Category: Business

Bean Counters vs Breadwinners


I hope my fellow CFOs and Controllers don't mind my calling us "bean counters."  After all, I am one of them and, hence, it's Ok.  It's like with all derogatory terminology – if you belong to the group, you are allowed to use it.  And if that name-calling has upset you, beware – this is just a beginning.

The truth is, many of my peers are just that – the bean counters limited to their narrowly defined tasks, thus contributing to the frequently observed conflict between finance and accounting on one side and the revenue generators on the other.  Both sides have to tolerate each other, but it is a precarious armistice. 

CFOs and Controllers think that sales and operational people don't work too hard, while getting high performance-based compensation.  They are loud and overconfident, while not necessarily well educated and intellectual.  They are never in the office, taking long lunches with customers and prospects.  When they are in the office, they are on the phone most of the time.  They take paid trips to foreign lands and get car allowances for their domestic travels.  They jeopardize the company's well-being with their grandiose "strategic" deals that end up losing money.  Most importantly, they wouldn't be able to do anything without our funding their transactions, controlling their profits, calculating their commissions and reporting their results.

On the other hand,  VP of Sales and COOs think that they are the moving gears of the company.  They despise the bean counters for stifling their "important" deals with "useless" profitability criteria, for knowing how much money they make and for suspecting that there is nothing behind the confident appearance – just the rolodex and lots of air.  Most importantly, they feel that their unique ability to bring business is not respected enough.  Money is not everything, you know.      

The fact is, however, that a sales (or procurement, or operations, or trading,) ace does possess a truly unique ability to generate revenue with skills that frequently have nothing to do with education, professionalism, or intellectual expertise.  There is a reason you don't need a college degree to obtain trading, brokerage, insurance, or real estate licenses.  You definitely don't need an MBA to become a VP of Sales.  These jobs require intuitive abilities and social skills of a very special sort.  Trust me, not too many people are born with those talents.   The real great ones are quite rare. 

It must be said that I am one of the few CFOs who always support the people responsible for bringing business to the company, even if they don't like me.   Many of my colleagues forget that all our functions are secondary and subservient.  Everything that we do either facilitates the breadwinners' success (and failure) or reports it.  That's all. 

Without them I wouldn't have my job.   They are the ones responsible for generating enough dough to cover my salary, benefits and bonuses.  And if I could do what they can, I would have. 


No Tip Reciept: The Legal Obligations of a Waitress


5510tA couple of weeks ago (I apologize for the delayed reaction) AOL Jobs featured a Claire Gordon's article about Victoria Liss, a waitress/bartender (the author called her both), who posted a copy of a customer's receipt on her Facebook page together with a photo of some guy who just happened to be the customer's double namesake.  She's done this in retaliation for a zero-tip and a note the customer wrote at the bottom, which basically amounted to a personal attack on her appearance.

The article has generated over 3500 comments.  If you scroll through them, you'll notice that most fall into two groups.  Those written by people, whose income at some point in their lives depended on tipping generosity, express compassion and support for Ms. Liss's being hurt by the "horrible" treatment; many share their own experiences of customers' "unfairness."  Others emanate the collective contempt towards the "obnoxious" expectations of tips by service industry professionals (especially in food and drink establishments), regardless of the quality of their work.  Many state that tips are essentially performance bonuses – a valid point I strongly uphold.

What surprises and worries me is that only a handful of commentators address the most important issue of the story – the illegality and immorality of Ms. Liss's act of publicizing the receipt to the whole world.  You see, it wasn't hers to use as she pleases.  A credit card receipt is a financial and legal instrument that binds together at least four entities: a credit card holder (customer), a credit card acceptor (merchant, in this case the restaurant as a legal entity and its owners), a credit card issuer (bank), and a payment clearance party (merchant service provider).  Do you see a waitress anywhere on this list?  With respect to the receipt, the server has a fiduciary duty to her employer to pass it to accounting.  That's it.  She was not supposed to copy it, take it out of her place of employment, or use it any other way.  Ms. Liss's actions violated the customer's personal rights to privacy and broke the fiduciary trust of her employer.   In addition, all those financial parties to the transaction are bound by the federal law to protect the credit card holders' privacy.   Ms. Liss exposed all of them to a possibility of civil legal actions and regulation censures.

Technically, every single party injured by Ms. Liss have rights to go after her: the customer, the poor innocent guy whose picture she posted, the employer, the merchant service provider, and the bank that issued the credit card.  At the very least, she should be fired.  And if I was in charge of Facebook's policy-making, I would close her account as well.  This has nothing to do with the freedom of speech – this is aiding in an illegal activity.             

Legal issues aside, what's up with the fact that she couldn't even remember the customer's face and got the wrong guy's picture?  Why nobody questions that?  

