Business Headlines Archives

16 Jul 2018

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines, Start-ups Permalink

Papa John’s: Trying to Slice Schnatter out of the Brand

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On July 16, 2018

The last couple of weeks have not been good for John Schnatter and his Papa John’s pizza empire. After using a racial slur during a conference call with his media agency, losing his job, watching the removal of Papa John’s name at the University of Louisville’s Cardinal Stadium, imploding marketing relationships with a handful of NFL teams and talking trash about the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Schnatter was physically barred from Papa John’s Louisville headquarters.

I’ve left out a half dozen other things he and the brand have forfeited during this downward spiral but suffice to say, it’s been ugly.

It should be ugly and absolute and painful. What he said was atrocious and the follow-up missteps were pretty awful. This shows that even when your name (even a self-created nickname) is on the building, you’re not bigger than the brand.

There are some interesting things that happen when a company’s brand is built around a person. The accelerated humanizing of a brand when it uses an individual as it’s moniker is appealing and the business case for doing so is a proven model. We’ve recently watched several Jenner offspring create successful businesses based off their names and notoriety even if they personally had no expertise or unique value proposition to offer. The downside, of course, is losing the ability to create separation between the person and the brand.

When the person does some really dumb things, defrauds investors or shows they are just a terrible human being, the brand struggles to re-identify as a separate entity. What got them here was the person as the brand. When a founder becomes radioactive, the brand is identified with that as well.

Even when the founder is the implied brand of the company, the brand runs a significant risk that whole human being may have serious flaws.

For example, Apple was Steve Jobs. Most would say that brand/ persona fusion worked well; creating a religious-like consumer following. Steve was far from perfect. He spent decades disavowing his daughter and tormenting employees who didn’t get his way of doing things. Fortunately for him and Apple, he later recanted on both fronts and it certainly didn’t hurt that the products his company produced were extraordinarily good.

Likewise, Theranos was Elizabeth Holmes. Read any story written about Theranos from the early glory days through the post-meltdown autopsies and more than 90% of the article will be about Holmes the person. Partially that’s because the whole thing was a scam and there really wasn’t anything there. She garnered $9 billion in investment based on her persona. The technology was always promised as an output of her unmitigated will. She was Theranos.

These two examples are the physical incarnations of this founder-as-a-brand risk/reward consideration. Apple would never have been the Apple of today without Jobs. Theranos would never have raised $9 billion on a fraudulent business model if it wasn’t centered around Holmes.

Twenty years ago, a well-drafted PR statement, a public mea culpa from the offending founder and a sizeable donation to charities that specifically combat the kind of behavior they displayed would suffice to smooth things over.

People now are far less likely to let these indiscretions slide and hold founders responsible for their behavior. Consumers know purchasing power and their ability to mobilize like-mindedness are powerful tools to get companies to listen to their concerns and take actions to correct mistakes.

During the next three weeks, executives at Papa John’s will be deep in damage control mode. Drastic steps, including changing the name of the company will, at least, be discussed. The brand now shares the toxicity of the founder’s name.

Public-facing founders play a major role in developing a successful brand but no matter how big or successful a company may be, the consumer ultimately determines what the brand is worth.

09 Jul 2018

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines, Uncategorized Permalink

Ben Boycott Joins Redhawk

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On July 9, 2018

Redhawk Consulting, LLC is pleased to announce that Ben Boycott has joined Redhawk to lead the consulting practice’s non-profit, finance and due-diligence projects. Ben spent the last 4 years at Vapor Ministries where, during his tenure as President & COO, the ministry grew significantly in reach, effectiveness and financial efficiency.

Ben will add tactical finance, non-profit and due-diligence experience to the Redhawk team and its clients. “We are excited to have Ben on the team. Very few people can drive execution through an organization like Ben. His talents add functional depth to Redhawk’s consulting practice and we can’t wait to share those talents with our clients,” said Matt Hottle, Redhawk’s Founder.

The excitement is mutual according to Boycott, “I am thrilled to be working as a part of the highly capable team at Redhawk. They have established a reputation as a significant value-add resource for innovative entrepreneurs, and we are eager to continue to drive groundbreaking results for small businesses.”

