Tadpole AGM tomorrow!
Here we are, the day before the AGM and all those rumours of a deal or two before the date have proven to be just that - rumours.
A comment left on another Tad post here says......"peter's been on board as long as steig and achieved a similar sales record.I'm worried".....and quite rightly so. Given that Peter started in or around September to review the company situation and then took on the CEO role for Endeavors quite quickly after that, I really expected that we could see a deal or two closed by now.
OK there was the 'Complete Gardeners CD' deal announced on 2nd May 2007 but unless millions are sold then I don't suppose it's going to set the heather alight as far as revenue is concerned.
Steig by this point was beginning to be ripped apart for failing to deliver. I'm not suggesting that Peter himself has failed to deliver, but is it not perhaps time that the head of sales who was there during Steigs tenure and still there now was reviewed. Is there a psychological 'deal closing' problem. If indeed the product is as good as it is suggested then why won't people just sign on the dotted line for it. The other companies selling streaming products are doing just that - selling!.
Some significant changes have taken place in the last few months but the fundamental flaw that has been there for a long time hasn't. You can have 10, 50 or 100 deals in the pipeline but if no-one can close any of them then it is just a pipeline isn't it.
I'll be at the AGM tomorrow even although it is almost the full length of Britain from me because I like to meet up with all the shareholders who turn up and put faces to names too, however, it's to look those guys in the eyes and see what they are going to come up with next thats the real reason.
We have had about all the spin that any one batch of shareholders can stomach without throwing up our lunch and that goes for both sides of the company, the GSD side has still to replace the losses incurred by the Ordnance Survey review that has lost us 50% of the income they were providing us with.
TCT doesn't seem to have any problems signing up new deals, why does the Edinburgh team have a problem? Did we lose the deal closers when we sold Tadpole Cartesia for a $1? That's a darned expensive dollar if we did!
Is it too much to ask this public listed company to start acting like a private company and actually do some business instead of continually trying to buy business onto the books? I think not! They have cost the shareholders millions of pounds/dollars over the years with very little to show for it.
It's time that listed companies started showing the respect to their shareholders (who after all OWN the company) the respect they deserve and stop the fat cat salaries until they have proven revenue streams on the books and only pay bonuses on or from a profit pool and not just because they did the job they were hired to do in the first place anyway and get a salary for.
I'm expecting a very good showing from the board tomorrow or I think they could have another shareholder revolt on their hands in the not too distant future.
Do I still believe they can do it - on the whole yes, but I have to voice the concerns I'm hearing via telephone calls and emails from readers of this blog. The shareholders are getting concerned again.
Look forward to meeting more of you tomorrow :o)
