The Milestone Effect
At a client meeting last week, we highlighted the sell side process at RKCA and its many steps. And, as expected, some variation of “wow that’s a lot of milestones!” was exclaimed. This…almost always happens. There are two answers to our approach in laying out a detailed Gantt chart tailored to each client and […]
The Three Types of Investment Bankers
Having young kids is a constant (and very humbling) reminder of how complicated the world is and how little we (“I”) understand it. Not only are the questions difficult, but the “whys” afterward can break you. Take a recent weekend example where I was asked to explain how an airplane flies. Keep in mind that […]
Let’s Play The Blame Game
Raise your hand if you’ve been playing “The Blame Game” since March 2020? We are now three years since the start of the pandemic. Three years ago this week we were setting up home offices at RKCA “for a few weeks” and organizing virtual team happy hours to keep the team engaged. And…it was only […]
Burn the Ships
I consider myself a tolerant person. My wife and I have added three kids to the world in the last six years while both working. I can manage a Teams call while feeding a baby and while switching to mute to tell a toddler “okay wait right there and I’ll help you put on your […]
What is Investment Banking?
(This article is part one of the three part series: Introduction to Investment Banking in Cincinnati) No industry loves jargon like the finance industry. “Michaelson, run through the YoY (Year-over-Year) quarterlies to compare trailing EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) against industry comps and to update our multiples and overall TEV (Total Enterprise […]
Don’t win the day at the cost of the decade
Midway through the month of December, it hit me like a freight train: high fever, no appetite, stuck in bed with zero energy. Ahh, I assumed, the flu (despite having an annual shot) finally got me. I was proud of myself for having made it that far into 2022 with three small children at home […]
The Most Important Success Factor – Survival
“What are you reading ?” my wife, Jane, asked me a few weeks ago. I replied “A book about life in Vietnam Prison Camps.” Jane has the not-so-fun privilege of falling asleep every night while listening to pages turning and a book light shining into her eyes well past when we should be in bed. […]
You can’t sit around waiting for the answers
You can’t sit around waiting for the answers I had the privilege in 2014 to travel to Omaha for the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meeting. A friend had tickets and I was able to check an item off my bucket list. With the confluence of kids, work, COVID restrictions, and lack of a direct flight to […]
It’s Axiomatic…boogie woogie woogie
If you’re humming the Electric Slide right now (fun fact the song is called “Electric Boogie” by Marcia Griffiths), then I’ve done my job. Good luck getting it out of your head today. The word axiomatic (one of my favorites) means “self-evident or unquestionable.” As I write this article, the S&P 500 is down ~25% […]
The Weather Channel and Your Business
I’m writing this month’s RKCA Insights from our basement on Labor Day Weekend. My daughters are engrossed in “Cinderella” on Disney; and the plans we had for time outside and at the pool have been thwarted by a rainy weekend. And if this were not the tenth time they’ve watched it in the last month, […]
