Latest / Earn Your Leisure / Cliff Notes: Keys to Turn a Failing Company Around

Transcript

Cliff Notes: Keys to Turn a Failing Company Around · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Earners. What's up.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: You ever walk into a small business and everything just
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: works like The checkout is fast, the receipts are digital,
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: tipping is a breeze, and you're out the door before
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square. We
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: feels seamless. Whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: at a pop up market, or even one of our
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: merch partners, Square makes it easy for them to take payments,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: manage inventory, and run their business with confidence, all from
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: one simple system. If you're a business owner or even
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: just thinking about launching something soon, Square is hands down
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: one of the best tools out there to help you start, run,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: and grow. It's not just about payments, it's about giving
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: you time back so you can focus on what matters
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: most Ready. To see how Square can transform your business,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: visit Square dot com backslash go backslash eyl to learn
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: more that Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: don't hesitate. Let's Square handle the back end so you
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: can keep pushing your vision forward. This episode is brought
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: to you by P and C Bank, a lot of
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: people think podcasts about work are boring, and sure, they
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: definitely can be, but understanding of professional's routine shows us
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: how they achieve their success little by little, day after day.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It's like banking with P and C Bank. It might
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: seem boring to save, plan and make calculated decisions with
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: your bank, but keeping your money boring is what helps
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: you live or more happily fulfilled life. P and C
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Bank Brilliantly Boring since eighteen sixty five. Brilliantly Boring since
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: eighteen sixty five is a service mark of the PNC
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Financial Service Group, Inc. P and C Bank National Association
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Member FDIC.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: At what point do you really like, hit your stride
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: and become like a superstar in the space. Do you think?
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah? What what became important to me was to try
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: to try to prove that that the good things that
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: were happening weren't environmental. That became that became important to me.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: So I kind of said, okay, Primireil was a good company,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: had momentum us based and I kind of found my
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: way there. So now at KDS, this company's not going well.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Premiere was going well when I arrived. This company's not
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: going well. Can I turn that company around? Okay? So
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: that was that situation. I want to find another situation
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that doesn't look like any either of these two, and
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I want to deliver in that situation because it's a
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: you know now, I've got free You know now, then
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I've got free successes different types of technology, different geographic markets,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: different types of end customers. And if I can do free,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: then that probably answers a question that it's not environmental.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: It's not that I find, you know, I just I'm
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: lucky in showing up in good places. So that that
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: became that became important to me, And I would say
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: after the third one, which was core Hr, which we
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: sold to ACCESS for two hundred and fifty million euros,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: after that one, I started to feel like I might
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I might know what I'm doing it. It was like
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: at that point I thought, mate, yeah, well.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: How did you turn Let's talk about the second company
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: right that you want to You became a CEO, you
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: turned it around, and you ended up selling it.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: We sold it to an American Express for one twenty five.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: So how did you turn it around? And what was
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: the process of actually selling the company to American Express.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: That company was a Paris headquartered SaaS business that had
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: ninety five percent of its customers in France, So the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: play there was geographic expansion. So we grew that company
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: in the UK, Germany and the US. So what I
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: learned at Motorola and Sales, Premieri and Sales and Oracle
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: in sales was pretty much the sharp end of how
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: we grew KDS. It was a sales play. I go
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: to my could play, So it's really kind of optimizing
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: sales and marketing in new new geographies, a little bit
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: of what I'd done at prim of Err And we
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: created a partnership with American Express where they were relying
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: on our technology for a white label arrangement to service
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: their customers and as a result of that, they were
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: kind of automating, you know, a big part of their business.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Meant they didn't need people to do a bunch of
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: stuff they were using the technology to do. So when
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: we knew we wanted to sell the company, we went
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to American Express and said, we have a partnership, this
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: is delivering a lot of value for you. You probably
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: should think about buying the company, And they kind of said,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: you know, partnership works, why would we buy the company.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: If you know, we can just pay you to white
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: label it. So then I went to MasterCard and said,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: we're delivering a service to American Express, you probably ought
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: to have the same service. We know you have some relationships,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: but they're not delivering for you in the same way
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: as we are for American Express. So we signed a
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: deal with MasterCard. It was a commercial dealer at the time.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: So then I started to negotiate an equity position for
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: them to invest in KDS. The talk track was, you know,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: if we'd suddenly changed strategy, you're going to be left vulnerable,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: so you should have you know, you should invest, you
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: should have a seat, you should have a say, And
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: it was supposed to be a twenty five percent. In
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the end it was like a five percent negotiation. But
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the threat of American Express is number one competitor taking
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: an equity position in a partner that they relied on
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: heavily in Europe brought them, brought them back to the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: table set. It's like creating a bit of competitive tension.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Even though American Express didn't understand that the investment was
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: actually going to be you know, it wasn't really material,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: just the threat of it brought them back to the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: table and then what followed was one of the most
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: entertaining negotiations of of my life with the then chairman
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: of one half of the American Express, which was their
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: travel management business. Negotiated the deal with that guy and
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: it was just insane. It included him having me removed
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: from his offices twice by security.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: What was such a big It was like Dame Deask situations.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking, like Champagne Bowser is coming in there, how
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: did you get in this office?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: And so it had to be removed? What it was
