody who who can assess challenges with a much broader scope in mind. There are times to market, bringing somebody in who can focus and get new products out, being responsive to competitive changes as opposed to the way things have always been done. There’s also the ability to change a corporate focus, by bringing somebody new in, for example an interim CMO marking officer might focus on how to get a product positioned. And then after 6 months they might bring in another CMO who really focuses on going to market. So it’s no longer about positioning. There are other great benefits, for example compliance with publicly held companies. Changing out a W2 vice president is considered by the SEC is a material event and has to be disclosed. Where as interim manager is not.

Great, what size companies would you say typically use interim management?

Well since interim management is a mindset and paradigm change rather than a specific answer to a given problem. It’s useful by companies of all sizes. There are chapters in Leadership on Demand dedicated to the specific benefits in case studies for early stage companies. There’s another chapter which covers interim management in large establishment companies.

And what differentiates what you do for a company compared to a consulting company?

That’s a great question, in particular because one of my non-profit roles is as president of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Institution of management consultants. I am very well versed in consulting as well as in interim management. In general, consultants operate externally to the organization as much as they’re customers are within the organization and they go in to understand what the challenges are. At the end of the day they have no real authority to see that their recommendations are implemented. They don’t have hiring and firing authority. I really can’t tell you how many CEO’s I’ve spoken with over the past decade who have brought in consultants whom write a great report on the solution to a problem. Then I’ve seen someone turn away from their desk and pull out a great leather binder with a report on it and they tell me they had consultants come in and assess their problems, but nobody actually spearheaded the implementation of that solution or it was given over to employees to implement from an internal mindset. Einstein said, it was hard to solve problems from the same manner of thinking that they were created. So interim executives go inside the organization and have a reporting authority, the change happens because they drive it. And to be honest, if they stay too long after three, six, nine, twelve sometimes eighteen months they end up facing the risk of becoming part of the problem. They lose their objectivity.

What would you say are the biggest challenges companies face when trying to grow revenues?

This is a great way for me to use the classic consultant response which is: it depends. For large companies their revenue challenges tend to be centered around their own success and all of their momentum they have gained. The process of becoming a large company has created systems, that processes, procedures, customer channels and product lines. So if they see the opportunity it’s really like changing the direction of a battle ship. They are very slow to take advantage of new revenue opportunities. My experience personally is more in smaller-mid markets companies where the challenges are at the other end of spectrum and tend to be scale. So they just don’t have the talent to pull off big ideas or sometimes they don’t have enough mind share with dealers to be able to launch new programs. Or maybe they are trying to do so many different things with limited resources that a better outcome could be obtained by focusing on one major initiative and hitting a home run.

And how does interim management help companies grow the revenues?

Well you know every situation is different but in a prescriptive manner I would say that the president or CEO should ask those direct questions to the interim management candidate. Does this person knows what they are doing and will the interim management executive execute? Because that is the whole point of this. On that topic there is something I would caution against because it has happened to me numerous times and that is, don’t ask for a references until you’re ready to make a buying decision. As I’m with clients day after day, I think about it from their perspective. After you have a problem solved would you want a call on a weekly basis to discuss how something has gone. No you want to read a reference letter or a case study and only check in with them if you’re ready to buy. And you just need somebody who can serve as a human validation point.

How can companies that are interested in interim management find you?

They find me on the web or though a recommendation from one of my clients. Almost everywhere these days there is a lot of information known whether you’re buying a car or if your looking up a new appliance or your looking at a new resource for your company. There is a lot you can find out, for example my direct URL is www.meetpaul.us and you can read my bio and I have a blog that is full of the way I think about marketing. It also highlights success stories and also failures and other things which could have been done differently. That blog is at www.marketing-2020.com. And then we can have a conversation about what their specifics are. If I’m the right person, then I’ll structure or suggest a structure that we can go with to the next value of evaluation and if I’m not the right person then iIll bring in a partner of a another company where it would be a better fit for them. So I’m always looking for a way to win.

Paul what blogs and books are you reading at the moment in the marketing field?

I have to say that I have a lot of books on my bookshelf and I’m much more successful when reading things online than carrying books around with me. As I’m focused on bringing social media into the mainstream. I like to watch sites like www.mashable.com and I also like Seth Godin’s work and a lot of forward thinkers on twitter, like Guy Kawasaki.

Great! Thank you Paul for joining us today, how can companies find you or get in touch with you?

