Let’s Get Engaged Rochester!

It’s common knowledge that many publicly held companies are currently hoarding their cash or other liquid assets. If they are investing capital it is to acquire companies or invest in infrastructure that eliminates jobs, not to create them.

On the other hand, if we are to believe the data, it seems clear that new job creation is going to come primarily from small medium size businesses. This matches my own personal experience and understanding that, if a small business owner were to grow the value of their business, the chances are very good that they would both reinvest and hire new employees. If true, then might there be value in creating a community wide index that measures the value growth of small medium size business (SMB).

Putting that aside for the moment and by way of background, I have become familiar with a tool that could provide the data for just such an index. About 10 years ago I was introduced to Core Value software. In a nutshell the software was designed through the answering of a series of interactive questions to provide a Valuation for the company, the gap between the current value and what the value might be, and analysis of the primary drivers of value.

Core Value was designed to be used on a go-forward basis by the company’s leadership, to close the gap between existing value and potential value. Core Value’s algorithms are based on literally the sale of thousands of companies over the last 15 years. The research comes from a joint venture with Harvard, MIT, and Babson College in a joint venture.

I had 12 of my CEO group members, who incidentally, had already established valuations through appraisal firms, utilize the Core Value assessment. In every case, the assessment was within 5% of the evaluation established by reputable appraisal firms.

So, I went to the leadership of Core Value to see if we could create a free version of the software that would also have a high probability of correlation. The correlation would relate both to the valuation and the key drivers for closing the valuation gap. Core Value has done just that. They have created a program that we are describing as “Engage”. The “Engage” assessment provides the valuation gap, and the five primary drivers of value, for the individual companies that take it.

The assessment takes about 15 minutes for the CEO of a company to complete. Our mission at WCEOHQ, is to have enough companies take the “ Engage” assessment to provide the foundation for a community wide value growth index. Besides creating a community index or target for value growth we are also able to identify the kind of best practices, matching programs to assist companies where most needed. Additionally, we will be able to reevaluate the companies and the index to illustrate the actual impact of value growth on both jobs and reinvestment.

So, what’s next? We’re calling all small to medium size businesses in the greater Rochester area to "Get Engaged!"

You can get Engaged simply by clicking today!

Let’s get Engaged Rochester 

My best,

 

 

Bruce Peters