I recently went one on one with Ted Clark. Ted was the President and CEO of Products Research & Chemical Corporation (PRC), a global leader in aircraft and construction sealants and coatings, and is the author of the new book Buy and Build CEO: Leveraging Private Equity to Build a Winning Global Business.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you.  How did you get here?  What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Ted: In my first book Shipping Clerk to CEO, I tell the story of my experience learning on the job to rise from a 19-year-old entry level shipping clerk to become a CEO of a global business. In Buy and Build CEO I tell the story of using this experience to develop a buy and build strategy and then build a global business using private equity capital. I tell it from a buy and build founder/CEO’s point of view, including how to develop a business thesis and pitch deck to find the right private equity partner and the importance of matching an experienced industry executive with a private equity firm that is committed to supporting the CEO and his or her team in creating a great company.

All that said not every private equity company will be successful and I write about the difficult challenges of running my first private equity backed company that ultimately ended in it being restructured in a bankruptcy process. I learned important lessons from that experience that were crucial in making my next private equity backed company highly successful in navigating through recession and difficult debt markets, integrating acquisitions and turning around poorly performing business lines.

Adam: What do you hope readers take away from your new book?

Ted: In Buy and Build CEO, I outline each step of the journey from developing an investment thesis, getting private equity capital, executing on the platform acquisition, and setting up the balance sheet to allow for smart value-added acquisitions to actualize the buy and build vision. I hope that readers take away a fuller understanding of the arcane world of private equity investing, which is not well understood beyond the investment banking community. As an asset class, private equity is a net positive for the economy and an important source of investment income for both public and private pension funds, insurance companies etc., with overall returns since 2010 of over 23%. Private equity backed companies employ close to 12 million people in the U.S. and make up over 10,000 companies, with the majority being smaller middle market companies with valuations of between $25 million to $1billion. Since 2013, private equity firms have been investing more than $400B annually into tens of thousands of companies up from just over two thousand companies in the year 2000.  I also hope that they take away what opportunities are available to executives with expertise and ability to partner with private equity to build winning businesses.

I want readers to understand how private equity helps executives, and their teams actualize their dream through investing capital in people and companies based on merits and results, and I hope they take away why experienced industry executives are in demand and are essential for the success of buy and build strategies. These executives are the ones in every industry who understand at a biological level the markets, technologies, operations, and value creation opportunities in their industries and have a track record of success. Private equity seeks to partner with experienced industry executives to drive, buy and build acquisition strategies in highly fragmented industries. These executives take the lead on developing the vision, objectives and strategy and work to originate M&A opportunities and then integrate deals while driving organic growth with the goal of creating value beyond the sum of the acquired parts.

Adam: In your experience, what are the key steps to growing and scaling your business?

Ted: Well first and foremost, it is having a vision for the company you want to create. You need to start with the end in mind and develop a clear vision, growth, and profitability objectives, supported by a clear strategy and tactics to achieve the plan. Secondly, you need to attract and build a team that shares the vision and has the experience and capability to scale the business as it needs in order to add more process and management discipline to support rapid organic and inorganic growth, while at the same time generating cash from operations to support that growth. And thirdly, you need a supportive equity partner to help you manage through the inevitable business challenges of creating value through a growth strategy supported by leveraging your balance sheet.

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?

Ted:  I think beyond establishing a record of expertise and accomplishments in his or her industry, an effective leader needs to develop a clear vision, aspirational but achievable goals, a thoughtful strategy, and the ability to sell the plan to his or her leadership team, investors, and other stakeholders to create a shared vision. Then effective leaders need to ensure that they empower and coach their management team in the execution of the plan, being transparent and self-aware of what is or isn’t working and adjusting the plan, as needed, all while staying focused on the shared vision and goal.

Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Ted: I do a lot of mentoring of aspiring leaders and I always encourage them to think like a CEO in whatever role they have. I just ask them to think about the job they have and how they want to improve and add value to the processes or projects they manage. I suggest to them that they develop a vision for their job, set aspirational but achievable goals, develop a strategy, and determine what tactics they plan to use to actualize their vision. I then encourage them to be clear- eyed and aware of their performance, and if they are falling short, to determine why and adjust, as needed, to get to their goal. I also suggest they be as transparent as possible and ask for help if they need it; working as a team with a shared goal is the fastest way to a good result.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?

