“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890), Dutch painter
Uneasy Does It, Part 2
2007
Uneasy Does It
2007
“I do everything I can to disrupt my comfort zone.” Brian Grazer, film producer
My first entrepreneurial venture started in the fall of 1983. I was 14 years old, had just made my high school’s freshman cheer squad, and I was asked by a “cheerleader mom” to coach her daughter for the following Spring’s tryouts. I had never considered cheering as a job opportunity before, and at the time, I was thinking about trying to hostess at the local Bennigan’s.
Was I good enough? Could I promise this woman’s 10-year old that she would have a real shot at making her elementary school squad? Could I put my own personal reputation on the line? My father said, “I know how you’re feeling. But if you want to be successful in life, you’ll have to get used to this feeling. This is risk. And if you ever want to take big steps in your career, you’ll have to get used to risk.”
Some things to consider before you decide to leave corporate life:
1. You feel a need to fulfill an ambition to create and develop something of your own.
2. You’ve been frustrated and limited over the years, feeling forced into a hierarchical structure.
3. You want to grow into a new area.
4. You can subsist without a steady income.
5. You have a sugar-daddy client.
6. You have a sturdy stomach and can take the terror of an un-ringing phone.
7. You can leave your current situation without burning bridges.
Little did I know at 14 that earning $50 bucks an hour for the private coaching of one little girl would turn into almost a hundred girls by the time I left for college. All of their mothers happily paying me upwards of $80 an hour and all of the daughters making their squads. I guess that leads me to end with…
8. You can handle controlling your own destiny and all the money that flows to those who take the risk.
Can Entrepreneurship be Taught?
2007
excerpts taken from BusinessWeek online article by Stacy Perman
“If I go into any social setting, people always wonder how can you teach entrepreneurship,” says Richard Goossen. Goossen, a lawyer, businessman, and academic, has founded startups, acted as strategic adviser to high-growth companies, written three books, and spoken extensively on the subject of entrepreneurship. So, he decided to explore the topic further.
He rounded up a group of entrepreneurship experts ranging from Peter Drucker (Businessweek.com, 11/28/05) to Rita Gunther McGrath to Karl Vesper. He culled their insights, broke them down, and published the results in his most recent book, Entrepreneurial Excellence: Profit From the Best Ideas of the Experts (Career Press; 2007). “My motivation was to talk to the top researchers and instructors in the world who teach something that a lot of people think can’t be taught,” he says.
Goossen came to the conclusion that while there are several elements that can be taught to enhance the knowledge and success of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship is something one can learn only by doing. “With law or accounting,you can teach a set of principles that a student can master to become a competent practitioner,” he says. “But teaching entrepreneurship is tough. In a class it’s hard to predict who will do well and who will not.”
As a result of his research, Goossen has come up with three entrepreneurial elements that can be taught:
1. General business knowledge—what he calls “the nuts and bolts of management principles and strategic thinking.”
2. General entrepreneurial principles. You can lean from what other people have done and where they made mistakes.
3. How to be alert to opportunities in certain fields in a general sense.
What can’t be taught, on the other hand, is what Goossen calls “venture specific opportunity principles.” By that he means the ability to understand and see specific niches in a market and recognize whether it will be successful or not. “You can’t teach someone how to know what will work and what won’t,” says Goossen. “You can’t even duplicate the set of dynamics of a past success.”
It seems to be an inate gift. Take it from the daughter of a 40-year career Texas Instruments dad and a 40-year career schoolteacher mom, I should know… the first entrepreneur in my family.
Problems or Opportunities?
2007
It’s all in how you look at it. A typical day… you start out fresh, energized and focused on what you want to accomplish. Then, you get the impromptu request from a staff member to speak with you. Next comes the sit-down with your company’s other leadership team members. Then, the irate customer, the broken shipment, and the failed computer system. In short, problems.
Why can’t the everything flow like it’s supposed to? Why can’t everyone just do their job and get along? Is your first response that your defense mechanisms go off with a “what the #@&! is wrong with you people?!!??” Or, do you welcome these scenarios as an opportunity to stretch yourself and shine?
Relax. Merriam-Webster defines “problem” as an inquiry for consideration. A problem is merely a question awaiting a solution. Tricky part is being able to handle yourself while answering it and most of us are not equipped with a proven problem solving process. Get one… fast.
The BRILLIANCE of DUMB Ideas
2007
It isn’t the Idea… It’s the Execution. Winning companies put together winning business systems around usually unoriginal ideas.
The hard work of marketing lies not in developing a ground-breaking, earth-shattering, jaw-dropping campaign, but in coordinating the efforts of R&D, manufacturing, finance, communications, and sales. Do this right the first time, and you’ve created a team that knows how to compete and win new business and new customers over and over again every time.