If they haven’t remembered the websites that I mentioned before like www.meetpaul.us and www.marketing-2020.com. The great thing these days is that every search engine that I know of of will find me if you type in my name, Paul Travis and marketing. I would be happy to chat with them to see if I’m the right person or where there’s a service organization that I can point them to. You always have to chat with somebody.

I help transform companies and sales process and methodology and help with sales metrics and profit and loss. I have over 25 years of experience building and managing consumer brands and products selling to all retail channels: department stores, mass merchants, clubs, specialty stores internet and broadcast media. As a OneAccord partner I can fill a position for an emerging or SMB company as interim VP of sales or I can come along side the leadership on a project to develop the sales and revenue generating growth of an organization. The value that OneAccord brings is that we have the experience having walked in the shoes of the client. We’ve held the executive leadership positions and are willing to come into your organization to not only strategize but execute the deliverables. We are scaled nationwide so we have the resources and expertise that is needed and can work collaboratively providing our clients with a wide range of revenue focused expertise. In addition OneAccord partners tell the truth about where a company is and where it needs to go.

Richard Brune is a interim sales and marketing VP for OneAccord with a strong track record managing some of America’s most recognizable consumer brands. Mr. Brune has an unbroken record of substantial sales and market share increases with such brands as Stanley Tools, Hartmann Luggage, REI Inc., Swiss Army Brands and licensed products with Eddie Bauer and Disney. Richard has a proven ability to develop new markets and expand existing ones. He is an effective leader with the ability to build highly productive and motivated sales teams. A bottom line executive with the ability to reduce operating expenses while continuing to enjoy growth and profitability.

Richard Brune can be contacted at richard.brune@oneaccordpartners.com

Objection: I have to hire someone after you leave which means we’ll be starting over from scratch.

Response: OneAccord provides a ‘front-end’ Revenue Review that is completed by 2 or 3 CEO-pedigreed Principals with proven revenue growth history. This work, coupled with their subsequent Rapid Revenue Plan will ensure the initiatives they implement produce results. And, OneAccord will not ‘leave’ an engagement until the transition to new, capable leadership is complete.

Scott Philips
Interim Management Executive, OneAccord
scott.philips@oneaccordpartners.com
(503) 913-2705

Objection: AS CEO I’m concerned about the impact of OA on our culture…

Response: OneAccord is there to deliver impact on transforming the revenue culture of a company for a finite period… typically 6 to 9 months. It’s important for the CEO and his management team to acknowledge that CHANGE is needed and to commit w OA leadership to defined roles to affect the necessary change.

Cultural change is always challenging. BUT the breakthrough is realizing there’s opportunity and seeing results.

The purpose of OneAccord’s principals is to help a company’s organization get through the change cycle of their business and transition the benefits of our experience, talent and skills to the company’s stakeholders. Our seasoning has brought us much hard earned wisdom in evaluating difficult changes and the effect on people’s lives in and out of the business. We strive to bring that perspective to the relationships and work we create with our client companies.

Peter Klinge
Interim Management Executive, OneAccord
peter.klinge@oneaccordpartners.com
801.755.6820

Objection: We could never have an interim overseeing our overall game plan, because they’d leave with our entire customer list!

Response: As mentioned in Leadership on Demand (www.Leadership-On-Demand.com) which I co-authored with Charles Besondy, interims are professionals, just like your accountant and your lawyer. Just as you’d not expect them to keep your confidence among competitors, good interims provide that same discretion. An interim CMO or CRO is working at the strategy and process level, not on any particular account. In fact, you incur greater risk any time you face disgruntled/outgoing account executives who not only take their (electronic) black book but also muddy the water with their comments to the rest of the staff!

Paul Travis
Interim Management Executive, OneAccord
Paul.Travis@oneaccordpartners.com
www.60-Second-Marketing.com
Tel:  206.910.2222 | Skype: PaulTravis

Objection: It costs too much.

Response: It’s true – our work this is not inexpensive. But because our work is interim meaning short–term and the fact that we are focused on lasting trans-formation at the top and bottom lines, the returns we provide through our mutual effort during and after the engagement far out way the investment over time.

The advantage to you is a low risk controlled change that registers as sustained profits in a number of levels;
1. Leadership excellence
2. Process improvement
3. Sustained growth
4. Revenue acceleration & profits

The real advantage is the long-term growth and profit your company will gain due to our short-term engagement.