Ted: 1) Your reputation is the coin of the realm. Build it carefully and consistently and you will build trust with your team. Say what you want to do, do what you say you will do, and if you fall short, acknowledge it, course correct and stay focused on your goal. 2) Take managed risks, learn from failures and try again. Make it clear that you won’t abide office politics and you expect to win or lose as a team. 3) The road to success is hardly ever a straight line, so you and your team need to be agile and adjust when you need to while staying focused on your long-term goals. Learn to delegate and keep your eyes on the horizon while scanning the dashboard of current performance, always adjusting to manage risk and increase speed of execution.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?

Ted: 1) Agree on the things you want to accomplish together and then trust the team to do the work, providing guidance and support, as needed. Celebrate accomplishments together and have hard discussions together when you fall short. 2) Organize the team around their individual strengths and weaknesses and shore up the team, where needed, through coaching or adding or subtracting from it to keep it healthy and on track. 3) Be transparent about your own strengths and weaknesses and let the team know how they can best support you and your organization. 4) Communicate good and bad news and face up to the challenges you have within your and your team’s ability manage them. Seek help if you need it. 5) Keep focused on your goals.

Adam: What are your best tips on the topics of sales, marketing, and branding?

Ted: Early In my career I was trained in a consultive style of selling, called “Need Satisfaction Selling,” an approach based on the notion of engaging customers to find out their needs, and then providing a differentiated solution to satisfy them. Alongside my need to master this selling style to grow sales, I found it was also effective in influencing change internally within the company. This approach helped me lead cross-functional teams in defining needs and finding solutions that we could propose to managers – and all the way up to the board of directors. I think it is important for everyone in a leadership team to learn how to sell and influence others.

In any case, I think it is important that selling, marketing, and your brand promise be consistent with your company’s stated values and culture and be focused on your goals.

The overall marketing plan, for instance, should always begin with a strategic marketing analysis that is aligned with a business’s overall strategic plan and objectives. The plan should first define the specific markets that you plan to influence with your products, services, and technology so that you have clear targets for growth. It requires researching everything from your competitors, target customers, industry trends, government regulations, etc., matched against your current and future capabilities.

The fastest growing businesses tend to focus on carefully selected market segments in areas where they thoroughly understand what the market requirements are and invest in meeting those needs. This kind of specialization and segmentation makes marketing efforts more focused and simpler to execute when you define what you can do to set yourself apart from your best competition.

Likewise, the branding of your business, services, and products should be consistent with your overall business strategy and marketing plans. It should also reinforce your company culture and values. Your brand promise should reflect who you are and how you want to be seen. To be credible, it needs to be rooted in both reality and aspirational and achievable goals, and like all important business processes, it should be measurable through important metrics such as quality, delivery, customer satisfaction, etc., and confirmed them by using impartial third-party customer surveys.

What is most important is aligning business strategy, marketing plans, and your brand promise, and then communicating the plans regularly and consistently to both internal and external stakeholders as you pursue your goals.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Ted: My first and most important mentor told me “You can never know enough about your business.” What he meant by this is that you need to learn your business from the inside out and keep up with it as markets and technology change and evolve. I have always used this advice to understand the history of the business and why it was successful in the first place, what was its core competence, and why did it make money? Is the core competency still the same and how has it changed over time and why?  Are we doing everything we can to exploit our core competency or are we focused on other less value-adding improvements? I continually ask myself fundamental questions on why and how we are doing things to help understand if we are on track and not chasing the latest fad or management trend.  

Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?

Ted: Yes, I will always be grateful to those who pioneered the private equity fund business model that has developed into today’s industry. It would not have been possible for me to build my company, Royal Adhesives & Sealants, from a thesis to a $700 million global business without that support and partnership. Over the last 20 years, I have spent a lot of time studying the history of private equity and why private equity investing has become such a growth engine and an increasingly important part of our overall economy. In my own experience working with private equity firms and the experiences of many other private equity-backed CEOs that I have talked to, the consensus is that private equity capital helps to democratize access to the American dream by investing in people and companies based on merit and results. At its best, it creates value by partnering with management teams and helping those teams realize their potential.

Peter A. Brook, one of the pioneers of the private equity business, said of the model, “we’re enablers.” He added, “I’ve always thought our role was to give entrepreneurs helpful advice and stay out of the way.”

I think he was right; this has been my own personal experience of what the best private equity firms do.

Thanks for the opportunity, I really appreciate it.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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