Redhawk Consulting, LLC provide consulting, coaching and advisory services to small business owners, startups and emerging businesses. Having worked with more than 50 management teams over the last 4 years, Redhawk has become the authority for businesses looking to exceed their growth and success expectations. www.redhawkresults.com

01 Nov 2017

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines, Entrepreneurship Permalink

Amazon’s HQ2 RFP Provided the Roadmap for a More Competitive Birmingham

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On November 1, 2017

237 Disappointments

Amazon received 238 submissions from 238 different cities for its request for proposal (RFP) regarding its second headquarters, HQ2. In the wake of the 237 losers will be millions of dollars and tremendous amount of energy and resources spent trying to promote hundreds of cities that didn’t qualify for even the most basic RFP requirements.

Birmingham, AL is likely to be one of the 237 disappointed cities because, for the most part, we don’t meet the minimum qualifications to submit a competitive bid

But that didn’t stop us from launching a big and—presumably expensive—advertising campaign replete with huge temporary monuments shaped like Amazon shipping boxes, oversized Amazon Dash buttons and a dozen or more feel good news stories both paid and unpaid in an attempt to woo Jeff Bezos and his selection committee.

Someone is going to win some advertising awards and get some really great news clips to frame for their office walls. It was creative and well executed. Unfortunately, much like the ill-conceived and almost criminally executed bid to land the last DNC convention, #bringAtoB will likely net the same economic impact with a monster bill to pay for the effort.

Yes, I’m one of the jerks who pushed back on this from day one of the campaign and have been called a lot of names on social media. People have been pushing the false equivalent of Mercedes choosing to build their plant in Vance as justification for opening threadbare pockets and spending money we hardly have. However, I have been far from alone in questioning the allocation of this money, effort and time when our city has so many opportunities to improve.

Simply throwing stones at the #bringAtoB campaign is not helpful however. Here is how and where that money, time and energy could have been used to move toward a city and economic environment that would have made us much more competitive not only for the Amazon bid but also for attracting other new opportunities to the area.

Provide Forgivable Small Business Loans

99.7% of the companies in the US are classified as small businesses and those businesses employ 48% of the total workforce. Many of the largest companies in Birmingham are shrinking their head count as software and technology automation requires less human capital. Regions Bank laid off approximately 260 people last year alone. Bradley (formerly BABC) laid off 13% of its administrative staff during that same time period. US Steel laid off 1,100 workers at the end of 2015.

For the sake of argument, let’s say $200k was directly allocated to the promotion of #bringAtoB. That could have translated into 10 small business loans of $20k to vetted and qualified small business operators to expand or even start their business. The BBA, Big Communications, City of Birmingham and others involved in #bringAtoB could provide additional support or resources to those new opportunities using the same amount of time and effort spent creating and launching the Amazon campaign

That’s 10 new businesses, employers and tax paying entities created for the same amount of money and time. If you took the perspective as an investor, this would be like placing 10 bets with the same amount of money as you would have placed on a single bet with a lousy prospectus. Job growth in Birmingham continues to come from small businesses and entrepreneurs- not the same big industry companies we have relied on since the 1960s to create new jobs and better opportunities.

Limit the Economic Development Fragmentation

We have the BBA, Tech Birmingham, Rev Birmingham, EDPA, Innovation Depot, Innovate Birmingham, UAB, Rotary, City Hall, City Council, Jefferson County Commission and others working on separate and disparate economic development programs. All of those organizations are funded by private contributions, membership fees, sponsorships, tax dollars or grant money. Those funding sources are finite, but we have individual groups spending money on individual staffs, salaries, operational expenses, strategic planning sessions, events, professional service providers, committee meetings, promotional advertising, grant writers and more.

The cost of that duplication is massively wasteful. Further, without a cohesive approach between all those individual groups, we end up with competing priorities and mediocre performance. As one of my mentors used to say, “there are only so many nickels in the jar.” We need to be better stewards of how we spend our limited resources. That starts with collaborating on a macro scale and setting a longer-term vision.

