Articles &
Resources
Carol Frank has been a columnist for many pet industry publications over the years including APPA, Pet Business, Pet Age, and Pet Product News. This page contains many of the articles she has written in date order as well as articles from guest contributors.
Top 5 Things NOT To Do When Preparing Your Company For Sale
This morning a client I have been working with for several months to help him sell his company and I were on the phone with a potential buyer, when without warning my client dropped a huge bomb into the conversation. Basically he threw a fact out that significantly reduced the profitability of his...
Six Pearls of Sales Wisdom from Guru Jack Daly
If the idea of sitting through an 8-hour sales seminar sounds painful, you haven’t attended one of Jack Daly’s “Smart Selling” seminars. Jack is truly one of the most memorable individuals I have ever come in contact with. At an age when most people are thinking of retirement, (65) Jack is not...
Personal Energy Management 101
“I just need a 28 hour day, then I’ll be able to get all my work done.” We’ve all uttered those words during our careers, especially during times when there’s more work to do then there’s time to do it. That’s probably just about everyday for us busy pet industry entrepreneurs. While we all...
The Future of the Pet Industry: Profiting from our Changing Demographic Trends
On June 27th, I’m excited to moderate THE FUTURE OF THE PET INDUSTRY: PROFITING FROM OUR CHANGING DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS. Our presenter will be Michael Johnson, Vice President of Marketing & Information at Chuck Latham Associates. Michael specializes in CPG / FMCG Marketing, Analysis &...
The Happiness Advantage
“Poor people have big T.V’s. Rich people have big libraries.” Dan Kennedy While this quote may come across as a bit harsh, the main message resonates with me. Reading is critical to both personal and professional growth and without a doubt, the most successful people I know read multiple...
2013 Pet Industry Valuation and Deal Activity
The first four months of 2013 saw increased transaction activity in the pet industry, resulting in 10 announced transactions: 8 M&A deals and 2 private placements. Pet Transactions are on pace to exceed the total of 29 announced transactions in 2012. The pet industry continues to experience...
Article Categories
Setting SMART Goals for 2012…and beyond
Doesn’t it seem like everywhere you turn, people are talking about creating strategic plans and goal setting for 2012? Yep, it’s that time of year. I can’t say this enough times – without a plan in place that sets the direction of where you want your company to go, it’ll be virtually impossible to reach your destination. Like driving across country without a road map. You may get there, but...
What Can I Learn from Steve Jobs?
Having recently finished the excellent biography on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, the hundreds of business lessons learned from this brilliant icon would be enough for 10 columns. But today I will focus one of the absolute hardest aspects of running a business – finding the right team. Steve insisted on surrounding himself by A players. If you weren’t an A player, you wouldn’t last very long...
Grass Roots Marketing: Building Your Brand without Breaking the Bank
Last column summarized some of the most important BRANDING pearls of wisdom gleaned from Doug Gleason and my webcast on Grass Roots Marketing and Brand Building. Today’s column covers the basics of GRASS ROOTS MARKETING. Since the pet industry is full of small businesses with small budgets, it’s important to know that you can build your brand on a shoestring budget. It’s called a Grass Roots...
Creating and Building your Brand without Breaking the Bank
The value of a branded product is more important then ever in this crowded pet product space. Recently, I was privileged to moderate a webcast for APPA titled Grass Roots Brand Building with Doug Gleason. Doug is the founder of True Blue Pet products and a former branding expert with Disney, Pepsi, and Nestle. In other words, he sure knows his stuff! I got so much value from working with Doug...
Top 5 Things Entrepreneurs and Business Owners Should Never Do
It’s a Slippery Business World! In business, even highly successful entrepreneurs make mistakes. Smart business owners are able to learn from their mistakes. Really smart business owners learn how to profit from the mistakes of others. You can learn from them too. The trouble is, though, that many people are tight-lipped about their failures. Recently, I was able to talk twenty-nine highly...
Access to Capital: Where to Find Money to Grow your Business
As an investment banker specializing in the pet industry, I get a minimum of one contact a week from entrepreneurs (over ½ are female) seeking money to grow their business. It’s the good news and the bad news. It’s good news because it means there are lots of us out there who are continuing to innovate and need cash to take their business to the next level. It’s bad news because if you are an...
The Management Action Process A Plan to Make 2012 your best year EVER!
SMART goals. “Taking my business to the next level.” Strategic Planning. “Working IN the business instead of ON the business." You’ve heard these buzz words and phrases bantered about over the years. While they are important words that merit a lot of attention, often times they cause us to feel guilty because we aren’t putting enough time, thought, and energy into making these things happen. ...
How to Manage People, and Enjoy it!
by Pam Boyd It’s a dream come true for pet-lovers to work in the industry we love. Unfortunately, in spite of the passion we have for pets, many pet-based businesses bottom out or fail due to an inability of the owner to master or enjoy the management piece of their enterprises. I hear these complaints continuously in my consulting practice: “My work would be great if I didn’t have to manage...
The Plague of the Virtual Employee
Over the last year I’ve been consulting with a company whose founders are spread throughout the country – one on the west coast, one in Colorado, one in Texas. With a phone and internet connection, what could be the problem? As I’ve discovered, - plenty. When people aren’t face-to-face on a regular basis, the quality of the relationship erodes and the productivity of the work declines. There...
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