The talk of the Inc. 500
This year's Inc. 500 conference--our 16th annual such event--was in many ways a lot like its predecessors. Close to 1,000 people, including the founders and CEOs of some of the country's leading growth companies, converged on Salt Lake City to hear speakers such as Charles Rivkin, president and chief operating officer of the Jim Henson Co.; Inc. columnist and Built to Last coauthor Jim Collins; and Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. They also came to participate in more than 45 breakout sessions and roundtables devoted to cutting-edge management practices. Capping off the conference was a black-tie ceremony at which we presented the newest members of the Inc. 500 with awards for making the list.
What always makes these events so electrifying is the buzz that comes from the attendees as they network with one another about every imaginable aspect of building a business. This year there was buzz all right, but it was less about building businesses than about selling them. Cashing out was the undisputed hot topic, thanks to the combination of extraordinarily high valuations and unusually intense pressures to sell in industries undergoing massive and rapid consolidation. The second-most-talked-about issue was (what else?) the labor shortage, but even that played into the dominant theme. Several attendees told us that finding good people had become so difficult that they'd finally thrown up their hands--and sold their companies.
Other outtakes from the 16th annual Inc. 500 Conference:
FLYING COACH WITH CLASS Michael May, CEO of Empower Trainers & Consultants Inc., talked about his company's practice of having everyone fly coach. Then, at the end of the year, the company figures out how much more it would have cost to have people fly first-class and donates that amount to a community charity.
CASHING OUT Marcia Plotkin said she'd never heard the term exit strategy before she and her husband, Steve, attended their first Inc. 500 conference, 10 years ago. They wound up selling their business, U.S. Connect Philadelphia (formerly Real World Systems), in 1996. "The first buyout offer came from Inacom," said Steve. "We looked at the numbers and said, 'Oh, my God.' Then came the offer from Ikon. We said, 'Oh, my GOD!' We spent the entire weekend walking around saying, 'Oh, my God!' "
HOW TO HIRE SALESPEOPLE Try asking sales candidates what they'd do if they were dealt two pairs in a hand of draw poker. The best salespeople, says Mark Roesner of American Fluid Technologies, will say they'd throw away one pair and go for three of a kind.
"As a regular exercise, ask people to name your company's purpose. The answers will shock you, shock you."
--Keynote speaker Stephen Covey, on the role of the mission statement within an organization
SO SORRY How tough is the competition for labor? Steve Singer of Direct Marketing Services pays recruiting bonuses to employees who bring new hires on board. Some employees have been known to blanket the cars in competitors' parking lots with help-wanted leaflets. "We have to call up and smooth things over" with the competitors, says Singer.
MANAGER-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB Neal Rabin of Miramar Systems wants all his employees to be able to think managerially, and he also wants to identify those with the potential to become good managers. So he has people work in teams, with team members rotating as project managers. He calls them "one-month managers."
"Open book. Open ears. Open mind. Open door. Open eyes. Everything at our company is open."
--Dusit "Dusty" Charern, President and CEO, Quality Research
THE SILENT TREATMENT Withholding feedback, observed consultant Charles Coonradt of the Game of Work Inc., is the most severe form of psychological punishment we can inflict on one another. People would rather get negative feedback than none at all. So why don't they just ask for it? They hate to admit they need it, or they're afraid of hearing the worst, or they think no news is good news. As for the people who should be giving the feedback, they're busy, or they hate confrontation, or they have nothing nice to say. Coonradt was asked how much feedback is appropriate. Only the recipient can answer that question, he replied, not the giver.
"Good job candidates are harder to get than money."
--Hiring guru Dr. Pierre Mornell, author of Hiring Smart!
PERSONAL R&D That's the term Eric Kriss, formerly of MediQual, used to describe the investment he makes in educating himself about technological changes in his industry. He said he devotes about a quarter of his time to personal R&D, which includes everything from reading the trade press to wandering aimlessly on the Web, "playing with a lot of software," as he puts it. "Like all R&D, it involves wasting time, because you never know whether it's going to pay off."
AND THEN IT HIT ME Curtis Jewell was a top insurance salesman for Nationwide Insurance during a period when the company was upgrading its computer systems. When he saw how much Nationwide was spending on consultants, he says, "I decided that's where I wanted to be." So he founded Excel Management Systems, a computer-systems-design company in Columbus, Ohio, which made it to the Inc. 500 in 1995 and 1997.
THE BUSINESS OF LIFE Keynote speaker Stephen Covey has his family draw up a mission statement, and session leader Norm Brodsky talked about creating a family five-year plan with his wife. Is it becoming a trend to use business mechanisms in personal life? Or is the practice peculiar to Inc. 500 presenters--like the close personal relationships with Peter Drucker and Nelson Mandela that so many of this year's speakers seemed to share?