Create a City-Wide Transportation Plan

One of the primary requirements of the Amazon RFP was a campus with direct access to mass transit. While Birmingham has several rail spurs that run along former industrial sites, we don’t have what most cities would consider efficient and accessible mass transit. Organizations have worked to fill gaps in that plan with efforts like the Zyp Bikeshare program, but a long-term, workable transportation strategy has largely eluded us. We haven’t managed to come up with a way to connect the city with the surrounding area- like the suburbs which would provide a large percentage of the human capital required for a corporate campus the size of Amazon’s HQ2. We need to spend the money to come up with a comprehensive and effective mass-transit strategy that drags us into the 21^st century.

Entrepreneurs should be Leading Entrepreneurial Efforts

By last count, there at least six local or regional organizations that exist to directly or indirectly promote the formation and growth of entrepreneurs and startups. None of those organizations are actually led by an entrepreneur. A few of them don’t have anyone on their executive staff that has been an entrepreneur or even worked for a small business or startup. There is no doubt those people can play a crucial role in the support and success of the emerging business ecosystem but we need actual entrepreneurs to be in those leadership roles. There is no amount of research or relative proximity that can replace the kinesthetic experience of being an entrepreneur or business owner.

Work Toward the Next Opportunity Now

We should be able to self-critique and have tough conversations about what we must change without the fear that doubt creates preventing us from being open to our opportunities. While celebration of incremental improvement is crucial, we must not accept shallow victories as the sum total of our achievements. We have a long way to go and we must be able to talk openly and honestly about those shortcomings and how we want to work to fix them.

As we stand in 2017, we aren’t qualified for Amazon’s HQ2. We can argue the semantics of the RFP’s wording to justify in our minds how we manage to qualify, or we can start looking inward and filling the gaps highlighted by Amazon. The RFP did provide us a potential roadmap to being far more competitive and attractive to companies like Amazon in the future. It will take a collective, long-term and disciplined effort to fill those gaps and we need to pursue that challenge with as much energy and resources as we spent on oversized Amazon shipping boxes and faux-Dash buttons.

Photo via Creative Commons user Anxo Cunningham

28 May 2016

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines With No Comments Permalink

How will each presidential candidate affect your bottom line?

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On May 28, 2016 With No Comments

Owning or running a small business is precarious in the best of circumstances. Like the “Butterfly Effect,” small gyrations by legislative and regulatory bodies can have a hurricane’s effect by the time it filters down to entrepreneurial businesses.

Just last week, the Department of Labor issued new rules regarding overtime pay for salaried employees that could help compensate exempt employees for extra hours worked. This, of course, seems exceedingly fair on paper and was squarely aimed at large companies that employ thousands of people in the salary range this regulation covers. Having them add several million to their payrolls hurts but is more annoying- like getting a papercut when reviewing a multi-national corporate P&L.

Having spoken to several small business owners over the last two weeks, their reaction is not encouraging. The immediate response was to start planning for more part-time employees, contractors or shipping work overseas. If the average small business sees wages increase 10% -15% across the board, that isn’t something many of them can digest between now and the first of the year. With one act, the DOL has put thousands of small businesses in jeopardy.

Couple this DOL legislation with the presidential race and three candidates with very different views on the economy and you have an incredibly uncertain environment for small businesses. Sanders, Clinton and Trump all have spoken directly about issues that affect businesses and their platforms are largely full of promises that speak to their base’s most fervent beliefs. So which candidate would be the best for small businesses?

Bernie Sanders

An admitted democratic socialist, Sanders fits the role of the working man’s candidate. A champion of raising taxes on the wealthiest 1% and increasing minimum wage more than 100%, Sanders has spoken to a segment of the voting public that has been underserved and underrepresented since the formation of our current political system. He has been relatively quiet on the issues of small businesses outside of the obligatory mention about how they are an integral part of the US economy.

Sanders has supported initiatives such as increasing the lending limits for SBA loans as well as the Small Business Jobs Act that created $30 billion in funds for smaller banks to loan.

