17 Reasons Your Company Is Not Investment Grade & What to Do About It

By: Zane Tarence

Narrated by: Jason Arnold, Zane Tarence

Is your company investment grade? That's the question every business owner, investor, and employee should ask before sinking any time, energy, or cash into an organization. In 17 Reasons Your Company Is Not Investment Grade & What to Do About It, Zane Tarence, investment banker and serial entrepreneur describes the 17 interrelated characteristics that make a company investment worthy. Characteristics include: Revenue, growth rate, innovation, sales process, customer base, brand, culture, competitive advantage and more. Tarence provides specific, actionable recommendations related to all 17 characteristics that owners of companies in any industry can implement immediately.

As Tarence defines them, investment-grade companies are private companies that:

1. Generate predictable cash flow
2. Deliver tangible value to all stakeholders
3. Attract top talent
4. Can support add-on acquisitions
5. Give their owners freedom

Whether owners plan to raise funds, self-fund, recapitalize, purchase, or roll up additional companies, sell, or stay in their companies forever, creating an investment-grade company is critical.

Zane Tarence has spent over 25 years creating, investing in, advising and selling technology-based businesses. He is a speaker, author, and partner and managing director of Founders Advisors, LLC, a Birmingham-based investment banking firm.

©2020 Zane P. Tarence (P)2021 Zane P. Tarence

Great book

I could not have enjoyed this book any more. We are building a company now with the help of Brandon and Brian Barker and their partners at ConcertIDC. In fact Brandon recommended my son and o read this book. It is worth every minute. I’m already using things I learned and am pleased that other thing we already believe and are doing were confirmed and encouraged herein. I would love it if Zane would consider being on the FreightRunner board of advisors.
Steve Sykes
Steve Sykes.

Do yourself a favor and read it.

Look...there’s a ton of people out there on social media that claim to have the secret for taking your business and getting it ready for this glorious exit path. I have no doubt some of them have value, but likewise, I'm sure there's a healthy amount of B.S., too. This book cuts straight to the point and gives you stepping stones to getting your company ready for exit. In fact, even if you don't want to exit and you're looking to just build a company that doesn't rely on YOU, then Zane does a brilliant job of pinpointing the areas in your business that need attention in order for it to be autonomous. If you're looking to exit, then do yourself a favor and read it.

Field Manual to Increase Enterprise Value

Must read for any business owner, aspiring executive or investment banking professional.

Raise awareness to the blind spots in a business. Great stories to drive home the lessons.

Excellent!

Great book with practical and actionable advice that will pay dividends for any business owner or CFO.

Outstanding, rich content!

Learned a ton about what to pay attention to in order to build a great company

Not Investment Grade / Unlistenable

Content is excellent. Clearly they know what a top tier business should look like. That said, the audio production, specifically the constant inhaling by the narrator, is incredibly distracting. Of all the audiobooks I’ve listened to over the years, this one is maybe the worst audio production I’ve ever heard. Perhaps the author should take his own advice and invest more in engineering than in sales. As far as a digital business card for this author and his firm, this clearly raises more questions than answers relative to competence. How attentive to detail are they? Why is this production still being sold? Can I get my money back?