Objection: We’ve tried consultants before.

Response: Our real difference is we not only assess and develop a plan, but come align side, roll up our sleeves and work with you until sustainable change is owned by the leadership and employees across the company.

The advantage of this for you is; we are able to walk away and you receive the full benefit of lasting change.

Because the organization is 100% involved with the change process (top down) it (the company) now has the ability, through modeling, to produce ongoing needed change while continuing to grow and drive profit

Objection: Our company is different.

Response: We draw on our 40 plus stable of tenured leadership and C-level principals. Our first goal is to match your culture and needs to those of our OneAccord principals. This ensures the very best experience, needed tools and cultural fit for your engagement.

The advantage to this means we mesh quickly to your culture and business needs which allows us to move to solutions much quicker.

The real benefit of this is of course savings of time and money – at the very front end – which is exactly why we make sure the culture, experience and engagement fit is spot on.

Objection: I don’t have the leadership in place to support this.

Response: We believe people are your most valuable resource. We are always surprised at the talent we find inside the individuals on staff. One of our best values is to help you identify and grow.

Allowing the right people to rise as leaders sends a clear message through the organization – new energy is released, new ideas are born and leadership transformation begins.

To have a united, focused and energized leadership team takes the pressure off you! You in many ways will be freed to do strategic, visionary and key guidance activities.

Objection: These kind of initiatives never last.

Response: Our overall transformation goal (or specific project goal) is to build and install processes which have identified owners who carry authority, responsibility and show the desire to maintain and even improve the processes over time.

Top-down / bottom-up Ownership is key to the success of all of our engagements. The advantage of sustained change is that you can now shift your attention as a key leader to future growth and profits and rely on “employee ownership” to sustain your processes.

Letting go of the daily tactical challenges fees you to tap and release the leadership value which is called for from your position.

Lasting change is about buying-in from top to bottom. Our processes provides buy-in from leaders to teams and individuals. – There is nothing more powerful than a volunteer army! Can you imagine the success we’d have if this was true in your company today?

Eric Fry
Interim Management Executive, OneAccord
eric.fry@oneaccordpartners.com

According to the book Leadership on Demand by Charles Besondy and Paul Travis:

“Large companies believe in having succession plans and management development programs. Typically, a manager will be identified as having potential ‘for upper management’ and that person is groomed and mentored for years. We all know companies who have policies of moving executives from department to department, country to country, in an effort to prepare them for a senior management role. The goal is that senior managers should be well-rounded individuals with broad knowledge of the business.”

While organizations definitely need executives with general knowledge in a lot of areas, organizations also need specialists to be effective. Bringing in an interim sales executive to address a particular issue that they have extensive knowledge and experience in can be an effective way to improve specific areas of your organization’s sales department. One place to find interim sales executives is at an interim executive company like OneAccord, which has 32 sales and marketing executives in 12 states, each with their unique set of skills and areas of expertise (view OneAccord Interim Executive profiles).

Photo by Keith Allison

We need to remember the current anxiety extends to our clients and their concerns about their company, staff and their own positions. We must help them justify their own roles by helping them stay relevant.

Key to this concept is learning more about solving our clients’ immediate problems. Discerning and analyzing those issues and how our product or service fits is critical. We need to be able to address client pain immediately and work to make him or her more effective.

With budgets drying up, the interim management’s role has now shifted. We are no longer here merely to help companies with cutting edge technology or driving future revenue by investing in multi-year projects with far-off return scenarios. If our customers are concerned about making their own quarterly numbers, they are less likely to be impressed with your product’s ability to automate their perfectly fine manual processes.

We can no longer “drop in, hand off and move on.” Rather we must remain in front of our customer, providing new ideas and unquestioned value.

Jonathan Gilliam is a interim marketing executive for OneAccord and is based in the Austin area. Jonathan has a deep background in business development, market analysis, opportunity development, relationship management and C-level sales. Mr. Gilliam welcomes questions at 512.775.7566 or Jonathan.Gilliam(at)OneAccordCorp.com. Jonathan also blogs at Business Developments.