Unfortunately for small businesses, Sanders’ minimum wage proposals, higher taxes on the wealthiest individuals and no concrete plan to pay for all of the other programs he has proposed will make it very difficult for businesses to scale. Running a successful business would be more expensive and less lucrative for the founders.

Donald Trump

Pinning Trump’s policy down is extremely difficult as his position seems to change hourly or depending on which cable news outlet is interviewing him. He has positioned himself as the only candidate who understands business, the economy and trade.

I’m extremely skeptical of his business acumen. He started his career as the president of his father’s firm which was worth about $200 million at the time. If that company had been liquidated and all of that cash rolled into the S&P 500, he would be worth roughly the same amount as he is now based on the last estimate of his wealth by Forbes- about $8.7 billion. Of course, Trump also claims his “brand” is worth in excess of $10 billion. I’m not sure how his brand has created jobs or stimulated the economy outside of his own bank accounts.

He has been sued excessively in his business career by partners, investors and employees. As of February of this last year, he has been party to at least 169 federal suits. He has filed bankruptcy 4 separate times and while a Chapter 11 restructuring can help a large business survive, it is usually not a viable option for small business owners.

Trump wants to significantly penalize foreign products through raising tariff rates- believing that will create more demand for American-made products. Unfortunately, the US is no longer the world’s manufacturing leader with labor rates 10-15 times higher than foreign countries. Many small businesses use strategic outsourcing to create advantages needed to compete with larger vertically-integrated companies. If their supply chain costs go up, they lose the ability to turn meaningful profits and self-fund their own growth.

Hillary Clinton

Clinton is probably the most mixed of the three candidates. While Trump can’t be pinned down to commit or even be consistent in his messaging, and Sanders is very pro-labor, Clinton seems to occupy a confusing middle ground.

Like Sanders, Clinton is pro-labor and pro-union. She has proposed a number of new regulations that would be imposed on businesses of all sizes. Pay transparency, fair scheduling, a rising minimum wage and employer-provided child care are all causes she has promoted vigorously. For the average small business owner, these regulations will certainly add direct operational costs as each business must expand its employee services and prove compliance.

Unlike Sanders, she has a long reputation of being Wall Street-friendly. A regular paid speaker for big Wall Street firms and the Clinton’s charitable foundations are direct beneficiaries of donations from those firms. She has talked about assessing “risk fees” to companies that are more likely to contribute to a potential financial crisis in the future and closing loopholes for hedge funds. She has not intimated she has any issues with Wall Street’s ability to generate capital itself and has not proposed putting any limitations on raising that capital.

There is no Truman Here

There were at least 8 presidents who owned and operated small businesses prior to being elected to the White House. Lincoln owned a general store and law practice. Harding bought a struggling newspaper. Harry S. Truman was a partner in a haberdashery. Many decades later, both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were successful business people before they became president.

Having the unique experience of being a small business owner or operator is not something that can be adequately imagined or synthesized. The only way to understand that is to actually do it.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any candidates currently running that have that background. Sure, Trump turned $200 million into $8 billion, but that seems like starting a marathon at mile 22 and only having to get to 26.2. Truthfully, none of these candidates can really commiserate with small business owners and hold any real credibility.

The Choice

Small business owners would need to choose between dealing with the increased regulations and legislation that Clinton and Sanders propose or the likely increase in supply chain costs with Trump. In many ways, it’s a coin flip between Sanders and Clinton as their policies are very similar. It’s probably simple enough to think of Sanders’s policies as a more extreme version of the Clinton platform.

Companies that would be better off with Clinton or Sanders:

Businesses with fewer than 25 people
- Most current federal regulations apply to companies a bit larger so the extra operational cost of future regulations will not likely apply to smaller companies.
- Minimum wage increases are going to hurt, but there may be equitable ways of mitigating that cost with some careful planning.
Operations that need access to small business loans or government-sponsored lending programs
Companies that use imported products or supplies to build products or support services
- This would also include operations that manufacture overseas and ship into the US

Companies that would be better off with Trump:

