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Thinking about your Management Team

Who have you hired to do the job? In a way, you are providing a mini-interview with your management team members to assure an investor, banker, or corporate manager that you have lined up the right people to make your project go. This section is one of the most crucial. The only thing that will ensure success is the day-to-day activity of intelligent people in the driver's seat. Nothing else is as important.

Excerpted from Business Black Belt by Burke Franklin

I recently was a judge for the San Diego State University business plan competition where 20 schools sent teams to pitch their business concepts. As I listened to their presentations and reviewed their plans, I was amazed at how these almost-college-graduates expected us to believe that they had the management experience and skill to run the operations, marketing and finance of their companies.

It would have given them tremendous credibility if, instead of trying to convince us that they had enough experience, they outlined their intentions for hiring experienced managers to run key areas of their businesses.

Although this was a college exercise, they were promoting real businesses. Put yourself in an investor's or banker's position, would you give $50,000 to $5,000,000 to people who try to convince you of their experience, or people who demonstrated the sense to hire competent managers?

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