As an entrepreneur, you are never very far from your business.  No matter where you are or what you’re doing, it’s always with you, slipping into your consciousness.  You might be in the shower, lounging on the deck, on an airplane with everyone around you snoozing or out on the lake….your mind will still be spinning on the latest issue or the next big opportunity.  When you’re passionate about what you do, you have an advantage because you’re energized and motivated to give it the extra thought that helps keep you ahead of the game.

This weekend I spent time out on the lake with a few fellow entrepreneurs and some young up and coming entrepreneurs.   It was only natural in this environment for conversations to take place around what drives a successful business and person.

We gathered on a long time friend and fellow entrepreneur’s boat, Scott Brown.  Scott is a very successful chiropractor, due primarily to the fact that he broke his back when he was young and was told by the doctors that he would never again be able to do all of the physical activities in life that he loves so much.  He went to see a chiropractor and it changed his life, so he decided to go to school and become one himself.  From there he started his own practice, and he did so with a passion.

My son Tony’s friend Steven was another entrepreneur that joined us.  He is in the business of putting breathalyzer devices in cars that are occasionally ordered by the courts.  He’s facing issues in some states due to laws that have yet to be passed, which led Scott and I to discussing with him how it takes passion to push a business through the tough times and excel to higher levels.  We asked Steven, “Are you passionate about your business?”

Steven said he was passionate about boats, and was thoroughly enjoying the 60 foot one he was on.   Steven might very well find success without finding passion in his business, but he’ll not likely reach the level that he could unless he can find a way to connect to it and build passion around it. 

Scott suggested finding something in his past or through a friend where an effect of drunk driving could invoke some emotion.  Another option could be to talk with members of MADD (mothers against drunk driving), and connect with moms who’ve lost kids to drunk driving.  Having options like these to dig in and pull out the things that can fire up a passion help people to develop a conviction that supersedes money alone.  If this doesn’t work, experience tells me to move to where the passion is.

I have met a lot of people who are in that position of having a job serves only the purpose of providing a paycheck.  You can see the lack of enthusiasm and dread in their time at work.  I went after what I loved, starting as a young boy, which was to have my own business and the freedom to create value for others, letting the money follow.

Are you passionate about what you do?  If you’re not, are you doing anything to get there?  We deserve to be happy, and we are when we live our passion.

Business is a constant battle against competitors, trying to keep customers happy and on your side…or so it seems.  For most of us, in whatever space we’re trying to fill, we continuously add to our offer, making the deal sweeter and sweeter.  We do this in an effort to stay ahead of the competition so the customers don’t run off to the next guy.  BUT…should that always be the case?  What if we were to take something away that they expect?  Would they still come running, or possibly even more than they did before?

You’ve seen this happen, but probably didn’t notice it or recognize it as a business/marketing strategy.  One of the speakers at Verne Harnish’s Fortune Growth Summit coming up in October is going to be Youngme Moon.  I decided to read her book Different after Verne gave her such high praise at the last summit.  The book really puts this marketing strategy in perspective.

To set the stage, think about the early days of the internet when search engines like Yahoo!, AltaVista and AOL came about.  The search pages were covered with more options, more content…just busy all around.  Then a new search engine came along, and all you saw when you went to the homepage was their name and a search bar.  I remember my old investment firm business partner Robert yelling down the hall “Hey everyone! Check out this really cool Google page!”  My response…”What the heck is a google?!?”    These days, who doesn’t know what Google is?

Moon’s book also talks about IKEA, which was one of her most popular case studies on how companies normally wrap things in a positive.  IKEA, on the other hand, uses a set of negatives such as having to drive to the warehouse, having to walk around and locate what you want, which are limited in choice, long checkout lines, and then assembling it yourself.  How could they possibly be so successful?

Moon calls them a reverse brand, and say that “This is what reverse brands do:  they eliminate, but they also elevate.  They strip things down even as they sweeten things up.  The result is a fusion of the basic with the sublime, a fusion that may seem strange, unfamiliar or even disconcerting at first encounrter – but is nothing if not distinctive.”

When she brought up the topic of our country going through a period when big “phat” buffet’s were popping up one after another, each restaurant trying to outdo the next with their massive offering of tasty food, it gave me an idea.  What if someone opened a restaurant around the concept of not overeating?!  Don’t you hate the overstuffed feeling when you leave the restaurant that resulted from your eyes being bigger than your stomach?  The brand promise could be something like “Guaranteed to walk away without that overstuffed feeling!”  Talk about a reverse brand!  If you like the idea, please feel free to use it.  I would certainly eat there!

