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Bruce Fador of Fador Global – a Sales Focused Consultancy Has Added a Consortium of Partners to Address the Critical Needs of Small to Medium-
Bruce Fador
Founder/Managing Partner
Fador Global
Contact:
Bruce R. Fador
617 686-
Interview conducted by:
Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor
CEOCFO Magazine
Published – December 5, 2022
CEOCFO: Mr. Fador, what is Fador Global?
Mr. Fador: At its very core it is a way of tapping into my 25-
CEOCFO: Do you think all business consultancies should focused on sales ultimately?
Mr. Fador: Yes. The issue is that sometimes when things go sideways in a business, if the business has been around for a few years or even if it is an early-
The later stage is when things slow down, if the business is no longer growing at a pace that it should, it is getting outpaced by competitors, if they are for whatever reason they are simply stuck, then that has big implications on valuations. If somebody wants to exit and an investor wants an acquisition, that lack of growth has real negative implications. I have seen it first-
CEOCFO: When you are working with a company, what might you look at that less experienced people do not realize is important?
Mr. Fador: Having experience and having run various businesses, you see all kinds of stages. You develop these roadmaps. Experience helps guide you into understanding where to look. Knowing where to look is very important but I do not limit it to that. I guess the difference for me is I am looking for a business holistically. That is the reason I have created a consortium that most businesses will have a need for and having those as trusted and vetted resources is key. If it is a product issue then they need a new user interface or a new user experience or maybe it’s a new product roadmap. Businesses that have been around four, five or ten years sometimes need that product refresh. The CEO or people in the company do not always see that because you are in the woods, you are in the forest, and you are not seeing the bigger picture.
To be fair, I am an outside observer so I have experience and I approach this very differently from somebody from McKinsey or Bain or BCG, or one of the major consulting firms would. They are all very talented and smart and they employ a small army of researchers and charge a fortune to engage, and they will provide answers and a direction. For me, my approach on consultancy is experience based and that experience helps guide me into knowing where to look and also on implementing the ideas and opportunities we uncover.
CEOCFO: Would you give us an example?
Mr. Fador: A business has gone from solid growth to all-
My approach is I am not in your face on this. I come in to try to understand the issues and make the sales person feel that they are being understood from their perspective because their perspective is important. They need to feel like they have the tools and the backing of the company, they have to have that support. A specific example is this another client which is a data business and the CEO thought it would be good to have not just one but two sales meetings every day. These meetings were cutting into prime selling time but everyone but the CEO thought that those meetings were a “gotcha” session. You needed to come prepared and that is good; it is the way Elon Musk is now running Twitter, but everyone is on eggshells and thinking it is chaos. This was a very tangible example of a client that I worked with that wanted to sell his business but was struggling to sell it because sales had not grown. I did my program and my evaluation with him and he was able to sell the business after about six months. That was a good exit and a good outcome for him.
CEOCFO: What is the key in working with clients who are so close to their organization and approach that they resist suggestions?
Mr. Fador: Everyone understands and things they know their business best and to a large part that is true. They understand how it works day-
I have been a CEO of more than a few companies and if you are a good CEO you are selling. But selling does not always mean you are listening. Lots of CEO’s want to tell you the whole product story…its their baby and listening to your customer is critical. For me to understand the pain points is like being a good doctor; tell me about your life and how you have been feeling. Every one of those responses is indicative of something on here is where things are going fine and here is where there are some potential issues. I come back to active listening.
CEOCFO: Why is now the time for your new partners program?
Mr. Fador: First is scaling what I do as an individual is difficult. I have tried to add people but getting a company to write a check for a retainer isn’t easy even though I am good at what I do. And I find that companies need more than just what I do. I need to have other practice areas. I never anticipate competing with McKinsey or BCG, but I want to be able to provide what I would call walk-
My biggest partner is a UK based firm called CXY who does what I do but they do it from the customer perspective as opposed to the sales perspective. It was a natural fit for me to start to say, “This really is a way for all of us. We are all calling on similar types of customers and clients, so let’s bring this together and offer a broader solution as opposed to more of a singular solution. The other thing is having been a CEO, when you need help you have a small group of advisors and peers and a board and hopefully it is a good board but the typical person running a business, you are not going to go to their board with some of these detailed questions. It is more than just a referral into a new prospect versus hands on operating advice. Sometimes questions are pretty deep questions such as whether the product is good or not, or if we have the proper go-
CEOCFO: Do you do much outreach to potential customers or is much of your business through referrals?
Mr. Fador: Yes it is a referral based business. The first five to seven years of my practice when I stopped being CEO of my last company and started Fador Global, it was easy and people did find me. That said, things have changed. I have to be out there. I do a weekly video that I liken very much to a PSA (Public Service Announcement) where I talk about a subject. Sometimes it is about sales, sometimes a board of directors and it could be about raising capital. I have a lot of experience so there is no lack of content that I can talk about each week and I hope that it resonates and helps some people, and more important for me it is a marketing tool. I am out there with these videos and I put them up on LinkedIn, Tik Tok, YouTube and Instagram. They are an important way of having folks hear me directly in my voice and if my message resonates, they seek me out to connect and potentially engage.
I am always wondering if people are going to find me and I am amazed at the people who watch and it resonates on those other channels other than Linkedin. With 800 million plus people on Linkedin, for us as business people, that is by far the single biggest source of marketing but it is also very noisy and it is hard to get through. Some of these other channels is where people are also looking and you hit them in the channel that they happen to be watching. I do a lot of that; social media is important. I am not big on twittering. The venue is very quick, you are up and you are gone. You put a note out and if you do not have a big following, unless you are controversial or already have a big audience, it is tough to build an audience there. I am finding the other channels to be better for what I do but I have to be proactive.
The other thing back to the consortium, when one of my partners for example, UXInno or CXY, has a prospect or a customer that came to them with a product issue and then they say they are not sure about their sales process. The intent is for them then to say, “I work with Fador Global; he might be able to help you on your sales question so let me make an introduction.” That warm introduction is important and provides that trusted hand-
CEOCFO: How do you incorporate world issues into your approach at Fador Global?
Mr. Fador: You have to be a student of topical. If you are not topical in what I do, you are yesterday’s news. You need to have perspective and an opinion. I would suggest that things like COVID, recession, the war in the Ukraine. War affects oil prices and things are now quite uncertain and the financial markets do not like uncertainty. You see the Dow Jones numbers, the S&P, NASDAQ. All of these numbers go zipping up and down, and no one has the ability to ask what caused that. You have to have a macro-
You have to change the game; you cannot just wait for things to get better because that is not going to happen. We are all selling virtually. Everybody is Zooming all day long. Virtual meetings and virtual networking has all changed since we have gone through this and we are all a little different but that does not allow you to stop it. That is the ability to be smart about the world around you. It comes back to being topical and knowing what is happening in your industry is really important. You need to know what your competition is doing and if you are behind or ahead. Having that perspective sometimes from the outside is pretty important.
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