Photo by artemfinland

Submit a Sales Question to be Answered by the OneAccord Interim Management Executives

Rich began his career with Lanier Business Products then later, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), tasked to develop and implement sales and marketing plans for several new ventures. During his tenure, Rich managed a staff of 35 sales consultants and achieved a 500% revenue and 27% net income growing revenues in their network integration business from $10 million to $54 million in three years. This business won and managed several complex, multi-million dollar projects with clients like GE, Honeywell and several colleges and institutions. He also was responsible for the implementation of a regional disaster recovery business serving the financial services industry and had several Fortune 500 corporations as clients. He consistently exceeded sales and profitability goals and was rewarded with numerous sale and sales management excellence awards. In the past 10 years, Rich helped start Pro Tech Communications, Inc., a niche market electronics start-up in Florida. As Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Rich developed and implemented a strategic sales and marketing plan creating several new vertical markets and brands for contact centers, consumer electronics and the fast-food industry. The firm opened and retained several direct and OEM relationships with: McDonald’s Corp, 3M, Panasonic Corporation, Tele-Performance and NASA. Later, as President/COO, Rich moved the company to being a public corporation and negotiated a merger with a technology holding company and in return received the exclusive license of ANR sound suppression technology. The company later adopted the NoiseBuster™ business traveler headset.

Rich has a degree in Economics from Boston College and is a member of BC’s technology council. He is a current member of the Association of Corporate Growth (ACG), Florida Venture Forum and a past member of TEC (now Vistage). He also serves several life science communities such as: MASSBIO, Florida Technology incubators and the University of Florida Office of Technology Transfer. He currently resides in Vero Beach Florida with his wife and children.

Rich can be contacted at Rich.Hennessey@OneAccordPartners.com

The most obvious reason to hire an interim executive is to fill a vacancy when an executive leaves until a permanent replacement can be hired. Quickly hiring an interim sales executive can reduce the negative impact in productivity often caused when an executive leaves a top position.

Save Money by Not Hiring a FTE

Your company may not need a full time sales executive for the entire year. An alternative is hiring an interim sales executive who has 20+ years of experience to establish a sales strategy for the year. You only pay him or her for a couple months while they lay out a strategy to take sales to the next level and then have a competent manager, who is less expensive, to maintain the strategy for the rest of the year.

Increase Bandwidth to Tackle Tough Challenges or Take Advantage of Opportunity

When facing extraordinary challenges or a tremendous opportunity, it can benefit an organization to bring on additional resources to temporarily increase bandwidth at the executive level. An interim sales executive can work in tandem with the full time sales executive to get things done at a key time for the company.

Get High Cost Executives for a Fraction of the Price

It can cost an organization a million dollars to hire an experienced and proven sales executive to lead your sales to grow to the next level. Factor in the headhunter commission, the signing bonus, competitive salary and benefits, and the costs can add up. The alternative is to hire an interim executive to do the same thing but without a lot of the expense. An interim sales executive who has a proven track record or growing a company by several multiples in revenue can be hired on to work a couple days a week and not require the bonuses, benefits, and finders fees.

Acquire Difficult to Find Executive Talent

An interim executive from a good interim executive firm often has 20+ years of experience at Fortune 500 companies. Often executives with this type of experience would be difficult to acquire for a small or midsized company. However interim executives with this level of experience are easily accessible, you just have to contact an interim executive firm like OneAccord.

Photo by Barun Patro

First there is the issue of who and then there is the issue of who not.

Presidents, CEO’s, COO’s, and even CFO’s of companies should consider an interim executive if they have:

• Stalled or unacceptable levels of revenue

• An “empty chair” in the CMO, VP Sales, or VP Business Development roles

• Competitors growing and/or taking market share

• Tectonic shifts in the market without a strategic response.

Leaders should not hire an interim executive if the organizational culture has demonstrated a propensity to worship a high-end consulting firm who will write a beautiful report to adorn your desk – because an interim is going to roll up his/her sleeves and make things happen.

Another time leaders should not hire interims is when the culture suggests there is so much defensiveness that failure is unavoidable. One COO we interviewed for our book, “Leadership on Demand”, put it this way, “If you’re an interim, your staff looks at you just like the child looks at the stepfather: ‘You’re not my daddy’.“

Seasoned interims, who have been on these battlefields before, are boldly direct with their questions – in order to sniff out organizational resistance in advance. It can save a lot of energy all around if the horse isn’t ready for a jockey.

Paul Travis is an interim marketing executive at OneAccord. Mr. Travis is based out of Seattle with 25 years of experience in high technology, marketing, and consulting. He can be reached at Paul.Travis(at)oneaccordpartners.com and at 206-910-2222.