And I cannot help myself wondering about the other side of the story.  What prompted the customer to be so extreme?  Just your basic assholiness?  I doubt that.  Leaving no tip is one thing, but the text of the note may signify a reactive response to something that transpired beforehand.  Ms. Liss admits herself that her suggestion of fats multiplied by carbs was not welcomed by the guests.  What happened after that?  Did she walk away, mattering snide remarks about anorexia and bulimia?  You know, in that quite audible whisper, mastered so well by disgruntled service workers – the waitresses, the bartenders, the bank tellers, the park attendants, and so on, who hate their jobs and resent their customers.  At one point or another we all have been exposed to their passive-aggressive harassment.  Trust me, it can unbalance even the most stable of customers.     

Marc Cenedella Freaks Out: “Privacy is for old people says LinkedIn founder”


Linkedin_2-300x206Marc Cenedella is upset! He is so upset he is lashing out at something Reid Hoffman said nearly a year ago at World Economic Forum in December 2010 (the Ladders' researchers must have been working on digging something up on him for months):

Privacy for Old People Says LinkedIn Founder

And I understand – LinkedIn went public and made X amount of millions in cash for Mr. Hoffman (I hope my readers understand that, like the rest of the public-stocks billionaires, he cannot really turn the $1.6 billion of his shares into liquid assets overnight). Mr. Cenedella, who started The Ladders barely two months after LinkedIn was launched in 2003, had wet dreams about being exactly in Mr. Hoffman's position by now.

I have no fucking clue why would he be dreaming those dreams. It's not that he created anything original. There were already other job boards with premium memberships and listing fees before The Ladders. The only differential he had was the $100K+ executive appeal (which, as you know, they just dropped – see my September 24th post). Did he think that those minute bells and whistles would be sufficient to build his value as an attractive investee?

You didn't really think that Marc was upset about your personal privacy, did you? Well, he did at some point – he was a man of ideals. When he started his company he did the right thing – he declared in the Terms & Conditions that he will not share, sell, etc. members' information. And indeed, I don't know anybody who gets spammed because of their usage of The Ladders. It's the other job boards that got their emails too: Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs, etc.

But big bucks are big bucks – they manage to bend out of shape the purest of idealists. And now, when Marc is alone in his office or his kitchen writing his blog, he is jealous, devastated, and desperate to kick himself in the nuts for not doing what all other amoral Internet moguls do, namely selling every single shred of your privacy in exchange for a golden bonanza Hoffman experienced on May 19th this year, when LinkedIn's IPO closed at the double of the entering price. (By the way, now it's at four times of the initial offer.)

So, he is upset and the post linked above is his way of letting the buildup of negativity out. Well, Mr. Cenedella's motivations aside, Hoffman's remarks in Davos are wrong on so many levels, it would take me several more posts to break it all down( don't worry, I am not going to). This is exactly what I would expect from someone who "made it" in the way Mr. Hoffman did, though. What's the implication here? Even if you are 18, but is concerned with your constitutional rights for privacy, you are "old" and square? And if you want to be perceived as young and hip, you should disregard all privacy concerns?

Statements like that don't upset me because they are "politically incorrect," as Marc Cenedella claims – I don't care about that shit! They upset me because they are politically dangerous and stupid. How intellectually limited one should be to mix up the teenagers' exhibitionism with privacy issues? Are you that confused? You don't see the difference between people, on their own accord, making decisions to disclose information about themselves and your selling their connectivity and interests profiles to third-party predators for an enormous gain? This proves once again that nowadays success, even in business, has nothing to do with intellect.

Job Search: Altogether Now! Say, “Bye-Bye, Ladders!”


Marc_thumb As some smart people predicted, TheLadders are not for $100K+ job seekers anymore.  In his newsletter last Monday (presented in its entirety at the bottom), Marc Cenedella announced that now his job board "takes all salary levels" (for shame, Marc – subpar writing!)  Well, he definitely can say, "Bye-bye" to many premium members who are paying annual fees on the premise that they belong to an "exclusive club" of six-figure-salaried people (Dear reader, I agree, it's absolutely pathetic, but people are people). 

But I am more interested in the speculative assertions we can deduce from this:

  1. Marc Cendella thought that some investor would come along and he would be bought out by now and retire in the…, where he wanted to retire.  I understand very well the whole thing with the book's publication, etc.  There is no fame or fortune in writing the books (trust me on this one, I should know), because nobody buys or reads them.  You invest your precious time into writing endeavor for other reasons.  In his case – self-marketing.
  2. The job market is so bad that there are not enough 100K+ postings to cover their expenses.
  3. He needs more revenue both to boost the dwindling cash flow, and attract investors.  For that he needs contracts with large employers and recruiting agencies, who don't have too many six-figure positions anymore either.  So, the only way they will deal with him is if he opens the doors to all salary levels.
  4. Now, even the premium members will start receiving laundry lists with salaries all over the place – it's not like there are no $40K a year controller positions out there.  Who wants to pay for that kind of service?
  5. I am not an oracle: it's possible that Cendella is a lucky person and it will all work out his way, but it's my opinion that the near-future probability of TheLadders saying bye-bye altogether is very high.

"Bye-bye!