7 Secrets for Creating Creativity
2007
1. BAN BRAINSTORMING MEETINGS: Creativity is spontaneous. Formal meetings are a poor forum for creation. People choke because they show up for a limited time with a narrow agenda.
2. PRACTICE DA VINCI’S CODE: When your organization tackles a problem or a project, wipe the board clean of all asumptions and prior knowledge. “Tabula rasa.”
3. PLAY NICE WITH OTHERS: New technologies grow out of a process of tweaks and upgrades, with a variety of contributors adding their own nuts and bolts. Collective thinking doesn’t play well with prima donnas.
4. BURN THE CORPORATE POLICY MANUAL: To think freely, you have to act freely. A fanatical dedication to free speech unencumbered by top-down prohibitions causes unproductive behavior to melt away of its own accord.
5. RULE OUT “DEGREE-ITIS”: There is no hierarchy based on titles and the lowest member of team should received the same hearing as the Ph.D.
6. MASTER THE ART OF INTERDISCIPLINE: Big breakthroughs are often the result of people crossing disciplines. Rotate your specialists out of their specialties and promote generalists ahead of narrowly focused experts.
7. TRASH YOUR OUTLOOK CALENDAR: Okay… not literally (I wouldn’t have a brain anymore!!!) What I’m saying is to give up time-management techniques and devote each hour of every workday to whatever task or inspiration arises spontaneously. With all those meetings and infinitesimal tasks, don’t snuff out your creative sparks before they have a chance to fly!
Pardon Me, but "Your Competitive Edge is Becoming Dull"
2007
Keeping customers is one of the most effective and yet neglected ways to control marketing costs. There are always new and inspirational tactics for holding onto those customers you’ve spent so much to acquire.
1. Offer Personalized Picks and Services: We all know Amazon.com does this to perfection. So, let’s look instead at Netflix, the online movie rental service. The various tools available at Netflix enable you to pick movies that you want to watch and put them in the order you want to receive them.
2. Ask for Opinions: Both your satisfied and not-so-satisfied customers have lots of valuable information to share with you. Begin to regularly send surveys to customers who have returned items and find out why they did so. Offer a dollar incentive, such as $25 off the next purchase, to those customers who respond to the survey.
3. Research Before You React: Do you have any idea how much an individual customer is worth to you at the point when he or she is ripping your head off for a customer service issue? Even though I don’t have the world’s most integrated systems, I always train our customer service staff to check how much a customer has spent with us over the years (and how often) before making any kind of service decision. Yes, I’m stating the obvious no matter how un-PC it might be… some customers are more valuable than others.
4. Create a Client Portal: Service and software businesses are more and more frequently creating useful client portals in which customers gain access to exclusive information about the service, the industry or both. One approach is to enable customers to share information with one another in terms of experiences, tips and tricks. Create a place where they can blog to each other about you… Wow! What amazing feedback you’ll receive!
5. Reward Loyal Customers, Part 1: This may seem like a no-brainer, but how often have you seen ads or commercials for a service you already use wherein new customers are offered great deals while you just sit there feeling neglected because you’re paying more for the same product or service? This is maddening to existing customers. Your conundrum is figuring out how to lure in new customers with a good teaser rate without alienating your existing customer base. How about a reward program based on how long they’ve been a customer?
6. Reward Loyal Customers, Part 2: Another way to reward customers is with one of those ubiquitous “membership” cards or programs that accrue points or whatnot the more you spend with the company. In some cases these types of programs have revolutionized industries – for example, frequent flyer miles.
And, finally (and most importantly!)
7. Under Promise and Over Deliver: Give existing and prospective customers lower predictions of solutions/satisfaction rates/completed sales/etc. than is typical. Spell out that you are looking to manage their expectations by quoting figures that are lower than average in terms of solutions and goals met. Your clients and prospects will appreciate the candor and realize they’re not getting a typical “sales job” filled with a bunch of happy talk and bombast. It has the effect of increasing the comfort level and trust in the deal.
Corporate Coffee
2007
You think your business is stagnant… needs some new life… a shot in the arm. Does your company need some caffeine?
Below are some idea generators for best practices in the Marketing realm. No, I’m not suggesting a new promotion, advertisement, campaign, or gimick. Those are “tactics.” If you feel your company is dragging, what you need is some real thought leadership.
- Do you have a 3-5 year business plan?
- Are you running your business from that plan?
- Do you set objectives and reach them (accountability)?
- Do you manage your business from a “dashboard?”
- Do you know your non-financial, critical performance measures?
A “no” answer to any of these questions lead to:
- Errors that cause high turnover
- Errors that will directly reduce profitability
- Errors that will never let you raise your prices
- Errors that will cause you to lose customers