Communication

Good communication is an art form, and at Profisy we took that art to a very, very high level.  From adjusting tone conversation by conversation, to crafting and re-crafting highly poignant emails, to delivering utter clarity and succinctness in proposals, we exemplified the best of what our clients had to offer.

At Tri Valley Growers, as Manager of Investor Relations I was responsible for translating the Company Bylaws into policies and procedures, and then disseminating this information to a widely distributed network of California farmers.  During my tenure, a shareholder vote dramatically changed the Company Bylaws, affecting over $100M of shareholder’s retained equity.  These complicated changes, and the resulting effects on each grower member’s responsibilities and retained equity, had to be unambiguously explained (often at a farmer’s kitchen table).

At Tri Valley Growers, my office came to be known by some as “Kaufman’s Corner.”  Located in the finance department, adjacent to the CFO, Treasurer and Comptroller, I worked at the intersection of major Company drivers (management of the Company’s $300-$400M bank loan facility, Board decisions about grower crop payments, pending stock sales by significant equity members, etc.).  I made it a priority to be current on the Company’s activities and overall heath, and I was always available to educate internal and external stakeholders.

I am especially intuitive and understand the subtle levels of both spoken and non-spoken communication (body language, tone, etc.).  This is especially important because people usually don’t always ask for what they need most.

People Development

To me teaching yoga and "employee development" are synonymous:

"Teaching Yoga is about developing our intuition and sensitivity so that we know what is appropriate for an individual or for the group.  We learn to ‘feel’ a situation and know when it is right to offer guidance and support, when to change tack, when to step back and when to be silent."

                                                                                 - Nishchalananda Saraswati  

"Yoga is like music, you can teach a student the basics, but to be a master teacher, you want to stir the creativity from within.  When your students become creators, you can help them refine their Yoga practice and watch them become self motivators.  A truly great teacher will produce teachers, who surpass him or her; and isn’t 'passing the torch' what it’s all about?"

                                                                                              - Paul Jerard

At Profisy employee coaching and development were not things we contemplated quarterly; they were part of the fabric of each and every day.  We adjusted our systems moment by moment to improve employee satisfaction and productivity, and to bolster the Company’s continued success.  We were an “employee-driven” company and we recognized this importance from our inception.

At Profisy I managed an average of 3 large client engagements concurrently.  This involved being able to speak fluently about complicated and vastly differing enterprise software programs, hosting conference calls attended by client representatives and target company senior management (often VP and SVP level folks from Fortune 1000 companies), and providing clients with detailed weekly reporting (at a minimum) on performance/successes. 

At vFinance I managed multiple investment banking support projects.  This typically included either creating, with the input and collaboration from client senior management, offering memorandums that reflected current Company operations or changed the client business model to be more in line with the capital markets.  vFinance clients always had a sense of utter urgency, usually awaiting bridge funding to continue operations, or awaiting growth funding to enable being first to market on an exciting new opportunity.

Profisy was a bootstrapped startup, and we were challenged daily by our lack of resources (e.g. access to the best paid information), but this only seemed to further fuel our gumption, creativity and marked results.  

With each client we had to sell two times, so we became that much more practiced in the art of sales:

1. We sold Profisy's services to large corporations (often Fortune 1000) at the SVP Marketing or Sales level.  Our modus operandi was always to reach the marketing or sales lead by way of a referral down from a C-level office.  Then we convinced the marketing or sales group that Profisy would do aspects of their job, like penetrating new target markets or accelerating their success in a current market, better than they.  This obviously took extreme diplomacy.

2. Once we signed a client, we called or wrote or emailed on their behalf, into C-level offices of Fortune 2000 target companies to create opportunities.  These “opportunities” had to be urgently created as our client contracts were written as cancelable at any time with 30 days notice.  We were paid to perform, and we did.