Tag Archives: Culture

Tremendous Entrepreneurial Success From Reading

 

Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, who is well-known in the insurance industry as a motivational speaker, believes in helping people improve themselves. His conviction for years has been that one must take responsibility for their own success. The quote below illustrates how he thinks one can best accomplish success in life:

You are the same today you’ll be in five years except for two things: the people you meet and the books you read. In every turning point and crisis of my life, there’s always been a book that helped me think and see more clearly and keep laughing and keep looking up and keep my mouth shut. I would never tell anybody I ever had a problem, so everybody always thought I was on top of the world, and yet I was just like everybody else with problems coming out of my ears. Now, when people come to my office, they come to talk to me. Instead of conversing with me like they think they are going to do, I get them reading. I pick out some great books and have each person read three or four sentences. I just received another email from a person recounting how his life was changed by learning the power of reading together–rather than talking.

As you may have read in a previous blog or Twitter post, I follow Under30CEO.com. Matt Wilson, one of the co-founders, posted on the Under 30 blog today some insights he gained from reading books this year. A few excerpts are provided below, with Wilson’s comments.

  1. Who’s Got Your Back by Keith Ferrazzi  – Relationships should be about quality over quantity.  The goal should not be to “know everyone”.  Build a small group of people that want to go out and conquer the world together.
  2. Boomerang by Michael Lewis – Base your economy, your company, and your income on creating real value for others.
  3. Small Loans Big Dreams by Alex Counts – Entrepreneurship knows no borders or social classes.  Coupled with education and accountability, access to capital can create sustainable micro-businesses.
  4. 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene – “Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge.”
  5. Startup Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer –  “Immigrants are not averse to start from scratch. They are by definition risk-takers. A nation of immigrants is a nation of entrepreneurs.”
  6. The Education of Millionaires by Michael Ellsberg – “The biggest thing you won’t learn in college is how to succeed professionally.”
  7. Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie –  It is truly possible to build a business both rich in profit and in social good.
  8. The Greatest Salesman In the World by Og Mandino –  “You were not created for a life of idleness.”
  9. Iceland, India, Interstate by Colin Wright – Go out there and LIVE.  Life is short, take advantage of it, and when you get a crazy idea–go for it.
  10. The Art of Non-Conformity by Chris Guillebeau – “If something is worth doing, you might as well do it all the way–so I’ve added ‘radical goalsetting’ to my own unconventional life planning.”
  11. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh – There will never be another 2013.  When Tony sold his first venture to Microsoft, he said there would never be another 1999, and went to work on his next act, passing up millions of guaranteed dollars if he had simply stayed with the company and let his shares vest… All to chase his passion.
  12. The 4 Hour Chef by Tim Ferriss – Whatever you want to do in life, think about how to hack the system, so you can compete with only the best.

Matt’s list was 17 items long. Since there are 12 months in the year, I condensed it to 12 books and corresponding lessons to be learned and applied. Hope you find a nugget to help now and a book to read later. May you be better in five years for having applied yourself to reading!

 

Do You Have an Innovative Strategy?

 

After a very long (10 days+) break from blogging, we are back on the job for the New Year today. The time away was refreshing and helped to restore focus. One of the reasons I began writing this blog last year was to develop a discipline for getting observations about small business management and strategy out of my head and into a “written” format. At some point in 2013, we will attempt to cull through last year’s blog posts, sort and organize them, and format all of the content into a cohesive story that should make a good book. It has been over 20 years since I published my last book and it will be fun to be in print again.

Back to the matters of management and strategy…I’d like to run through a few scenarios I’ve encountered with clients recently in an effort to highlight some of the ways business owners get “stuck” in their approach. One client is in the midst of a family business transition–none of which are what one would call a “piece of cake.” As with any business worth laboring over, this one has experienced enough success in its history that all parties think it has enduring value. All parties would be right–and wrong! 

Business valuations derive enhanced magnitude from observed plans for managing risk. The risk of the owner getting hit by a bus is, for instance, substantial. With no business continuity plan for such a horrible occurrence, the company that has taken years to build can be undone in a very short amount of time. Insurance is seen as a way to mitigate the impact of such an event on the financial performance of a business and its stakeholders. However, no amount of insurance can replace institutional knowledge. Most companies are operated based on lessons learned the hard way. When the person who remembers all the lessons is no longer around, others must climb the same painful learning curve and waste precious resources in the process. Taking the time to document what you have learned and how you apply that knowledge in daily management makes your company worth way more money–even if you never plan to sell it!

hourly billing agreementAnother client is a professional services firm that is struggling with the industry standard of billing fees on an hourly basis and all the timekeeping and dysfunction associated with this antiquated practice. In addition to the record keeping requirements, there are collection processes that are time consuming, result in write-downs, and become demoralizing. What we are implementing, then, is a change in the way business is done. We will begin to charge clients a retainer and a success fee. The retainer is some minor amount that basically allows this specialized practice to recoup some monies for overhead obligations while the team works on client issues. It is meant to encourage more calls from clients to discuss everyday items so that we become an extension of their management and leadership teams. The success fee is structured up front to be awarded to us for doing a better than average job. We work with clients when they are prospects to identify    how success will be measured before an engagement begins. we put the feedback responsibility in the hands of the client, and adjust our final payouts based on results.