Large companies that need to find cost savings in their human resources
- Increases in minimum wage for companies with a large percentage of hourly employees could be difficult to absorb and would likely get pushed through to customers.
Vertically integrated companies that manufacture domestically and haven’t been able to compete on price with foreign competition
Companies that are trying to grow rapidly and have the ability to self-fund that growth

It’s important to recognize that all the candidates talk about doing things they really don’t have the constitutional authority to do. Most of the things they promise require some level of involvement from Congress, so this isn’t something they can magically create. I know many people will point to the number and frequency of President Obama’s executive orders as precedent for a future executive branch to make sweeping changes, but there are limitations to the President’s executive powers. The President does, however, expect their respective party to vote in support of their agendas. For that reason, it is very important to understand what each candidate would likely push and vote accordingly.

17 Sep 2015

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines, Entrepreneurship, Strategy With No Comments Permalink

Ever Been Punched in the Face?

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On September 17, 2015 With No Comments

I have only been in one real fight in my life and if YouTube had been around, I’m sure my scuffle would have received a critique similar to the famous Star Wars Kid video. I don’t remember much about my fight because everything kind of went blurry in the moment. I can only imagine there were a lot of flailing arms in an unflattering display of failed pugilism.

One thing I will always remember is getting punched square in the face. There is something so incredibly jarring and absolute about getting hit in the head. It was something I decided, in that split second, wasn’t for me.

Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Recently, that quote started to seem increasingly relevant to Redhawk and the work we were doing with clients.

Our firm works primarily with entrepreneurs and owner-operated companies. More specifically, we work with companies that are in some kind of transitional phase. This is represented both in periods of growth and recession. The realization of this transition happens when the current business structure or model can no longer operate as it has and continue to grow successfully.

Sometimes this happens slowly over time and creeps up on our clients. In some cases, this point of inflection is immediate, explosive and violent. A key supplier folds, an important employee quits or a major customer leaves and the business has been fundamentally changed overnight.

They got (figuratively) punched in the mouth.

This is where one of three things happen and is best captured in a quote my friend Ted Alling posted to LinkedIn recently:

“Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.” —Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel

Company leadership that is focused on surviving immediately concentrates their efforts on damage control and minimizing the impact as much as possible.

They offer significant discounts to win major customers back.
They publicly fire a key employee to signal the problem has been corrected.
They re-brand themselves in an attempt to create distance between their image and their failure.

In the aftermath of this business “assault,” we see if an organization will rise to the challenge and merely survive or come out of the crisis prepared to THRIVE. Great companies are not only ready for this kind of challenge but relish the opportunity it presents to push forward and get even better.

How well can you take a punch? Here is an abbreviated list of questions to consider:

How many customers do you have?
What is the average revenue per customer? Any customers who represent more than 20% of your annual revenue? What happens if they go away?
What redundancy do you have in your supply chain? Are you tied to a single source for any major production requirements?
Do you have a succession plan for key employees? What happens if they win the lottery and never come back to work? Are you prepared to deal with that?
Do you have clear organizational goals? Does everyone know what they are? Is progress toward those goals regularly shared with everyone?
Do have your business rules and operating procedures documented? Are they kept up to date and relevant?
What is your Current Ratio? Can you survive a downturn in your revenue?

This is a very basic list but if you find you are missing any of these, take the steps now to correct them.

Good companies are prepared to take a punch. The best companies are ready to make the puncher miss.

04 Aug 2015

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines, Finance, Funding, Start-ups With No Comments Permalink

Profit: The Inconvenient Metric for Start-up Businesses

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On August 4, 2015 With No Comments

Marc Andreessen recently tweeted a reminder that a company’s stock or valuation is based on future performance—not current performance. He is, of course, correct.

I have been following, with great interest, the ongoing debate about current Venture Capital, Private Equity and Start-up funding activity over the last 5 years and if it has created another bubble. The money guys will tell you it’s very different than in the 90’s where EBITDA, not profitability, was the accepted measure of a tech company’s performance, IPOs were the preferred method of raising significant capital and investment banks didn’t really understand the technology.

I would argue the institutional money guys still don’t really understand the technology. Currently, raising money through private equity is the preferred path for many tech companies where everyone wanted an IPO in the 90’s. I would argue it is the same cow by a different name.