Is there anything that you could eliminate or strip down that would brighten up your offering?

Check out this video on Moon’s book Different:

As a follow up to last week’s blog on disruptive technology, I wanted to talk about ways of getting around the mentality that causes successful firms to be blindsided.  (On a side note, I just watched the movie The Blind Side again and it’s a great analogy to what can happen in business).  Blockbuster’s blind side tackle was being a step off and letting Netflix sack them.

So what is it we need to be looking out for so this doesn’t happen to us?  There are companies going under every day who appear to have done all the right things.

To begin with, you need to understand that there is a difference between sustaining technological change and disruptive change.  In sustaining change, the existing companies continue to invest and improve their products and it’s hard for new companies to break through to these leaders. Disruptive changes come from new entrants that use disruptive technology to find new markets that can sustain growth.  The existing companies may have thought this disruptive technology was “cool” but their customers didn’t want it at that moment, so someone else came along and ran with it.

This is the type of technological change you want to protect your blindside againt: the “cool” stuff that you can see being viable, but disregarding for the time being because the bulk of your clientele isn’t interested.

According to Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, there are 4 things managers can do to deal with disruptive technology:

First, proper resource allocation is essential.  Determining which projects get money and which don’t can be grueling.  The projects that do receive resources have a solid chance of succeeding, while the ones that don’t will likely fail, and this is where disruptive technology sneaks in.  If you don’t allocate resources to some kind of R&D, the cool stuff might come back to bite you.

Second, it is best to have organizations prepared to handle disruptive technology.  You can set them up on a smaller scale and match them up to the markets and customers that need them.  By keeping it small, flexible and exploratory, they can appreciate the small wins and not get hung up on huge profits right away.

Third, failures are a given in new markets since they lack any significant history to research, so be prepared.  Seasoned managers will generally avoid this scenario, so seek out the entrepreneurial types to lead these organizations.  They will have the drive to explore and fail, just be sure to give them the freedom to do so.

Fourth, and last…locate new markets that will appreciate the disruptive technology that your primary customer base doesn’t welcome.  Start out small, then grow those markets and see where they take you. Over time they could mature to a point that your primary customer base might begin to find them useful.

Are you prepared to protect your blind side so you don’t get sacked?

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.”

Are you creating the world that you want to live in, or is the world you live in creating you? Is your life what you want it to be, or one you plan to change…someday? If there were a proven method to create the life you want to live, would you use it? What if I said that there is one, and I’ve used it, and it’s changed my life?

Back in the early 90’s I read the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I know it has one of those names that sounds too cliché to believe there is actually a powerful message found inside. It was written in the early part of the 1900”s, after Hill interviewed all the successful men of the day like Ford, Edison, Rockefeller and even a few presidents over the previous few decades.

Hill says “There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it. No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it”. So how do you get to that level of belief? You do it by creating a reality statement. Then you repeat that reality statement aloud, to yourself, with passion. You work your subconscious into believing in the world you want to create. This passionate belief helps to attract the people and resources that you need to bring it into existence.

John Assaraf, in the book The Answer, says “that thought creates everything” and “Your thoughts not only matter, they create matter. Your thoughts are where your business comes from”. His book is more recent and gives the detailed explanation that Hill did not get into of how the brain works and how recent science can explain this phenomenon. Assaraf discusses how making a reality statement can allow your desires to manifest.

When I started working with my life coach, Steve D’Annunzio, about 10 years ago he helped me create a reality statement. I’ve had many over the years and they all have helped me create the reality that I wanted to live in.

In the next blog, I will share the necessary ingredients to making your own reality statement.

Did you know that if you have 2 piano’s in the same room, and you play a note on one piano, it will cause that same note to vibrate on the other piano without ever touching it?

You can create that same kind of vibration in your life, where you radiate a belief that attracts like-minded people. These people can help you manifest the kind of life that you want to live. This is a follow up to my last blog on reality statements, so if you didn’t read it, check it out here.

1 Brainstorm all the positive things you want in your life. The job, career or business you want to have, the relationship you want to have, the income, the net worth, what you want to give, and any material things or spiritual accomplishments.

2Write out your statements in a clear phrase, present tense (very important) and creating a vivid picture of the world you are creating. It isn’t good to use the word “want”, because that leaves you in a state of wanting something, rather than having it.  Instead, say “I will make a million dollars this year” or “I am giving a million a year to help parentless kids in India”.  Also, adding descriptive details helps you to paint a picture that sinks into your subconcious mind quicker by engaging your emotions.