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: so funny? I was I was pretty I was pretty
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: young too, so I'm trying to remember what what basically
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: happened was. After the MasterCard thing, they called and said,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: actually we thought about it. You know, we need to
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: have a conversation about acquiring you. Okay, So we all
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: showed up, did the presentation. The company at the time
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: was turning over pay five million dollars. It wasn't for
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a million years, so it wasn't huge. So we do
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: this big presentation. He says, love the company, love what
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you do. I'm going to make you an offer. But
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: when I make you this offer, the only thing you
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: cannot do is negotiate the offer with me. It's a
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: room full of people. We are not going to negotiate
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the but you can ask any question you want to ask.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: And we'd had a great meeting up until this point.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So he, you know, he writes standard number on the paper,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: slides it across the table. I opened the paper and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: it says six million euros. Now the company's turning over
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: forty five million euros. As the offer just doesn't make
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: any sense. It's less than we're paying the developers to
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: develop the software that we're talking about the company acquiring.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: So I was so stunned when over, I was like, great,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: this doesn't make any sense, Like where did you get
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: six million from? So see, I told you the only
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: go shake the right that's it. And he picked up
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the phone and like just called somebody and security turned up.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: They said, mister Forldham, sorry, you got to go. And
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I was looking at him like in disbelief, is this really?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: And that was the first time. Then the second time
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: it happened, it was a long way further down the cycle.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: He calls me, he says, listen, I'm going to be
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: in London. I understand. We didn't see. I to I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: last time. Come up to the office. I'm going to
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: set this straight. So I said to my wife at
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the time, Oh, if he's calling me back, it's a
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: done deal. Like we don't, it's going to get done.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So I got to his office. It's just me and him.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: The office is huge in London, and I arrive and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: he's super friendly. How's your weekend? How's your family? You
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: like jay Z and Beyonce. I'm like yeah, I'm a
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: huge fan. He says, Oh, they've got the apartment above
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: mine in Manhattan or wherever, or Jersey. I'm going to
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: bring you over. You should meet them on my boat
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: next week. Like he's really laying it on. He says, anyway,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I realized I offended you last time. I've made you
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a new offer. So he gives me an offer. It's
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: twelve million euros this time, and we've already told him
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: that the clearing number is one hundred million euros, like
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you already he knows this. And I said to him, go, Greg,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: this is ridiculous, like how could you even imagine this
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: might be possible? And it just starts screaming. He just
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: starts screaming. You know, you're an idiot. You don't know
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: what good offer looks like. I can't believe told people
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: told me that you're smart, that you know what you're doing.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I can't believe you've been running this company. Who's let
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you run this company? An he calls security again, that's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: as we removed. And then months after that we get
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the deal done at one hundred and twenty five, but
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: it was was he still there?
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: He did the deal, So how did it go from
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: six to twelve to one hundred and twenty five. That's
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: not even close to each other.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Or two things happened. We started a conversation with booking
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: dot Com and they became aware of that. So again
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the competitive tension steeping the actually free things happened. Booking
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: dot Com happened. Their partner contract with US was coming
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: up for renewal, so I terminated the partner contract. So
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I said completely, we're walking away. Wouldn't say it's a bluff,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: but said, you know, we're not doing us. We're not. Yeah,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: we need to renegotiate the terms of disagreement because we
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: don't like them, and we're having other conversations which may
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: affect whether or not we can partner with you. Right.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: That was the next thing that happened. And then the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: third thing that happened is I called him and said,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I got a board meeting on Friday, and during that
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: board meeting, I'm going to be looking at free offers
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and if I accept one of those offers, I won't
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: be able to negotiate with you to potentially acquire the company.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: So if you want to make me an offer, you
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: have to do it by Friday at five o'clock. Okay, by,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: and I put the phone down. There was no time,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and I had no board meeting on Friday either, by
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the word right. So when I said that to him,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and then I was at home on Friday, I remember
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: playing I was playing Fifa with my son on Friday.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I completely forgot about this conversation. So I'm playing Fifa
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: with my son and I see, I see he's calling
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: my phone. I'm looking at phone. Why is he calling me?
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And then I remember that I played this move of
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: like you've got until Friday to buy a company. So
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: so as soon as I remembered, I'm like, don't answer
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the phone. So I just let the phone ring. So
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: he keeps ringing like he's banging the phone at this point,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: so I turned the TV down. I'm like, Greig, I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: just stepped out. And he said, and he says, you
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: need to not take any offers. I need to speak
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: to you. You need to step out of the meeting right now.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I said, look, Greg, if you want to make me offer,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: email it to me. I'm in the board meeting right now,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: contult phone. And then this like just happened for the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: next fifteen minutes. This kept happening, and then he sent us.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: He sent us an offer just on the one hundred,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and I said to him, you know, I told him
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I stepped out at the meeting and I said, Tom, look,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I really want to do this still with you. I'm
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: really going to try it and if this number quite
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: gets you there, but I'm going to like stop these
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: discussions so that we can progress this. You know, Let's
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: take two or three days, see where we can get
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it to. And yeah, we got it to, got to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: one twenty five. Brilliant.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: It's a brilliant.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christine Noman, the United States
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported, you will
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: never return. But if you register using our CBP home
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: border and families will be protected. Sponsored by the United
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: States Department of Homeland Security.