1-15-2016: Mark Frasco, COACT

This afternoon, I met with Mark Frasco, president of COACT. COACT provides business consulting and marketing services to a wide variety of companies. Mr. Frasco is a parent of a Maumee Valley alumnus and a former member of Maumee Valley’s Board of Trustees. Mrs. Spurgeon thought that meeting with Mr. Frasco would be a good idea so that I could see the perspective of an entrepreneur and marketing professional in terms of looking at and evaluating business opportunities.

Of course, with each business professional whom I interviewed during this independent study, I asked which three financial metrics are most important to each person when considering a business opportunity. Mr. Frasco said that he primarily uses just two metrics, which are profit and amount of revenue per dollar spent.

The biggest thing that I took away from talking to Mr. Frasco was the importance of core values and mission statements of a company or an organization. When I asked him how he maintains the integrity of his company in business opportunities, he says that he always goes back to COACT’s mission statement. I could see how important this was to him because it was framed and hanging on the wall of his office. He showed it to me, saying that he is always thinking about the mission statement, from when he leaves for work every day, to making a deal, to making decisions. As a leader in his company, he said that if he and other company leaders truly believe the mission statement, others will follow their lead and also believe the mission statement. He said that as long as the leaders of an organization stick to their mission statement, everything will be OK and the organization’s integrity will be upheld. I will be thinking about this when attending future Business Opportunities Task Force meetings.

Mr. Frasco also showed me a model that has to do with overcoming change. His model is a simple equation:
DVF > R
R = resistance to change
D = shared dissatisfaction among leaders of the organization
V = shared vision among leaders of the organization
F = first steps towards overcoming a change
The idea is that one cannot overcome resistance to change without a shared dissatisfaction, a shared vision, and first steps toward making a change. All three parts of the left side of the equation must be present. If one of them is not there, an organization will never be able to overcome the resistance to change, even two of the other parts are, because a zero substituted for either D, V, or F makes the entire left side of the equation equal to zero.

All of my interviews with Toledo area business professionals were very interesting and left me thinking. I am looking forward to finishing my model next week!