3Practice autosuggestion and say the statement out loud 3 times a day with passion and emotion. Create the emotion by remembering a time that was a highly positive, emotional moment in your life and relive that moment while saying your statement. This creates the magnetic force that is the attractor.

4This should be done every day for at least 60 days to sink into your conscious mind. Saying it more often is good, and it can also be said in your head instead of out loud.

In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill says on planting a seed in your mind “any idea, plan or purpose may be placed in the mind through repletion of thought. This is why you are asked to write out a statement of your major purpose, or definite chief aim, commit it to memory, and repeat it, in audible words, day after day, until these vibrations of sound have reached your subconscious mind”.

For a much deeper explanation of how to create your reality statement read The Answer or The Prosperity Paradigm.

By having the belief and faith around what you want your life to be….you can create it by feeding your subconscious mind the right messages that will set in motion decisions and actions along with attracting to you the resources you need.  Most importantly, it will help us get past our biggest obstacle, ourselves!

I just got back from a conference for EO Injected Forums in Sonoma, CA where I had a great time with my Forum mates sharing and learning together. It struck me that I talk about Forum lot in my blog, but not everyone has had the opportunity to be in a forum or even understand what a Forum is, so let me tell you about the Forum experience.

My EO Injected Forum biking through wineries in Sonoma, CA

I am in two Forums. One is a local EO Forum that I have been in since 99, which meets monthly. The other is a regional Forum made up of EO members from the South East who have been in EO for more than 7 years, and meets quarterly.

A Forum consists of anywhere between 6 and 12 people, usually staying in the 8-10 range. The purpose of Forum is to create an environment that is trusting and confidential, allowing a high level of sharing to take place. Members usually discuss issues they’re experiencing, both personal and professional. The issues are presented and discussed in a very organized fashion. Time is allotted for an issue to be presented, followed by a period for questions, then ending with experience sharing by other members. The experience sharing is the most important part of Forum, as the key to helping someone comes from sharing what you have experienced, and letting them know what worked and what didn’t work.

My East TN Forum Retreat in Atlanta, GA

Experience sharing should not be confused with giving advice. There are 2 important reasons why this time is called experience sharing: (1) people don’t like to be told what to do, and by sharing your experience they are more likely to take that information and figure out how to apply it to their own situation, (2) if you take someone’s advice on something and it doesn’t work out, it’s too easy to blame that person who advised you, thereby breaking the trust and respect between the members. I have found that this practice is better for all relationships, and wish I could do it all the time.

Confidentiality and trust are key in Forum, because without them, the level of sharing is not at its highest. Having the right Forum can be life changing and can allow for growth beyond comprehension in all areas of your life. It has done that for me, and sharing with all my EO friends around the world has given me perspective that has helped, changed and allowed me to grow in both small and large ways.

If you have been in a Fraternity or Sorority, you probably have experienced the closeness of a group of people similar to Forum. We take a yearly retreat to bond, get to know each other and to build trust. It has been said that you will talk about 95% of your life to most people. Forum is where you talk about the other 5%.

If you want to know how to set up a forum, how they’re run, and all the details, read Forum: The Secret Advantage of Successful Leaders by long time forum trainer Mo Fathelbab.

Having been in business for a while I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what motivates people and what I can be doing to help increase their motivation. I wonder how they get excited about what they do or what outside forces motivate them to want to do more. I have seen the Carrot and Stick work, and I have seen when it did not push people to do better. This made me wonder if it was the people, the culture or other factors that didn’t follow the traditional Carrot and Stick model.

I’ve read some of Daniel Pink’s work in the past, but when he wrote Drive I was excited to see what he had to say about motivation and what drives people to want to do better.

The research says that what worked before is what he is calling Motivation 2.0, and is relevant in an industrial world of parts and pieces. This model isn’t so relevant in the newer Motivation 3.0, where knowledge and creativity are the output you are trying to motivate.

Pink says that these 3 elements are necessary for Motivation 3.0: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

When you have Autonomy, you have freedom in the task at hand, freedom in the time required to complete the task, and freedom within the team working together on that task.

When you have Mastery, people are in “flow” with the work they are doing. They do it with engagement, aspiring to a level of mastery, but knowing that it is hard work and will always be short of fully reachable.

When you have Purpose, there is a cause that is bigger than the individual; it allows the extra effort to be pulled out of people that goes beyond the effort for just a paycheck.

