Jeff Sands

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My Friend is Surviving...

I met an old childhood friend at the NY Gift Show as I was walking the aisles.   Actually, I sought him out in order to say hello and to see how his business is doing.   He was probably average of executives at any of the shows this summer; optimistic on the outside and scared on the inside.   He took me through the stream of consciousness that has been playing in his head over the last year; “... More

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Stats from the Turnaround Management Assoc.

According to the TMA;  Only 20% of distressed businesses recover.    You can imagine what that means for the other 80%; they limp along a shadow of their former self or they disappear into another firm or into the bankruptcy process.    That high number goes to one thing – not acting soon enough.  A recent client of ours (outside the gift business) waved the white flag while the last few dollars... More

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Too Many Eggs

Everyone knows the axiom about the risk of having too much business with too few customers.   And most of us try to avoid it.   Even the few companies who are greatly imbalanced know this and have plans to fix it.  Most often, they never really fix this problem and it never really becomes an issue.  Recently I worked with a firm that had most of their business with one customer.  Well, that cu... More

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The Benefits of Bank Debt

This is a true story about three companies I’ve worked with; David’s, John’s and Jack’s.    David had bank debt while Jack and John each had investors.    Over the course of time each business stumbled and got into trouble.  John and Jack continued on their merry way.   They spent the first 6 months hoping sales would pick up, the second six months were spent making what felt like deep cuts and t... More

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New Product Disaster

I recently worked with a company (a great company) who hired a fancy-pants marketing guy and sold a huge big-box program.   Sounds good right?   Well they fumbled on the execution and got ALL the product back.   This killed their cashflow, clobbered their credibility with their bank and forced them into a turnaround.  Talk about Hero-to-Zero.  The turnaround was highly successful and 10 months l... More