What if CEO’s Made Decision as if they Were Using Family Money

/in /by

I’ve been hearing for years that small businesses create a disproportionately high percentage of the new jobs in the United States, and this year has really driven home some of the reasons why.

This summer, I traveled with my family for a vacation at the Tyler Place Family Resort in far-north Vermont, on the shores of Lake Champlain.

My wife Camilla found it through an Internet search last February, and although it is rated one of the top 10 family vacation resorts in the U.S., I assumed booking a week for this summer would be easy, given the bad U.S. economy.

Was I ever wrong: they were 100% filled, although we did get a chance to grab another family’s canceled reservation, for a week that was not entirely of our choosing.

How does Tyler Place, which has been run successfully by successive generations of the Tyler family for 75 years, sustain this level of consumer demand and success?

Simple, they have a strong business strategy which they adhere to, and execute with excellence. “We could stay open another week or two for the leaf season, but that’s not our market,” owner Ted Tyler told me. Tyler Place is totally focused on creating a one-week relaxing vacation experience for families with children. Given that there are no phones, televisions, nor easy Internet access you are bound to relax, and five different age-appropriate programs will engage and delight your children.

Tyler Place is fairly priced for what you get, and it is evident that they have reinvested a fair amount of money into the facilities. The questionnaire that you are asked to complete upon checking out is a highly evolved tool, and serves to keep Tyler Place running at 100% capacity for years to come. For example, they ask, “do you know of anyone with school aged children whose schools end early and may be interested in coming to Tyler Place the first week of the summer.”

We’ve all seen many large company failures that have played out over the first nine months of 2008, including financial firms such as Lehman Brothers, which inexplicably raised its dividend 13% in early 2008, and retailers taken over by private equity shops, such as Linens ‘N Things. It seems that having control of large pools of other people’s capital does sometimes breed a certain detachment or arrogance in CEO’s decision making while the responsibility of nurturing a family business often does wonders to keep small businesses “on-strategy”, and focused on excellent execution. If corporate CEO’s always ran their companies as if they were financed by family money, the U.S. economy would probably be in much better shape today.

What if CEO’s Made Decision as if they Were Using Family Money

/in /by

I’ve been hearing for years that small businesses create a disproportionately high percentage of the new jobs in the United States, and this year has really driven home some of the reasons why.

This summer, I traveled with my family for a vacation at the Tyler Place Family Resort in far-north Vermont, on the shores of Lake Champlain.

My wife Camilla found it through an Internet search last February, and although it is rated one of the top 10 family vacation resorts in the U.S., I assumed booking a week for this summer would be easy, given the bad U.S. economy.

Was I ever wrong: they were 100% filled, although we did get a chance to grab another family’s canceled reservation, for a week that was not entirely of our choosing.

How does Tyler Place, which has been run successfully by successive generations of the Tyler family for 75 years, sustain this level of consumer demand and success?

Simple, they have a strong business strategy which they adhere to, and execute with excellence. “We could stay open another week or two for the leaf season, but that’s not our market,” owner Ted Tyler told me. Tyler Place is totally focused on creating a one-week relaxing vacation experience for families with children. Given that there are no phones, televisions, nor easy Internet access you are bound to relax, and five different age-appropriate programs will engage and delight your children.

Tyler Place is fairly priced for what you get, and it is evident that they have reinvested a fair amount of money into the facilities. The questionnaire that you are asked to complete upon checking out is a highly evolved tool, and serves to keep Tyler Place running at 100% capacity for years to come. For example, they ask, “do you know of anyone with school aged children whose schools end early and may be interested in coming to Tyler Place the first week of the summer.”

We’ve all seen many large company failures that have played out over the first nine months of 2008, including financial firms such as Lehman Brothers, which inexplicably raised its dividend 13% in early 2008, and retailers taken over by private equity shops, such as Linens ‘N Things. It seems that having control of large pools of other people’s capital does sometimes breed a certain detachment or arrogance in CEO’s decision making while the responsibility of nurturing a family business often does wonders to keep small businesses “on-strategy”, and focused on excellent execution. If corporate CEO’s always ran their companies as if they were financed by family money, the U.S. economy would probably be in much better shape today.