Many people look at growing a business as a task of how to reach the largest audience and make the most sales as quickly as possible.  From my perspective, it takes time to grow a business and get a product or service out into the market.  You can start big with lots of capital, or you can grassroots your product to a small group and let it manifest from there.

If you have capital, and can spend it, go for it.  Venture capitalists and other investor types tend to introduce a lot of control and other issues if it’s something they take an interest in.  Grassroots is the way most of us will either make it or break it in the marketplace.

Back in 1995 when I started the mutual fund, I didn’t have a huge amount of capital or a vast array of clients with a ton of money.  In fact, when we started the fund we required $100,000 of seed money, according to SEC rules at that time.  Between my firm and my clients, we didn’t have enough to drop into a new fund.  What we did have was a history of financial planning and money management clients that trusted us, so 6 of us came together to seed the fund.

With a little bit of time, we added other clients that helped to build our assets via monthly investment programs set up through the University.  Usually this came in increments of $50 to $500 per month, and moved over small $5,000 and $10,000 amounts from other accounts as the trust grew.  We hit $2M the first year, then $5M the second.  This grassroots process lead to a fund that went to almost $700M in assets in 5 years, and took the firm to $1B in assets.  Now that was a one-step-at-a-time, true grassroots process.

Now I have focused my efforts on a new one.  We are launching a new product that helps companies with the process of gathering requirements for projects.  To do this, we have to expose a beta version of this product to companies that could potentially be core clientele, would find the product useful and most of all be interested in what we’re doing in order to provide us valuable feedback.  If they like it, they will share it.  

One way to take a grassroots approach to the next level is to attach it to another product or service that has already gone through it.  We have opened up our requirements gathering tool Sluice for users to integrate with Basecamp, which is a project management software tool.  After requirements gathering, project management is the next step, making this a mutually beneficial relationship.   Basecamp  has successfully grown to having  over 5 million users today.

I remember reading this blog post some time ago from Seth Godin where he said:

“Find ten people. Ten people who trust you/respect you/need you/listen to you…

Those ten people need what you have to sell, or want it. And if they love it, you win. If they love it, they’ll each find you ten more people (or a hundred or a thousand or, perhaps, just three). Repeat.”

One of the benefits of being an Entrepreneur and being in EO is that you get to hang out with interesting people that are creating new and better ways of doing things that make the world a better place. I am in Grand Cayman with internet guru Ridgely Goldsborough who is doing some super cutting edge stuff online.  Take a look as I pick his brain on the special sauce that makes it all work:

Last week I talked about how nature and group activities inspire creative thinking.  I also talked about my EO Forum’s zip line experience and how it builds a connection between people to help them know and understand each other on a higher level.  A lot of people seem to think these kinds of team building exercises are a waste of time and don’t help, but I disagree.  Although they may not always provide you the level of results you are seeking, I do think they help move you in that direction.  Bestselling author and business coach Marshall Goldsmith recently sent me a paper on how to do team building more effectively, without wasting time.

Marshall says that focused feedback and follow up are the keys to successful team building.  He has a 14 step process that alone is fairly simple to implement, but it’s the follow up that requires determination to make it successful.  I will share the first 7 steps below:

STEP ONE.  You ask two questions, the first being, “On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being best) how well are we doing in terms of working together as a team?”  The second question is “On the same scale, how well do we need to be doing in terms of working together as a team?”

STEP TWO.  Calculate your results to define the gap between where you are and where your team believes you should be.     

STEP THREE.  Now ask everyone on the team to write down 2 key behaviors, broad spectrum across the team, that they believe would help close the gap.  Record each person’s response on a flip chart. 

STEP FOUR. Eliminate the duplicates and prioritize the rest to determine the two most important behaviors that all team members will work to change.

STEP FIVE.  Next, the team will disperse into one-on-one groups, spending 5 minutes with each person on the team.  During the 5 minutes, they will each make a suggestion to the other of 2 personal behavioral changes that they think that person could make to help the team as a whole.

STEP SIX.  After everyone has met, each team member will pick two of their suggested areas for improvement and behavior change that seem the most important, and then they will share them with the rest of the team.

STEP SEVEN: Team members are encouraged to get 5 minute progress reports from all the other team members to show that they are making progress on their two behavior choices.  Suggestions may occur where behavior doesn’t match desired expectations.

The remaining steps are on the follow through and maintaining feedback that is useful to both the individual’s and the team’s progress.  You can find all of the steps in Coaching for Leadership:  How the World’s Greatest Coaches Help Leaders Learn.  It exhibits how this process will identify the gaps and give your group the needed direction in areas that need improvement.  With the monthly reviews, the feedback keeps the team focused on getting better, both individually and as a team.

We’re moving to a world (if not already there) where cold calling is not the order of the day. Nowadays, it is far more productive to ensure you rank high on search engines, the most popular being Google. With such cluttered lives, most of us have tunnel vision, only focusing on the things that we actively want to engage. If you’re anything like me, you never even see the commercials on TV because you DVR the things you want to see on TV (except live sporting events, ofcourse!)

Just as important, they are helping us to engage the potential clients that visit our website. They do this by helping you provide the most valuable information you can that will encourage visitors to want to provide you contact information, and want to engage in communication with you. In short, you can’t chase them. You have to allow them to find you easily, and then entice them with valuable content to want to communicate with you when they do find you.

This method is referred to as Inbound Marketing, and is the name of a book that I’ve been reading on and off since I heard the author, Brian Halligan, speak at the Fortune Growth Summit last April. Halligan and David Meerman Scott (whom I’ve referenced several times, and inspired me to begin a blog) have a joint book out called Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead.

