News

San Diego, California

Vistage (Vistage), a leading international executive coaching organization serving business owners and CEO's, today released more speaking engagement dates for Larry O'Toole. The latest dates in May, 2020 include speaking engagements to Vistage groups in Akron and Youngstown, Ohio. As part of Larry's Bank Your Moment speaking series, he'll be leading workshops for business owners and CEO's on his program titled, "Technological Trends, Moving From Awareness to Preparedness". Participants will learn how to develop the plans for their business to either be disruptors in their industry or avoid being disrupted. Larry provides participants with practical techniques and templates for guiding teams through effective planning for technological trends impacting their businesses.

Oakland, California

As Vistage Chairs begin to set their 2020 calendar, Larry O'Toole has been invited to present to multiple CEO groups in Oakland on May 27th and October 13th & 14th, 2020. Larry's Bank Your Moment series includes "Strategic Planning that Builds Company Value" and is designed for owners and CEO's on their journey of building long term company value. Workshops include Larry sharing a fresh perspective on approaching strategic planning for better team and employee engagement with sessions including practical tips, techniques and templates that provide an effective new approach to planning.

Los Angeles, California

Since 2016, Larry O'Toole has been asked by Loyola Marymount University (LMU) to present to their Executive MBA class. Prior year topics have included Strategic Planning and Change Management. This year, Larry was asked to share his over 20 years of CEO experience seeing first hand the power of emotional intelligence in the workplace. Larry presented O'Toole's Rules in which he shares practical tips and techniques for leaders to apply every day as they look to drive meaningful results for their organizations.

Orange County, California

We often hear about great leaders and what they did and continue to do that makes them so respected. What we seldom ever hear about is what they decided NOT TO DO. In helping private business owners build their company value, I often hear how busy their teams are and how hard they are working. In many cases this is true. But too often these hard working employees are spending energy on things that might have added value months or years earlier, but are no longer delivering the same value. Brave leaders know when and how to identify what their teams are working on and they tackle the tough decisions on what things should stop getting resources so they can be redirected to inititives or activities that will accelerate building company value. As you lead your company, remember that leadership is equally about knowing what to do as it is what not to do. You build long term value in your company by having an equal balance of both.

Orange County, California

With the beginning of a new year just a few months way, for many business owners this puts them in the important zone for developing, or fine tuning, their company strategy for the years ahead. Unfortunately for many, strategic planning is more of a financial exercise and this is a missed opportunity for buidling your company value. In my career as a CEO, my teams realized the benefits of putting initial focus and priority on our strategic thinking, followed by effective financial planning. I recommend to owners that they implement a 4 Step Strategic Planning Campaign.  Step 1 = What's Going On Inside Our Four Walls. This is our opportunity to take a holistic internal view of our company in terms of our revenue and margins by product or service and review key operating metrics all of which will help us understand our current business position and performance. Step 2 = What's Going On Outside Our Four Walls and the discussion moves to the external world. It's in this step that we think about market trends and competive dynamics. Step 3 = Where Do We Want To Take Our Business which builds on Steps 1 & 2 and gets the team planning where the business should go strategically. Step 4 = Our Pathway Forward which is the step for setting our plan to move the business toward our longer term goals. This step includes what resources we'll need, the financial plan we'll follow and how we'll monitor our progress. Building the long term value of your company is generally done more in an evolutionary manner, not revolutionary. Look at each new year with your team as an opportunity to review your strategic direction and build your confidence that you're taking the right steps to build company value!

Los Angeles, California

The Southbay Los Angeles chapter of the Aerospace & Defense Forum (A&D Forum) has invited Larry O'Toole to be their keynote speaker at an upcoming August 14th event. Larry's sought after topic, "Technological Trends, Moving from Awareness to Preparedness" is part of the Bank Your Moment series of presentations.  Most organizations are aware of the trends that are evolving and even revolutionizing industries but few are prepared to capitalize on them. Larry's talk will focus on giving executives actionable insights and will help remove the uncertainty associated with how to move an organization from awareness to preparedness in an area that can build or destroy overall enterprise value seemingly over night.  

Long Beach, California
The Port of Long Beach (Port of Long Beach) invited Larry O'Toole to present "The Essentials of Strategic Planning" as part of their ongoing Executive Leadership Series. Larry shared his views on how the private sector conducts innovative strategic planning with an emphasis on plan adoption and  implementation. The Port of Long Beach is launching an exciting new strategic initiative and is energizing the organization around the plan. Larry's presentation reviewed specific actions that the leadership team can be taking to strengthen the adoption of the plan throughout their vast organization.

Orange County, California

Business owners face many challenges as it relates to building the long term value of their company. One of these challenges should NOT be the alignment amongst co-owners. In my career, I’ve seen far too many instances where company value is being impeded by a lack of alignment between owners of a business. When we provide coaching to owners who are struggling with this challenge, discussions begin with identifying “what good looks like” to each for the future. This is the starting point for ultimately managing to alignment. Only once this alignment is established will the company be able to effectively implement strategies to build long term value.

Long Beach, California
The Port of Long Beach (Port of Long Beach) invited Larry O'Toole to present "The Essentials of Leadership - Bank Your Moment" as part of their Executive Leadership Series. Larry shared his views on what makes a strong leader based on his 20 years as CEO of manufacturing and service organizations. The Bank Your Moment series includes practical tips and techniques for participants to enable leaders in their strategic thinking, strategic planning and effective implementation for the purpose of building long term organization value.

Newport Beach, California
It was announced today that the 2019 Orange County Tax & Financial Forum (OC Tax and Financial Forum) has invited Larry O'Toole to join their list of local and national guest speakers for their 2nd annual event to be held on October 23, 2019 at The Pacific Club in Newport Beach, CA. Larry's topic will be "Delivering New Value to Your Corporate Clients" and is part of his Bank Your Moment leadership series. This series helps guide business owners and leaders on how to build long term value in their company. The annual OC Tax and Financial Forum brings together top national tax and financial experts to grow businesses and successfully meet the needs of an expanding client base. 

