Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
[now what?]
I AM SO pumped up!” So writes Darlene Miller, CEO of Permac Industries and one of three winners of this year?s Upsize Growth Challenge. She had just finished a morning workshop with experts assembled to advise her on meeting her company?s growth goals.
Miller has led the Burnsville precision machining company for 14 years, turning around a firm that was nearly in bankruptcy. As is always the case with our contest participants, she teaches as much as she learns to our business owner readers. (All three winners? stories are in this month?s Informer section.)
One of the most impressive lessons from Miller is the strong management team she?s built. She says she read about the Upsize Growth Challenge just before leaving on a trip. She tore out the ad, handed it to a staff member and said, “We have to take part in this.” A group of employees wrote the company?s winning entry, without review from her.
Now those same employees are into the process, which challenges companies to state and reach an ambitious growth goal, with help from people who advise companies for a living, and with an accountability boost from the wrap-up celebration event June 25.
?All the information I got today is spinning around in my head and I have already discussed it with our teams,? writes Miller, after the first workshop. ?We have already moved forward on a tip I received today. This is just the first as there is so much we are taking from today and will be implementing.?
Roden Iron Inc., the second of three winning companies, is just starting out, with a steel erector company that?s vastly different from President Kelly Roden?s former career in e-commerce.
It?s hard to imagine a more complicated business to start, for a newcomer. Spurred to launch what she calls a more meaningful business after a successful fight with cancer, she joined her former-ironworker husband to start Roden Iron last year.
Now she talks to the Upsize experts about purchasing equipment that costs thousands and thousands of dollars; buying insurance to cover her ironworkers erecting the steel beams high in the air; estimating jobs for the first time in an industry known for gifting and golfing to win the business.
She?s finding that people are willing to help, even in a cutthroat industry, such as the general contractor who told her she could ask for a monthly draw toward her firm?s eventual fee. That was just one of the things she didn?t know as she waited weeks and weeks and weeks to get paid on her company?s first job.
Her confidence is building. ?It's very exciting here at Roden Iron. Growth is challenging, but just taking each day one hour at a time is my key,? Roden writes.
?By the end of the day I usually have organized something better, learned a new process or industry term and made new contacts.? That sounds like a good day?s work, for her and any other business owner.
? Beth Ewen
Editor and co-founder
Upsize Minnesota
be***@*******ag.com