Last week’s blog was on giving, and it is in this sprit that giving away knowledge such as ebooks, white papers and even free services, will help a lot of people, but also attract a few serious clients.

The social networking media’s like Facebook and Twitter are very valuable to this way of marketing. Check out this example of a way to use FB to help you target your customers. I researched ads for our company page on FB and did a search for Knoxville, radius of 50 miles, ages 25 and up, with the target word “software”. It rendered 180 matches that I could place an ad on their page. If they click the ad, I’m charged a small fee, but it allows me to put my valuable information in front of people that are most likely to be interested in what I have to offer….warm leads.

If I wanted to share my information with only IT Directors or CTO’s, this would be an easy way for me to find them, and sit my information right in front of hundreds of IT Directors and CTO’s every time they log into Facebook. In our business, it only takes a few clients to make a huge difference.

Is your marketing strategy making cold calls or is it engaging warm leads?                                                                                              

                   …..to be continued as we execute this new strategy.

I wrote a story that sat in my inbox for about 4 years before it was finally lost in the abyss, but I never forgot it.  The story was about that day 10 years ago, when I was on my way to the Hudson River Club on Vesey Street, right across the street from the World Trade Center.  I thought back then, given the time and insignificance relative to others caught inside the buildings, it was best not to share my story of why or what put me in the path of the terrorists. 

Being the 10^th year of remembrance of 9/11, I have decided to share my story, because to me it relates to freedom and the ability to create, which are key components to entrepreneurism. The WTC also represented commerce, successful business, capitalism and diversity. The mall below the WTC was the highest grossing mall in the country, seeing twice the revenue of the 2^nd highest grossing mall.

As you look at the revised landscape of NYC, you see a masterpiece, created by the hands of some of the greatest entrepreneurs in history…and that was what was being attacked.  This is also why the protection of this freedom, to build and create, is so imperative to the future of our country and this world.

That beautiful morning, I was on the upper Westside as I looked out on the park from my room at the Excelsior hotel.  I was headed out to meet a group of reporters at 9am to discuss my new, unique mutual fund called the iFund, in hopes of gaining some positive publicity.  It was about 8:30 when I came down to grab a cab.  15 minutes and a great deal of frustration later, I had a cab and was on my way.  Little did I know that 15 minutes spent aggravatingly trying to flag down a cab would be my saving grace.

The old town car hauled me down to the financial district, and at that time I wasn’t certain of my exact location.  We drove as I listened to the radio and someone describing a plane going into the tower.  I assumed it was just a small plane…maybe the pilot had a heart attack or something of that nature.  We continued to make our way to lower Manhattan and to the West Side Highway (the major road that runs lengthwise North/South through Manhattan), as another caller on the radio started yelling about another plane hitting a tower, which I couldn’t yet see due to all of the sky scrapers.  As we pulled out on to West Side, my eyes opened wide to the massive smoke and fire coming from the enormous hole in the side of the WTC.

We were the 2^nd car at the first barricade to be stopped on West Side, about 2 miles north of the WTC.  Leaning up to try and stare up into the buildings when the taxi driver asked what was going on.  I told him we were being attacked by terrorists.  Given the moment in time and my knowledge of economics and geopolitics, it seemed the only logical explanation.

As we sat there, I just stared.  I could hear the rescue people coming down the bike path, bypassing all the traffic.  As they slowed to wait for officers to remove some poles, something happened that remains one of my most significant memories.  I looked over at the guys on the fire trucks, and then looked up at the buildings, and back to them. I wondered, seeing the straight and serious looks on their faces, what they were thinking they were getting into.  Being some of the first on the scene, a few hours later I wondered how many of them were still with us.

I tried to continue on my path after police turned us back into the city. When the taxi driver said he would go no further I got out and tried to get on a subway, which was the same subway that goes under the WTC.  It had stopped operating.  I found another taxi that took me in a little further, but he reached a point that he would go no further as well, so I got out and started walking.

 I then came up on a corner that was a clear shot, straight into the hole on the WTC. I stared and then walked again thinking I needed a camera, so I bought one and went back to that corner. I unwrapped the camera, took one photo, and then looked away.  In that moment I heard a gasp sweep across the crowd of people around me, and looked up to see the building fall before my eyes.

As the shock began to wear off, my determination to get to my meeting had dissipated and I began what would be a 5 hour journey back to my hotel room where my girlfriend Robin awaited me.  All taxis, buses and subways had stopped, so everyone was on foot.

A lot happened between standing on that street corner and arriving back at my hotel.  I scrambled to communicate with family members and friends.  News kept coming in of massive attacks.  Even in a sea of people all trying to get out of lower Manhattan, I felt alone.  Some friends at Schwab office in Midtown let me rest my blistered feet for a while.  That evening Robin and I sat in Central park with other New Yorkers, all silent in deep contemplation, confusion and sadness.   Next was the dilemma of making my way back home, or going to Rochester to be with my family.

15 minutes trying to flag down a taxi prevented me from being at the foot of the WTC when the planes exploded into them.  Now we are rebuilding the site, creating a spot of remembrance so that we never forget our freedoms and the world of entrepreneurialism that fell under attack that day.  It is the entrepreneur that is rebuilding and creating a place for others to take risks and create new opportunities and jobs for fellow men.  Thank you and bless all of you still dealing with the loss from the attacks on our great country and the freedoms we stand for.

EO, YPO, WPO and CEO.