When To Hire A President To Run Things

Want to bring in a President to run your company day-to-day? Here’s how to get it right.

Jim Brown had been running TerrAlign, a software company that helps clients optimize their sales territories,  for more than two decades when he decided to promote Ken Kramer to run things as the company’s President.

Kramer was so good at leading the business that Brown ultimately asked him to manage the process of selling it. TerrAlign was subsequently acquired by MapAnything in December 2018. Then in April 2019, MapAnything was itself acquired by Salesforce.com.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Where to find your second-in-command (Hint: they might already work for you)
• How to structure a compensation plan that aligns your President to your goals
• How to protect yourself when your acquirer gets acquired
• Ways to ensure your business will run successfully without you
• How to build a company that acquirers want to buy
• How Kramer was compensated to get to the finish line of the acquisition

After 30 years, TerrAlign’s owner was ready to step back from the day-to-day administration of his company. Managing this transition successfully is not only life-changing for an owner, it’s also one of the Eight Key Drivers of Company Value acquirers look for in a company. Escaping this ‘Owner’s Trap’ is Module 7 of The Value Builder System™. Get started for free right now by completing Module 1.

Check out our article on 3 Ways To Protect Your Downside In An Acquisition.

Check out our full M&A Glossary

About Our Guest

Ken Kramer joined MapAnything, through the acquisition of TerrAlign, in 2018 as SVP Product Strategy & Enablement, and was later promoted to CMO. Prior to MapAnything, Kramer was the President of TerrAlign and held senior management and director level positions at leading enterprise software vendors in the CRM, Sales Performance Management, ETL, and GIS markets for vendors such as Siebel Systems, Ascential Software and MapInfo, each prior to their respective acquisitions.