Tag Archives: talent

The Smarty Pants Entrepreneur

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Think about the most brilliant people you know. Do they own or run a company, or do they work for someone else? Chances are that they fall into both categories. For many years I have been trying to hire people who are smarter than am I. Fortunately I have succeeded several times and it certainly pays big dividends.

Across the business landscape you will find many employers who simply will not hire scary-smart people. You will hear a wide range of excuses – they are too high maintenance, they will stick around for a short period of time and then they will leave, and others in the organization will resent them. For the most part this is simply code for, “I feel threatened when I have to deal with someone smarter.” Politicians are the worst offenders. Many of them have egos that are so big that they always want to be the smartest people in the room. That is why we see so many blunders and missteps in our political and legislative process. If really smart people in much greater numbers were advising our elected officials, perhaps things might be better in the public arena.

In the entrepreneurial world we can see the result of not hiring the smartest people simply by looking at the politicians and their staffs. To begin with, we must avoid the ego trap that does not allow us to admit that there are people who have great ideas . . . maybe even better than ours! Once we get this out of the way it is a downhill run from there. The word gets around that we are looking for the best and brightest and they beat a path to our door. Right? Well, maybe, but there is more work to be done for this to happen.

First, we must truly value the opinions of others. I can tell you that I went through a period in my career where I would seek the input of others but was not convincing that I really wanted it. Rather than incorporate the suggestions of others, I simply went ahead and did things the way I wanted. I was not doing this intentionally – I just did not know how to take such input and do anything with it. Together with this problem was the fact that I was way too controlling in the decision-making process. So, not only was I not valuing the opinions of others, but I was also shutting them out when it came to deciding what to do.

Smart people want to take real responsibility. They want to be coached – not told what to do. They want to believe that they are valuable to an organization and not just another cog in the wheel. Smart people need to understand our vision for the future and what role they will play along the way. They need to be challenged. Woe be to the entrepreneur who allows smart people to become bored! Keep piling on the challenges at a manageable pace and do not stop. Above all, show gratitude on a regular basis, but do not hesitate to provide constructive criticism when necessary. Most of this advice applies for every member of the team, but it is especially critical for the high achievers.

When we get our ego out of the way, we open a world of possibilities in terms of hiring amazingly gifted talent. In so doing, we create organizations that are better able to compete and win at an extremely high level.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

The “Lucky” Entrepreneur

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How often have you encountered situations where you conclude that luck must have played a part in the outcome? Perhaps you barely escaped being involved in a horrific traffic accident. Or you walked into a meeting with a prospective customer with whom you’d never spoken and won a major account just by “being in the right place at the right time.” Is someone who seemingly sails through life without struggle just lucky? What about fate? Is our destination already mapped for us? Are some people pre-ordained to succeed and others to fail? Could it be that we use “luck” and “fate” as rationale for something we don’t understand or can’t explain?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and profess that I believe luck and fate are mostly myths. Since no one can prove or disprove this statement, I think I’m pretty safe. Notice I didn’t completely rule out either concept . . . because I can’t be totally certain. But I do think that how we live our lives has a lot to do with what we might otherwise perceive as luck or fate. While this may sound a bit New Age, stick with me on this.

I am totally committed to the notion that positive energy exists and when we live a positive life in every way possible, good things come to us. Does this mean that a positive lifestyle provides protection from bad things happening to us? I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible, but I prefer to look at . . . yes, the positive side of this. Here’s what I know for sure. When I’m thinking positive thoughts my heart rate is lower, my head is clearer and I’m more often “in the zone.” I’m much less resistive to new ideas and my creativity is off the charts.