These two examples illustrate how matters of strategy can be brought into the regular operations of any business. In every business we’ve encountered, there are things that are overlooked or left un-addressed because they are accepted rather than challenged. What are those things in your business that need to be tackled in 2013? How will you tackle them?

Create a Stronger Brand Through Research and Leadership

As an adviser to SMBs, we frequently are in the role of addressing branding issues in an organization either looking to jump start growth or figure out how to combine forces with a merger partner. In any such scenario, the effort to rebrand is a challenge. To take a known corporate identity and recast it in the minds of a target audience requires research data, creativity, and commitment.

Overture NetworksOverture Networks in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina merged with another competitor, who happened to be located in the same town. Both Overture and Hatteras Networks competed in the telecommunications equipment sector. After the merger, the new company had a broader product line, bigger sales distribution channel, and deeper expertise. Mark Durrett, Overture’s marketing director, and Alicia Smith, the communications director, shared seven lessons from their rebranding experience via the Marketing Profs website this morning:

1. Executive buy-in is critical

Our executive team recognized that our rebranding project had the power to help grow the business and change buying behavior. With the CEO’s support, every executive leader, a member of our board of directors, and other company leaders became involved. Vested in the project’s success and expecting measurable results, they all cleared their calendars to participate.

2. Set internal and external goals

The merger brought together two companies with complementary products, but different operating cultures. By marrying the objectives of our rebranding work with the company’s strategic business and growth goals, we helped ensure that everything we did drove business value and focused on growing the bottom line. We learned to be realistic with our timing, knowing that ships don’t turn on a dime, and gave ourselves time to define and then “live” our new brand.

3. Research can inform and guide

There’s tremendous power in asking questions—and in listening. Diving deep, we asked everyone—customers, analysts, internal stakeholders—what they thought we did, how we did it, how we could do it better (or different or easier or with more impact), what they wish we did, how they prefer to work with… you get the idea. After we created a safe forum to receive candid, useful responses, the input poured in. In any such exercise, you must be prepared to get quality feedback; you must listen carefully, evaluate honestly, and decide what really matters.

4. Collaboration (and outside experts) can bring you together

A valued and trusted partner will use your research, extract ideas from the entire team, and empower key leadership to make quality decisions. And just because you’ve expanded the circle of collaboration doesn’t mean you make decisions by committee. With everyone invested (and involved) in the process, our leadership made decisions that the other collaborators readily accepted.

5. Establish a foundation, then build on it

Before beginning any creative exercise—from your new logo to a datasheet—your team needs to have agreed on all the elements that define you as a company. Armed with those foundational brand elements, you can effectively build out the language, design elements, stories, and guidelines that allow your brand to grow in the direction you desire.

6. Convert collaborators to evangelists

Executives and other leaders have a unique role in sharing your brand story with customers, analysts, employees, and key stakeholders. Ideally, they will transition from collaborators to evangelists. 

7. Keep walking the walk: You have to live the brand

Once the launch party fades, the hard work begins. Hopefully, by now, your entire company agrees that your brand consists of everything that has anything to do with your company, and that your brand goes everywhere. Your stated values must become reality. Anyone who interacts with your people or your products, receives an invoice, or sees your logo—really anyone in any circumstance—expects an experience that aligns with your brand attributes. 

 

Even if you have not undertaken a rebranding project, you and your company can benefit from the advice offered above.  Think through how you can solicit and implement feedback from customers. Incorporate their input into your messaging, involve executive management in the process, and seek to build collaboration into brand evangelism.

Becoming an Overnight Artisan Success in Only 5 Years

When someone is touted as a wunderkind in any line of work, many line up to try and figure out how success was achieved. So many become disheartened when their passion or education does not produce immediate results. While most recognize that success does not come over night, it is not at all uncommon for an artist or artisan to go from unknown to well known in a short amount of time. Achieving recognition, however, is a cumulative process. How does one go about doing so on a shortened time horizon?

Fundamentally, an entrepreneur in this space must be willing to undergo wholesale change. It’s not enough to become masterful at creating great designs; without the corresponding strategies to maximize business operations and processes, success will be hard to come by. Too few artisan entrepreneurs take the time and make the effort to understand that sweet convergence of operational, artistic, and marketing opportunities. Those who do create value that is appreciated by the target market.

If you seek to identify and serve target buyers with relevant offerings, create cross promotions with other artisans and handmade entrepreneurs, and craft an airtight plan to execute your strategies, you will be far ahead of the average artisan. Hopefully, your artisan start-up will resonate with the target market, sales revenues will provide the opportunity to grow your team, and you can become strategic about roles and responsibilities. In addition to your design, production, and sales efforts, you will need to task team members with the following responsibilities:

  • strategy
  • vision
  • marketing
  • advertising
  • social media
  • partnerships
  • scheduling
  • logistics

artisan potterObviously, one person cannot handle all of these important roles for very long. That’s precisely why a focus on sales, production, and design early will help create the capital structure to build a team.

