Larry Weiss, CEO Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office
In a recent ENX interview, Larry Weiss, CEO of Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office, talked about the positive effect of forming an executive management team. His business had grown and diversified, and he knew that the company needed a different way to map out strategies for future growth. “We wanted to look at revenue targets, what markets should we be in that we’re not, and what programs we should design and implement so we can sell deeper and wider into the accounts,” he said.
Weiss bought the company out of bankruptcy in 1982, and grew it from $600,000 in revenue to more than $110 million today. It’s not always easy for someone like Weiss who built a successful business from scratch to cede much of the strategic planning, but complexity and risk increase as a company grows. At some point you need to put more brainpower behind planning.
There are no hard and fast rules for when to establish an executive management team, but you might want to consider it if you experience the following:
- You’re too focused on the day-to-day issues to adequately plan future growth. Your bandwidth has limits, and it’s a huge red flag when all your time is spent keeping the business running. This can lead to your growth being more opportunistic rather than planned. An executive management team gives you the bandwidth to look ahead.
- The company is becoming more diversified, but you sense each group is working in silos rather than together. This is a common problem. You give your best people responsibility for new offerings, and of course they focus on their pieces to the exclusion of the rest of the business. Putting them on a management team forces them to look at the business as a whole.
- Your top managers seem ready and willing to take bigger roles. Giving your best people a bigger say in the future of the company is a strong perk. It boosts engagement and morale.
- Visibility into your current markets and likely future expansion markets is low. Seeing trends and opportunity requires research and multiple perspectives. Having a team gather and analyze information improves your ability to predict the future and act on opportunities.
- You have the resources to make investments in the business, but want to make sure you get them most out of them. This is the best reason to create an executive management team. Multiple voices and points of view provides for a better vetting process for opportunities.
Weiss chose not to be a member of his executive management team. This gave the team a sense of empowerment, that they truly owned the mission given to them. The team meets on a quarterly basis and then reports its activities to Weiss.
One of the biggest successes of the Atlantic Tomorrow’s Office executive management team was the development of a total account penetration plan. They created benchmarks to identify which copier customers fit the model for selling other services. This resulted in more efficient and effective use of sales resources, which in turn increased sales to the company’s existing customer base.