Successful outcomes are a combination of many things. It helps to have talent, skill, intelligence, hard work, determination and perseverance. Everyone has talent. Unfortunately, many people don’t dig deeply enough to discover their true talent – but it’s there. Skill can be learned and developed. Almost everyone can learn and develop a skill. Intelligence is innate, but even those individuals with average or below-average IQs can be very successful by learning how to think. Yes, there are many who are allergic to hard work, but everyone has the opportunity to work hard. With the right mindset, anyone can possess enormous amounts of determination. And of course we all can persevere if we choose to be patient. Too often, people are willing to give up because they aren’t determined and patient enough. Are people who consistently enjoy high levels of success just lucky, or have they discovered their talent, honed their skill, learned how to think critically, worked hard, been doggedly determined and are supremely patient?

Who needs luck when we can wrap a cocoon of energy from a positive mindset around our talent, skill, intelligence, hard work, determination and perseverance? The universe works in amazing ways and perhaps we resist negativity and bad outcomes by living inside this cocoon? Suppose we’re competing for a contract and we lose. Some might say that our woo-woo positive approach didn’t work. But I choose to see it differently. Instead, I get very excited when I don’t win because it means that something better is in store for me. In the moment that may be hard to see. But I’ve experienced this concept countless times. There have actually been instances when I’ve later learned that what we “lost” would not necessarily have been right for us in the first place. I remember vying to acquire an apartment property in a small town but did not win the bid. A few months later the major employer in that town pulled up stakes and left – occupancy at the apartment property we had wanted to buy was devastated.

Luck and fate are abstractions that can allow us to rationalize our success or failure. Living the most positive lifestyle possible eliminates the need for carrying a rabbit’s foot or wearing a garlic necklace to ward off evil spirits.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

The Fearful Entrepreneur

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What are you afraid of? I don’t mind confessing that I have issues with claustrophobia. This manifests when I get inside an MRI machine. Even an open CT scanner gives me the heebie jeebies. My heart pounds in my chest and my blood pressure goes through the roof. I don’t know what happened in the past for me to develop this fear, but it’s a cross I bear. I’ll never forget the time I heard about a poor soul who was exploring a cave and got stuck deep inside – upside down – and no matter how hard they tried, rescuers could not get him out. Within days of that story, I found myself in an MRI machine for 45 minutes. It took every ounce of my fortitude not to completely freak out.

I don’t know of a single entrepreneur who doesn’t experience a fear of something. There is the fear of public speaking, fear of heights, fear of flying, fear of being in social settings, fear of spiders (and snakes), fear of death and a wide assortment of other phobias that we may experience at a personal level. And then there’s what I consider to be “entrepreneurial fears.” Let’s examine a few of them and their antidotes.

  1. Competition – “I’m afraid that the competition will overtake my company. I’m also fearful that someone is going to steal my business concept and crush us.” There’s a lot to unpack here. The forward-thinking entrepreneur will see competition as a healthy factor in his or her business life. If we have the right mindset, we can use competition to make us better. How? We do this by understanding exactly what our customers need and want and tool our product or service accordingly. We know that the competition is probably studying the customer in similar fashion – we just have to do it better!
  2. Ideas – “My ideas are no good. I’m afraid that I’m just not creative enough to win in this business.” No one knows our ideas better that do we. And it’s not so much about having fresh new ideas as it is our ability to iterate on those we already have – or that someone else has. Look at Facebook for example. Many students of the Facebook phenomenon point out that the company has rarely had a new idea. They simply steal ideas from other developers or companies and execute them better.
  3. Failure – “I’m afraid to fail and I’m afraid of what others will think of me if I fail.” This is one of the most common entrepreneurial fears that I’ve heard during my career. Unfortunately, this fear reflects a misunderstanding about what failure is. Too many entrepreneurs confuse “failure” with “defeat.” Failure is simply an unfinished experiment in the laboratory of life. It’s part of a process that we undertake to achieve success. Success is built on failure. Without some failure along the way, how do we really know that we have succeeded in optimal fashion?
  4. Money – “I’m afraid that my money is going to run out before I succeed.” There are entrepreneurial stories abound where the founder was down to a triple digit bank balance and somehow pulled a rabbit out of a hat and turned things around. I also know that there are many more stories of businesses that folded when the cash spigot turned off. In the entrepreneurial world we learn how to improvise. We learn how to stretch a buck. We barter and trade. Better yet, we always have a Plan B in our hip pocket . . . just in case. Having a little bit of the “cash-strapped” fear is actually a healthy thing as long as we use it in a positive way to maintain focus on scaling our enterprise.
  5. Talent – “I’m afraid a competitor is going to steal my best people; or my best people are going to walk across the street and start their own company.” Here’s the thing. If we provide the best value for our team, they’ll stick around which is the same philosophy we adopt with our customers. Sure, employees want to be fairly compensated, but loyalty goes beyond pay and benefits. Developing a dynamic culture goes a long way toward talent retention. So does making people feel that they and the contribution they make are genuinely valued. In the companies with which I’m involved, we don’t lock up our team members with long-term contracts or non-compete agreements. Instead, it’s incumbent upon us as leaders to show our team every single day how they are in the right place with our firm.

