Tag Archives: EO



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  • How Many Clicks to Financial Freedom?

    Back in mid May I attended the Fortune Leadership Summit.  A fellow EO member named Marc Ostrofsky also attended the event, and although he was not a scheduled speaker, he did take a few minutes to speak to all of us.

    Marc has a successful background in entrepreneurial start-ups, with his current portfolio of online businesses generating over 75 million a year.  When he got on stage, he talked about making money online and the vast opportunities available.  One story that he told literally made my jaw drop.

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  • 4 Ways to Know (and Live) Your Purpose

    For various business reasons, I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately. I’ve visited many cities, attended several events, and had the pleasure of learning from a variety of well known speakers. Recently I’ve heard from the likes of Tony Hsieh (Zappos), John Assaraf (from the movie The Secret, and author of The Answer), Guy Kawasaki (Apple), Sir Richard Branson (Virgin) and even George W. Bush (need I elaborate?). All of their messages were very educational and insightful, but there is one in particular I want to share with you.

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  • How do you prevent a bad hire?

    What is the most important duty of a CEO?  Bob Prosen, author of Kiss Theory Good Bye, says “Hiring people smarter than I am and putting them in the right positions!!!!” I have to agree, but creating roles and filling them with people who can play to their strengths in those positions isn’t an easy task.

    Last week I did a presentation to my EO chapter on my company’s hiring process, which is built around the Topgrading methodology. It’s hard to express how important this is to us, because we put so much time and effort into taking what we’ve learned from books, speakers, and even bad hires to create something that really works for us. Our process is 13 steps, and has shown us a high success rate of getting the right people in the right places, in turn saving us money. For example, research shows that if you hire someone at 6 figures, and they turn out to be a bad hire (within what amount of time? A year? 6 months?) it can cost you as much as 1.5M in lost productivity and opportunity cost.

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  • How much pain do you show?

    Does your marketing material talk about you? Does it emphasize what you offer, why you are so great, and what sets you apart from competition? Do you notice a trend here? It’s all about YOU. I know our website is all about us. I also know that, if we want to truly relate to our clients, then it can’t be all about you. Why? Because as impolite as it might sound….potential clients don’t care about you! They care about themselves, their pains, and how to fix them.

    Are you going to be the one that helps them? Probably not, unless you can show them that you understand their pains and you know how to fix them. Can you really define the pain that your clients experience when they seek you out, and talk about it as if you’ve been in their shoes? Can you talk to them about what would alleviate those pains, without it being a sales pitch? When you are seeking a product or service and you’re browsing the web, aren’t you more inclined to stop and read about something you can identify with? Something that relates to you and your experiences…

    I’d heard similar theories time and time again, but didn’t take it into account when we designed and wrote the content for our website. Had I read Reality Marketing Revolution just a few short years ago, it may have been a different story. We’re now in the process of revamping our website, based off what we’ve learned from this intuitive book written by Michael Lieberman and Eric Keiles (a fellow EO Member). These guys put this into a process for approaching your marketing plan that resonated with me. It’s clear, it makes sense, and it’s obvious. We know the pains our clients’ experience, and we know how to help them. Now Eric is going to help us demonstrate that in a better way.

  • Cut From the Same Cloth

    26 take offs and landings took my business partner April and me to the other side of the world and back for 3 weeks of cultural diversity, hard work, and once in a lifetime opportunities. What I brought back was a new perspective on people, life and business.

    The focus of our trip was Saudi Arabia and India. This wasn’t my first trip to India, but this trip afforded me the experience of learning about the history and culture of both countries, to interact with their entrepreneurs on a personal level, and left me feeling connected in a way I hadn’t experienced before.

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  • When there’s more than one right answer…

    Dewitt Jones tells an exceptional story. He does it with a passion and purpose that he has put into his life as a National Geographic photographer. The title of his talk, Extraordinary Vision, was truly extraordinary. He shares the stories behind these fantastic photographs that make them real and meaningful in a way that sticks with you. I was fortunate enough to see him at both the EO Arizona University and the EO Canada Regional, and was captivated both times. Many people said they felt teary eyed listening to his presentation.

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  • EO Adventures in Canada

    I attended the EO Canada regional conference in Ottawa Canada last week. It was exciting seeing my EO friends and I enjoyed the opportunity to learn from the speakers. It was a busy 3 days with lots of learning and amazing off site events.

    Ottawa is the capital of the Province of Canada like DC is to the US. Ottawa is Canada’s fourth largest city and is also where their parliament resides. We took a tour of the different chambers that make up the parliament. It was interesting as well as educational to learn the similarities and differences between Canada and the US.

    The highlight of my trip was traveling by train along the river heading north of Ottawa to a small town called Wakefield. The 90 minute journey gave way to some amazing scenery and provided invaluable time to just sit and talk with fellow EO members.

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  • So Why Read My Blog?

    I was born an entrepreneurial spirit, an inherent desire to create opportunities and realize them. My journey has led me around the world, given me the opportunity to learn from some remarkable people, and experience leadership on a whole new level.

    In my life I have gone from pumping gas, delivering newspapers, and making clown shoes to creating a mutual fund from scratch that helped carry my firm to $1Billion in assets. I then created the first mutual fund in the world run solely by its shareholders. I have seen my ideas and investments flounder, and I have also seen them thrive. I have felt stupid and genius at the same time, and discovered the world of Dyslexia. I have identified the difference between my strengths and my weaknesses, and learned to use them to my advantage. I have found a world of people who share my entrepreneurial spirit within the Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), and with them I have been everywhere from the Pentagon to the Playboy Mansion.

    Today I run a custom software development company called Efficience, with offices in both the United States and India (Effindi). My team and I have realized success and failure, and from that have developed an effective form of execution that we call FlockGPS.

    I know that I did not get here alone, and I feel that my path to success is ongoing. My point is this: I got here from what I learned from other people, and it’s only fair that I pass along my awareness and experiences. Our economy suffers right now. We are the only ones who can fix it. I want to succeed, and I want to see Entrepreneurs around the world succeed, as well. We are the ones providing the innovation and job growth in our economies.

    I was told a long time ago that if you really want to know something, you teach it. So if sharing this blog exposes you to ideas that will help you grow your business and inspire the entrepreneur inside of you, then I think they refer to that as a win-win.

  • Freedom to Create, Share and Grow

    More and more we hear the term Entrepreneur in the media and from politicians these days. They are saying that Entrepreneurs are the primary creators of jobs in the economy, and I agree completely. But what is it that these Entrepreneurs are doing different? What is an entrepreneur made of and what really describes one?

    Growing up I was always looking for opportunities, and I thought it was just because I wanted to be successful and make money. I didn’t realize until later in life that what I was really seeking was more than just money and success. I was fulfilling an inner desire to take an idea, mold it, push on it, worry about it, get excited to tell others about it, and jump up and down at each sign that it was slowly manifesting into existence. Creation seems to be the key here, just like an artist or musician.

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