After Uber disclosed an operating loss of $470 million, it received enough participation in its latest bond offering to signal a valuation of over $50 billion. That’s right… $50 billion valuation on a company that lost $470 million last year and doesn’t even explain how or why it lost it before new investment dollars fly in through a bond offering.

At some point, profitability must have a far greater stake in the measurement of a company’s viability. Scaling a company through self-funding is slow and incremental. It can be tedious and frustrating.

This emphasis on profitability isn’t happening because the private equity market is flush with cash—enabling and encouraging start-ups to embrace concepts like “run-rate, IRR and total addressable market” to justify their race to scale at the cost of profitability. This is the rub. Private investment wants to see growth—especially top-line revenue. Profitability is assumed to be coming at some point—even when there are no strong indicators this will actually happen.

Revenues still rule in financing rounds. If you show exponentially increased revenues from the previous round, your valuation usually goes up. What if, instead of top-line revenue, PE shops saw profitability increasing on the same revenue numbers from the previous round?

Unfortunately, it is reasonable to assume the valuation suffers even though the founders were actually running a better company.

So what should a start-up do?

Elliot Bohm, the CEO of Card Cash offers a very reasonable strategy is his Inc Article, “Why you shouldn’t always be looking for Venture Capital.”

He proposes the strategy they executed at Card Cash which was to take an initial round from a VC fund which adds brand credibility and allows you to build your business and then use traditional debt funding to grow.

This, of course, requires startups to get off the milk wagon of private equity and focus on building a business where profitability is part of the strategy. To use traditional debt like short-term loans, you have to prove you can actually service that debt. Banks are a for-profit business so they aren’t likely to loan material amounts of money to a business that can’t create net income.

Private equity models work and they can help a good company and concept become great through financial support. They can also enable less than responsible behavior as startups enjoy playing with other people’s money.

Truly durable companies are profitable companies. The longer start-ups focus on the value of an exit and how many rounds of financing they can execute, the less likely they are to see a profit. It would be almost revolutionary to see the prestige of “exits” be replaced by the elusive, but more impressive measurement—profitability.

12 May 2015

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines, Marketing & PR With No Comments Permalink

Deflated Leadership Around Deflated Footballs

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On May 12, 2015 With No Comments

Tom Brady and the New England Patriots were just served their punishment by the NFL for the organization’s participation around the deflation of footballs used in the AFC playoffs games last season. In journalistic shorthand, this has become known as “Deflategate.” Brady received a four game suspension, the team was docked $1 million and lost some draft picks.

There is plenty of teeth-gnashing by the devoted Patriots fans and detractors alike regarding the severity and impact of the punishments handed down by the league. But that isn’t what this article is about.

What has been most interesting to me is the lack of leadership we are seeing from Robert Kraft- the owner of the Patriots and the Patriots as an organization. For those non-NFL fans out there, it is important to note the Patriots have been one of the most successful teams in the modern NFL. Robert Kraft wielded tremendous influence and respect among other NFL owners and the Commissioner Roger Goodell. It is also worth noting the Patriots were caught cheating in 2003 as well (Spygate).

Unfortunately, Mr. Kraft and the Patriots have not shown the same kind of leadership during this latest controversy that previously allowed them to rise to the premier franchise position in the NFL and garner worldwide respect as a winning organization. Let me break down some of the leadership mistakes I have witnessed.

Take responsibility and own the issue

Robert Kraft has been resolute in his objection to almost everything the league did as part of Deflategate. He questioned the motives, he asked for an apology from the league, he argued the investigation results and methodology and even railed against the punishment handed down. Despite a mountain of circumstantial evidence that would be enough to bury any public company’s CEO, Kraft refuses to take responsibility for his organizations problem. Deflecting blame and accountability makes him look weak as a leader- ineffective at dealing with issues and problems the team is facing.

Be clear and be consistent

After stating the Patriots would accept the findings of the league and subsequent punishment, Kraft ferociously complained about the severity of the fines, suspensions and forfeited draft picks once the sanctions were announced. He is sending the message to his team that you should say the right things only when you get what you want (or think you will).