Being afraid can either be paralyzing or motivating. Smart entrepreneurs overcome fear to propel themselves to great success.

You can also listen to a weekly audio podcast of my blog. What you hear will be different than what you read in this blog. Subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also click on this link – Click here to listen to Audio Episode 129 – The NPS and You.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

Little Steps to Sweet Success

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A friend of mine has a company he started several years ago and he’s on an unbelievable roll. If he’s not there already it won’t be long before his top line revenues exceed nine figures. When I first met him his business was grossing nearly $10 million. Not only has he seen a gigantic increase in his sales, but his profitability is off the charts. I fully expect to read about him in Forbes one of these days. How has he done it?

My friend is not a particularly flashy guy. He didn’t design fancy strategies or engage in crazy risks. Instead, he concentrated on taking little steps. You or I might see them individually as pretty mundane. But when viewed collectively these small steps have become giant leaps, propelling his organization to dizzying heights. What have I learned over the years about how my friend has built such a successful company?

In the early days my friend was the classic bootstrapper. He literally did everything. He and one key associate were the “executive” level management. They paid attention to the little details and obsessed over their customers. I remember urging my friend to spend more time working “on” his business than “in” it. Over time he took this to heart and began to be more strategic. But initially he was the chief cook and bottle washer as well as the CEO.

Also in the beginning, this man was allergic to debt. He re-invested his profits and made sacrifices to get through the leaner times. I suggested that he procure a line of credit to which he responded, “Why? I don’t need it.” I explained that at some point in the future he would need a lending relationship with a bank and that he should establish it sooner rather than later. He could borrow against it and then pay it right back if that would make him feel better. Ultimately he did obtain a line of credit and it was eventually quite helpful in accelerating his growth.

My friend was very particular about the business he would take. There were opportunities abound, but he showed great discipline in staying in his lane. He did not set out to be the biggest company in his industry, nor did he care if he developed a national footprint. By only taking assignments that he knew he could handle, he avoided the pitfalls that many entrepreneurs have made (including yours truly) by gobbling up every piece of business they could. At first I thought he might have an affliction of limited thinking. But I was wrong. Though it wasn’t articulated, it was obvious that he had a winning formula that was taking shape as a result of his intuition.

Over time, my friend learned how to scale his company. He gradually created the infrastructure necessary to meet the needs of more and more customers. Today he hires more than 50,000 people a year to staff the industrial operations of his customers. He attributes his continued growth to his ability to identify and value talent. The “value” part is especially intriguing. He genuinely cares about the team he has assembled. It would be easy to view 50,000 workers as a commodity. But he doesn’t. My friend goes to great lengths to make certain that everyone is treated fairly and with respect.

Above all, he’s played it straight as long as I’ve known him. He makes certain that he only hires team members who are legal and I’ve never seen him cut corners. Over many breakfast meetings and other encounters, I’ve observed this man to be grounded in principle and integrity. We’ve all heard about high-flying businesses that came crashing down when it was revealed that they had been involved in some form of cheating. My friend is Mr. Straight Arrow and has marched to that tune from Day One.