If the skill sets listed above are foreign to you as an artisan, you are not alone. Those with degrees in the fine arts, and related disciplines have been prepared to pursue a skill, but not necessarily a business. More importantly, planning, confidence, and diligence go a long ways towards helping you execute on your idea. Since many artisans are not prepared through educational instruction to be proficient in such things as negotiation and team work, they have to learn these things from a mentor. Please find a suitable mentor with a background different form your own who understand business principles well enough to guide you into disciplines that are needful but likely unfamiliar!

Basic business principles in marketing, communications, customer service, selling, and relationship management are undervalued in the art and design community. Disciplining yourself to learn and apply nest practices in each of these principles will yield wonderful results. Very, very few artisan entrepreneurs are able to transition from hobby to avocation to employing others. For you to be more successful, you must work on the business side of your brain, engaging more left brain convergent thinking.

Friends who have been successful in the arts community have told me that, not unlike big businesses, change is hard for an artist. The willingness to tinker with what you make, how you describe it, who you make it for, how you determine who will buy it, how you promote your wares, how you replicate success, and how to transition from sole proprietor to small business are all based on being able to hold your talent with an open palm. Objectively stepping back from your creations to seriously consider who may appreciate them will, by nature, cause you to think differently about what you are making, how you are making, and what it will take to sell enough to pay not just yourself but others.

Best wishes on your journey!

 

 

What Matrix Guides the Artisan Entrepreneur?

Recently, I read the story of a graduate student in her first arts entrepreneurship course. She recounts that the first assignment her class had to complete was to analyze The Matrix with a view towards entrepreneurship. The instructor wanted the students to analyze a.) four key components that converged, and b.) the value created as a result of the convergence. The four components were:

  1. factors within our control,
  2. ones outside our control,
  3. inspiration, and
  4. time.

MatrixUnderstand that the paradigm from which the class was operating had far less to do with the thought of a start-up business venture than the combination of behaviors, attributes, qualities, propensities, and actions requisite to think entrepreneurially. Prior to the assignment, the students had come to a place of agreement that key qualities of the mindset would likely include innovation, discipline, vision, and leadership.

In yesterday’s blog post, we studied the comparative mindset of artisan versus opportunist entrepreneurs. Clearly, the ability to recognize an opportunity is critical to either group to attain optimal revenues. In like manner, organizational skills with regards to people, tasks and ideas are important to possess or acquire. Planning, which is envisioned differently in the mind of some, is a discipline that helps the entrepreneur anticipate and become prepared. Thinking of both conventional and unconventional ways to fund the pursuit of the idea is also generally agreed to be important.

As you look at the paradigm, mindset, skills, and habits listed above, a system emerges. Yet, the system relies on the artisan entrepreneur’s ability to observe a competency model that is unlike any at work in corporate HR circles. This competency model values:

  • intellectual and personal entrepreneurial skills,
  • basic professional skills, and 
  • a general understanding of arts culture, policy, and management.

Students in the class mentioned above pursued their respective competency models through a series of exercises administered by the professor. They were encouraged to develop a vision, produce a comprehensive feasibility plan, write a series of process papers, and prepare “pitches” of their proposed ventures to mock audiences of various forms. The assignments became more challenging when the students found out that they had to work interdependently with one another for the work products. For the average participant, this was an unwelcome wrinkle, as most artisans enjoy their individualism. This is not unlike other types of entrepreneurs, but is a personality trait that we documented in the artisan versus opportunist dichotomy that becomes significant when you think about the components the students had to analyze in their Matrix project.

In order to address factors outside one’s control, there has to be a letting go that is ever so hard for an entrepreneur. Without admitting defeat, one must admit the need for help. Realizing that help may be needed forces the individual to think in terms of team development–not just development, but additional sub-processes like recruiting, training, nurturing, and vision casting. If you’ve had no prior experience doing these types of things, they can become your undoing in an enterprise.

The factors that appear to be within one’s control seem not to present a problem. Yet, as we think about these factors, we realize that we must be delusional to honestly think that, as complexity arrives on the scene in terms of additional team members, the external demands upon the enterprise, and the need to divest ourselves of tasks that don’t match out motivated ability, even the internal environment becomes dicey.

Inspiration seems to come naturally to the creative mind. Finding a way to balance newness and executing on prior thoughts is significant, because being able to do so can determine ultimate success versus floundering. Time is an asset that gets swallowed up despite out best intentions. As we build teams, boards, advisory experts, etc, we are able to free up time to focus on the truly important. 

Value has been created, but not without some proverbial “blood, sweat, and tears.” Please don’t be dismayed. You can do this–but you need to embrace a competency model that guides the members selected for your team to collectively represent the diversity you will need to pursue your vision!