CIM Drafting is Paradise

CIM Drafting is Paradise

It’s early February, and seasonably chilly this Thursday morning. You’ve been in the office since 9:37am, which your VP will later describe as “late,” but you forgive him for misspeaking. He’s been up all night courageously skimming the What’s News section of the Wall Street Journal.

Your day has already featured its main highlight: a $19.43 Starbucks mobile order consisting of a cold brew, an iced lemon loaf and a bacon, sausage, & egg wrap.

But none of it matters.

Because today… today you continue to draft the CIM. The single deliverable that determines whether buyers fall in love with the business — or immediately throw it into the trash. This 78-page novella of dreams and delusion will be the “cornerstone of the process" and "make or break" to this business with a 0.8% EBITDA CAGR over the last 5 years.

Back at your desk, you crack your knuckles, pull up the shell your VP sent over last night, along with materials from 4 semi-relevant deals the firm did over the past few years, and begin your transformation into a glorified fiction author. “Let’s hammer out this growth tab by the weekend,” says the VP.

Elsewhere, the Associate is hunched over like a medieval scribe, redlining your Industry Overview draft with surgical precision. Changes like:

• “Change ‘leading’ to ‘premier’”
• “Delete this entire section”
• “Let’s rework this”
• “Can you rewrite this sentence?”

Meanwhile, management's Business Overview edits trickle in via email:

“Please remove any mention of seasonality. Our business is not seasonal.”

The next email:
“Attaching monthly revenue seasonality chart for inclusion.”

You sigh. You sip your cold brew. You return to the document.

You begin turning comments to the Exec Summ, which will be used as the basis of the ELD in a couple weeks. You proudly write:

“The Company is a mission-critical provider of tech-enabled solutions.”

VP responds:

“Too vague.”

You adjust:

“The Company is a scaled, differentiated provider of workflow automation.”

Associate:

“Too specific.”

You compromise:

“The Company is a provider.”

Perfect.

The Draft Goes Out

You send a revised draft of the Exec Summ to VP at 10:49pm with a professional file name:

Project Lightsaber_ExecSumm_v27

You stretch, breathe, and consider going home.

93 seconds later, the VP emails back:

“Got it, reviewing now — will get this back to shortly, and can review a clean version in the AM.”

Soon enough, the comments start flowing:

• “Slide 4 should be after slide 12.”
• “Remove this sentence, it’s confusing me.”
• “Make this bigger.”
• “These numbers seem off”
• “Double check this”

You confirm receipt — “Thanks, Steve. Will fold these in — appreciate the feedback.”

CIMs Drafting is Paradise.