Overall, I think I can ascribe his level of success to his ability to execute. Some leaders are born to perform – my friend seems to do so effortlessly. I’m sure he’s stubbed his toe along the way. But I’m not aware that he’s made any major mistakes that would have jeopardized his future. I can’t say that he was studious about creating strategic plans and organizational charts or subscribed to the Harvard Business Review. Maybe he did. My guess is that he simply exercised a great deal of common sense and had an amazingly deep understanding of his industry.

My friend is a living example of how taking little steps can lead to sweet success. What he has done can be instructive for the rest of us as we grow and flourish as entrepreneurs.

You can also listen to a weekly audio podcast of my blog. What you hear will be different than what you read in this blog. Subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also click on this link – Click here to listen to Audio Episode 79 – The Disneyland Story.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

Cocoons and Garlic Necklaces

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How often have you encountered situations where you conclude that luck must have played a part in the outcome? Perhaps you barely escaped being involved in a horrific traffic accident. Or you walked into a meeting with a prospective customer with whom you’d never spoken and won a major account just by “being in the right place at the right time.” Is someone who seemingly sails through life without struggle just lucky? What about fate? Is our destination already mapped for us? Are some people pre-ordained to succeed and others to fail? Could it be that we use “luck” and “fate” as rationale for something we don’t understand or can’t explain?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and profess that I believe luck and fate are mostly myths. Since no one can prove or disprove this statement, I think I’m pretty safe. Notice I didn’t completely rule out either concept . . . because I can’t be totally certain. But I do think that how we live our lives has a lot to do with what we might otherwise perceive as luck or fate. While this may sound a bit New Age, stick with me on this.

I am totally committed to the notion that positive energy exists and when we live a positive life in every way possible, good things come to us. Does this mean that a positive lifestyle provides protection from bad things happening to us? I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible but I prefer to look at . . . yes, the positive side of this. Here’s what I know for sure. When I’m thinking positive thoughts my heart rate is lower, my head is clearer and I’m more often “in the zone.” I’m much less resistive to new ideas and my creativity is off the charts.

Successful outcomes are a combination of many things. It helps to have talent, skill, intelligence, hard work, determination and perseverance. Everyone has talent. Unfortunately many people don’t dig deeply enough to discover their true talent – but it’s there. Skill can be learned and developed. Almost everyone can learn and develop a skill. Intelligence is innate, but even those individuals with average or below-average IQs can be very successful by learning how to think. Yes, there are many who are allergic to hard work, but everyone has the opportunity to work hard. With the right mindset, anyone can possess enormous amounts of determination. And of course we all can persevere if we choose to be patient. Too often, people are willing to give up because they aren’t determined and patient enough. Are people who consistently enjoy high levels of success just lucky, or have they discovered their talent, honed their skill, learned how to think critically, worked hard, been doggedly determined and are supremely patient?

Who needs luck when we can wrap a cocoon of energy from a positive mindset around our talent, skill, intelligence, hard work, determination and perseverance? The universe works in amazing ways and perhaps we resist negativity and bad outcomes by living inside this cocoon? Suppose we’re competing for a contract and we lose. Some might say that our woo-woo positive approach didn’t work. But I choose to see it differently. Instead, I get very excited when I don’t win because it means that something better is in store for me. In the moment that may be hard to see. But I’ve experienced this concept countless times. There have actually been instances when I’ve later learned that what we “lost” would not necessarily have been right for us in the first place. I remember vying to acquire an apartment property in a small town but did not win the bid. A few months later the major employer in that town pulled up stakes and left – occupancy at the apartment property we had wanted to buy was devastated.

Luck and fate are abstractions that can allow us to rationalize our success or failure. Living the most positive lifestyle possible eliminates the need for carrying a rabbit’s foot or wearing a garlic necklace to ward off evil spirits.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

garlic necklace