Newport Beach, California
The Orange County Iranian American Chamber of Commerce (OCIACC.com) today announced that Larry O'Toole has been added to their Speaker list (OCIACC Awards Program Speakers) for their annual awards program to be held April 28th, 2019 in Newport Beach, California.  Larry will be sharing practical insights on his topic, "Trends, Moving from Awareness to Preparedness".  Larry will share steps that any organization can take to drive company value by leveraging technological trends happening in our world today.  

Orange County, California

Company owners all share a common concern pertaining to today's rapid innovations in technology and what it could mean to their business.  For some, this means chasing technologies that they hope will be a silver bullet for building long term value.  My advice is don't first think or talk about specific technologies, first think about what your business is trying to accomplish long, mid and short term.  Technologies are not the end game, they are simply enablers.  They are tools that can help you strengthen your revenues, improve your order fullfillment, enhance your customer experience, or enable all of these.  But your thinking and dialog with your team should begin with what your company needs to accomplish and once you have clarity around this, then discuss how available and emerging technologies can enable you.  

Los Angeles, California

The Aerospace & Defense Forum (A&D Forum) today published their latest newsletter including the newest article by Larry O'Toole.  The article titled, "Silent Killer to Company Value" (article) is written for business owners and senior executives.  The article draws awareness to the possibility that an organization could be operating within the dangers of a comfort zone and therefore not creating new, long term value for the business.  Larry's article points out the potential root cause symptoms an organization could be experiencing and offers practical advice for how to step out of it.  

Orange County, California

Larry O'Toole's workshop, "Trends-Moving from Awareness to Preparedness" was selected by Vistage for presentation to CEO groups in Irvine and Huntington Beach, California on March 26th, 27th & 28th.  The workshop takes away the uncertainty for business owners and CEO's on how to step above the onslaught of technological advances and take effective steps in moving organizations from awareness to preparedness.  Every business runs the risk of being disrupted or has the opportunity to leverage technological advances to enable being the disrupter.  The 3 hour workshop provides techniques and templates that any leader can use to facliate new, productive dialog internally as well as externally with customers and vendors.  Participant feedback was overwhelmingly positive and credit the workshop with providing a road map for moving any business from awareness to preparedness and to leverage technological advances to build long term company value.

Orange County, California

Ask seasoned executives to share mistakes made in their career and a common answer is they didn't address quickly enough personnel issues that arose at their company.  As I work with business owners on their journey of building company value and personal net worth, this topic often arises.  It's a topic because many business owners come to realize as we work together and strengthen their company strategic direction, that parts of their organization may have to change in order to accelerate overall value creation.  And sometimes it's a particular employee that was helpful in the company getting to where it is today but no longer posseses the right skill set or even mindset to enable further company progress.  This is where ownership has to make the tough leadership decisions and either reassign and/or replace the employee and get the company back on track.  The longer this important decision is delayed, the more it can be holding back overall company value creation.  Address employee issues quickly and effectively and remain on your value building journey.

Riverside County, California

Business Insights, produced by Altek Media Group (Altek), today announced the publishing of Larry O'Toole's latest article. Larry continues to have his series of articles published by various media outlets as he dedicates his subject matter to business owners on their journey of building company and personal net worth.  The latest article, Silent Killer to Business Value (read article here), raises owner awareness to the symptoms of their company potentially operating inside a comfort zone, a zone that can significantly hold back value creation.  Larry offers insightful and practical actions that business owners can take to identify if their company is in fact operating in this dangerous zone and steps that can be taken to exit it. 

Orange County, California

Ask yourself a critical question about your company strategic plan....is your plan truly strategic or is it tactical?  Too many strategic plans focus more on the near term, perhaps 1 or 2 years.  These plans identify sales and profit targets and the needed initiatives to deliver these targets.  But to be truly a strategic plan it needs to go further by addressing additional key aspects of your business such as; 1.) what are your longer term objectives for the business (including setting an enterprise value target), 2.) what steps you will take to excite future investors or even potential acquirerers, 3.) how your business will address Trends that are or could impact your industry and, 4.) what investments you will need to make in people, systems and facilities/equipment.  Rethink your strategic planning and ensure it is truly strategic and helping you the build long term value of your company.

Orange County

HMWC (HMWC), a leading Orange County accounting firm and Consultants Link (Consultants Link) today announced that Larry O'Toole will be the keynote speaker at their upcoming March 6, 2019 event (see Seminar flyer).  The event is designed for business owners to help them take away the uncertainty of how to prepare their buisness to one day optimize company value at time of an exit

Orange County, California

The old adage, “ask the same questions, get the same answers” applies to every business owner and CEO.  If we aren’t asking our employees, customers, vendors and even advisors new questions, perhaps our dialog is stale and we’re not learning new things.  New questions that generate new dialog could lead to innovations in your product or service and enable long term growth of your company value.  If you think you might be a victim of stale dialog, think about new questions you can be asking.  Think about whether taking a new approach to your strategic planning as the catalyst to generating new dialog is best for your business.  In my career, I made sure that I used our strategic plan as a platform for generating new questions and new healthy, productive dialog!

San Diego, California

CA CEO Magazine (CA CEO) published the latest article by Larry O'Toole from his series Bank Your Moment.  This series and latest article are designed for company owners and CEO's looking to grow their long term company value.  This article (Click here to read article) identifies the difference between being aware of technological trends versus being prepared.  The article offers valuable insights and actionable steps that can be taken to be prepared for technology trends and enable the growth of company value.