Maintain a unified voice

Don Yee is Tom Brady’s agent. He has gone on almost every major and minor news program to skewer the investigators, league offices and anyone else associated with the prosecutorial side of the controversy. Don Yee is not a member of the Patriots organization and instead of trying to reign him in, the Patriots seemed to turn a blind ear to him and allow him to act as a defacto attack dog. Yee comes off as petty and self-serving and that doesn’t help the Pats in the short or long run. Everyone speaking on your behalf become the collective reflection of your organization.

Censor yourself as needed

You can’t put toothpaste back in the tube. Similarly, once you impugn your employer (NFL), boss (NFL Commissioner) and co-workers (GMs and owners from other teams), whatever positive legacy you once enjoyed quickly disappears. Kraft was one of the most revered owners in the league and was widely seen as the model for all NFL owners- and for good reason. He is incredibly charitable, he influenced important regulation and rule changes for the NFL which helped its popularity soar and, most important to his fan base, his team wins consistently.

Building your reputation as a leader can take years and require tremendous effort. Destroying that reputation can take minutes.

It’s hard to envision an eventual outcome where the Patriots, Tom Brady and Robert Kraft can regain the same stature and respect they commanded before this latest controversy. It will be really intriguing to see, with the benefit of hindsight, how that diminished reputation was hurt more by their response to the allegations then the cheating itself.

12 Jan 2015

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines With No Comments Permalink

Who are you rooting for in 2015?

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On January 12, 2015 With No Comments

It is relatively safe to say we live in a routinely cynical business world where we spend much time relishing in a competitor’s missteps and trying to out maneuver colleagues for that next promotion. It is because of this competitive business environment that we often forget to consider those we are rooting for.

It is quite en vogue for January blogs and articles to recap the previous year or make bold predictions for the upcoming one. I want to challenge everyone to take some time to think about those individuals you are rooting for this year. To illustrate what I mean, let me share a partial list of my own.

I’m rooting for Ted Alling, Co-Founder of the Lamppost Group and all around great human being. Ted has spent the last few years funding, supporting and cheering on young startup companies with a specific investment commitment to Chattanooga’s burgeoning entrepreneur community. He represents the best in entrepreneurship and we should all celebrate more people like Ted.

I’m also rooting for Noha Kattan who is a Program Manager in Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Labor. Noha has been tasked with creating programs that improve the participation of Saudi women in academia and professional endeavors. Noha will be creating these programs from scratch and in a culture that has struggled for generations with the rights of women to pursue an education or professional careers. She will need to be bold and brave for herself and all of Saudi Arabia. I can assure you she is capable of both.

Brian Colligan is the Opinion Editor of the Daily Press in Newport News, VA. He has been outspoken in his support of equal marriage rights as legislation in that part of the country has become national news. For all the talk of the “New South,” few issues still carry such strong opposition and fear as equal rights for the LGBT community. In most regards, those feelings still represent the “Old South.” I’m rooting for Brian because we all, collectively, need him to continue to push issues that make us consider how we treat each other.

This is a partial list and I’m not intentionally excluding others- but now it’s your turn. Will you take the time to think about who you are rooting for in 2015? Will you go so far as to write down who those people are and why you are rooting for them? Lastly- will you tell them you are rooting for them?

Few things are more powerful than knowing someone is pulling for you simply because they appreciate who you are and what you are trying to accomplish. Selfishly speaking, maybe we can try to emulate those characteristics that drive us to pull for them.

So, who are you rooting for in 2015?

03 Dec 2014

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle Posted in Business Headlines With No Comments Permalink

Really Jeff Bezos?

Sticky Post By Matt Hottle On December 3, 2014 With No Comments

I found Jeff Bezos’s comments about the “billions of dollars” worth of failures he has been responsible for at Amazon rather cavalier. While I get his point that innovation is expensive and can be offset by a few real “hits,” Amazon is under increasing market pressure to turn a profit and is coming off an epic failure with the Fire Phone. I think I expected him to be a little more conciliatory. Here is the article from Business Insider: http://lnkd.in/eF3wFPj What do you think?