Check out this really cool video that really helps to understand these key points to Motivation 3.0: If you are a creative and knowledge based company, have you noticed issues around motivation? Could the incorporation of more autonomy, mastery, and purpose in your company help?

I just got back from a conference for EO Injected Forums in Sonoma, CA where I had a great time with my Forum mates sharing and learning together. It struck me that I talk about Forum lot in my blog, but not everyone has had the opportunity to be in a forum or even understand what a Forum is, so let me tell you about the Forum experience.

My EO Injected Forum biking through wineries in Sonoma, CA

I am in two Forums. One is a local EO Forum that I have been in since 99, which meets monthly. The other is a regional Forum made up of EO members from the South East who have been in EO for more than 7 years, and meets quarterly. 

A Forum consists of anywhere between 6 and 12 people, usually staying in the 8-10 range. The purpose of Forum is to create an environment that is trusting and confidential, allowing a high level of sharing to take place. Members usually discuss issues they’re experiencing, both personal and professional. The issues are presented and discussed in a very organized fashion. Time is allotted for an issue to be presented, followed by a period for questions, then ending with experience sharing by other members. The experience sharing is the most important part of Forum, as the key to helping someone comes from sharing what you have experienced, and letting them know what worked and what didn’t work.

My East TN Forum Retreat in Atlanta, GA

Experience sharing should not be confused with giving advice. There are 2 important reasons why this time is called experience sharing: (1) people don’t like to be told what to do, and by sharing your experience they are more likely to take that information and figure out how to apply it to their own situation, (2) if you take someone’s advice on something and it doesn’t work out, it’s too easy to blame that person who advised you, thereby breaking the trust and respect between the members. I have found that this practice is better for all relationships, and wish I could do it all the time.

Confidentiality and trust are key in Forum, because without them, the level of sharing is not at its highest. Having the right Forum can be life changing and can allow for growth beyond comprehension in all areas of your life. It has done that for me, and sharing with all my EO friends around the world has given me perspective that has helped, changed and allowed me to grow in both small and large ways.

If you have been in a Fraternity or Sorority, you probably have experienced the closeness of a group of people similar to Forum. We take a yearly retreat to bond, get to know each other and to build trust. It has been said that you will talk about 95% of your life to most people. Forum is where you talk about the other 5%.

If you want to know how to set up a forum, how they’re run, and all the details, read Forum: The Secret Advantage of Successful Leaders by long time forum trainer Mo Fathelbab.

Our nation is struggling to create jobs.  You’ve likely heard that regulations have limited businesses’ capital, making it difficult for them to hire or expand.  Have you wondered what types of changes to these regulations would help this economy create more jobs?  Let’s discuss a few key changes that have worked in the past to encourage companies to grow and hire more people.

Many regulations create a big problem for the economy.  Which regulations and policies are stopping us from creating the jobs that we are missing?  Amity Shlaes writes an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, Three Policies That Gave Us the Jobs Economy.” 

The first game changer implemented a venture capital investment increase from $39 million in 1977 to $570  million in 1978, an increase of 15 times!  What policy changed?  They cut the capital gains tax rate from 49% to 25%.  In the 1960s, the rate had been raised.  What happened then?  As Amity says, “The mid-1970s were a dead period.”   The decrease in the capital gains tax rate generated investments and growth in businesses, which actually brought in more tax revenue for the government.  

The second big policy change adjusted the ERISA law, which regulated pension and retirement plans.  In 1974, they instituted the prudent man rule, which said that pension plans would be violating their fiduciary responsibility if they invested in risky startup companies like Apple at that time.  They relaxed these regulations in the late 1970s, and as a result, more money was invested in small, younger start-up companies that create most of the jobs, as I discussed in an earlier blog post. 

The third major policy change centered around intellectual property rights and clarified how ideas in universities and research departments could be sold or used for commercial benefit.  Subsequently, so many great ideas surfaced after having been pushed aside on a desk or stuffed into a file cabinet simply because, until that moment, no one had the incentive to go out and reap the benefits.

The lessons here are plentiful!  We need to continue to lower the cost of capital transactions and capital gains.  When we take from the people with capital, we always get slow growth or dead periods, not more jobs or government revenue.  Amity suggests the major regulations of today include Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley.  We need to change these policies and reduce the burdens they place on businesses. 

Most entrepreneurs understand this instinctively, but we need to share this data with others.  Shout it out loud and clear to the policy makers because this information is vital if their real agenda is to create jobs and improve the economy and not just to maintain power.