September 19, 2011

We're expanding, and today we say "bye-bye" to helping only those over $100,000 and "hello" to helping all career-minded professionals. TheLadders now takes all salary levels and shows the right jobs to the right person. So while we're saying goodbye to our narrower segmentation, we are not saying "goodbye" to keeping your job search on TheLadders relevant, focused, and targeted.

So, for example, you won't see jobs that pay half (or double) what you're currently making. You won't see jobs outside of your field — we still won't show sales jobs to finance professionals, or marketing jobs to technologists. And we won't be letting in scammy jobs, work-from-home schemes, or commission-only opportunities — we'll still be vetting every job and every recruiter before we allow them into our community.

So what's the big change for you? Should be not too much… on the surface.

You'll still be seeing great $100K+ jobs, and the recruiters who post them.

Behind the scenes, though, by making it easier for companies and recruiters to fill all of their professional jobs at TheLadders, you'll find that we're getting more, and an even wider variety of, jobs at the right level for you.

We've been out talking to our friends in HR departments and recruiting shops across the country these past few months talking about our expansion and we've found widespread enthusiasm and support. The standard ways of doing things are too expensive, too time-consuming, and too frustrating for them, too.

This expansion has been a long time in the making. From the beginning in 2003, when we set out to become the "Society of the Nation's Top Talent" to our first appearance in the New York Times in 2007, we've talked about preparing for the day when we would expand to cover all professional jobs.

We've worked hard at becoming experts at modern recruiting. We've underwritten research at universities. We've spent over a million dollars re-writing the playbook for job search advice. We published our Amazon Top 100 best-seller: "You're Better Than Your Job Search". And we've studied the history of the job search through the past two centuries.

We also launched Signature, our historically unprecedented program that guarantees you a job offer — or your money back — when you follow our program of weekly or bi-weekly calls over six months.

And based on our expertise in understanding what employers want, we've built the largest resume writing service in the country.

It's that excellence in helping job-seekers like you that has propelled us to become leaders in the business, and it's one of the reasons why we've tripled the number of recruiters and HR professionals in our community this year alone.

And so now that we've grown to almost five million members in the United States and 43% of high-end professionals used TheLadders in their job search last year, we're expanding to serve all career-minded professionals and all professional jobs in the country.

I thank you for your support these last eight years and look forward to eight, or eighteen, or eighty more years helping you succeed in the job hunt!

I'll always be rooting for you,
Marc Cenedella

Marc Cenedella, CEO & Founder"

Follow-Up to Dealing with Lawyers Post


11times_sq_03_2 Every empirical truth, even though is proven correct in most cases, has an exception.  Not all super-rich people are intellectual sadists, some celebrity children are actually incredibly talented and deserve to be where they are, some family businesses do not get ruined by subsequent generations, not all entrepreneurs are control freaks, not everything that Karl Pilkington says is innocent's wisdom, not all small businesses must be nurtured into survival, and for some young people the post-graduate degrees still may be the best alternative (those who consistently read my blog will know in which posts I've covered these issues, others may want to check them out in the archives).

And not all lawyers are made from the same dough.  There is a law firm that I've known for 15 years now that I really-really like.  Moreover, I try to work with them every chance I get.  I wanted to mention them as an exception that proves the rule in the original post on lawyers, but it came out too long and I don't like hurting the readers with oversize entries.  So, now they get their own separate honor post.

Zukerman Gore Brandeis & Crossman LLP was established in 1988.  In 1996 my CEO of the time and I were working on a $350-million annual contract with our largest supplier.  This was a young fast-growing entrepreneurial organization that did not have much of professional support prior to my arrival.  I wanted to bring into this deal sharp and hungry corporate attorneys to match our own hard-working ethics. 

When one of my networking contacts put me in touch with Nat Gore, I was instantly impressed (and that's a feat!) by his ability to cut straight into the heart of the matter.  It was like we were on the same intellectual wave.  Moreover, there were never any hints of arrogancy or disrespect.  This was especially impressive, considering that my boss was a suddenly very rich immigrant with terrible English.  Truth be told, even in New York City, there are plenty of xenophobes, but not these people.

As I always say, it's all about the quality of upbringing.  And these are cultured, well-mannered, smart as hell guys.  I never asked, but they probably got together because they had similar work ethics and attitudes.  But the most important thing is that they possess the quality that I highly treasure – they are experts.  Whatever I threw at them over the years – corporate agreements, venture capital investments, SEC inquiries, disputes with insurance companies, international taxation, foreign court testimonies, depositions – their handling of the matter was always superior and expedient.

Let me tell you, these are the only attorneys that I can rely on 100% and don't try to write documents for them.  Even though they are very fair: they are the only ones who will acknowledge that you wrote a good letter and there is nothing to add or subtract.

I am very happy that over the years they grew bigger and stronger: there is a total of 11 partners now, 3 attorneys of counsel, and 8 associates.  This Friday they are moving to brand new offices in that beautiful Eleven Times Square building.

Good luck to you at your new home, guys!