Blunt on Business

Apr

One of the Great Myths of Entrepreneurship: Calling the Shots

culture, entrepreneurship, personality, start-ups

The Myth of Calling the Shots

One of the reasons I initially got into entrepreneurship was that I wanted to “call the shots.” This is one of the most common reasons people cite for getting into entrepreneurship. Being the boss. Calling the shots. Making the decisions. It’s compelling. And it’s almost completely false. It’s one of the great myths of entrepreneurship (one of the others is ’setting your own schedule’ – but that’s for another time).

Here’s why it’s a myth: you don’t call the shots – the market calls the shots. While you get to make decisions, those decisions can’t be made in a vacuum. Well they can be, but then you’re in business NFL – Not For Long. I come across so many entrepreneurs who see entrepreneurship as one giant path of constant self-aggrandizement. They see success as following their instinct and trusting in their singular vision. And that’s just plain stupid. Your business needs to serve a need – its needs to connect with what the client wants. And if you make it all about what you want – and your need to make decisions – you’re putting yourself first. It’s not about you – it’s about the client.

Here’s another reason it’s a myth: you should surround yourself with smart people. Better yet smarter people. If you insist on making all the decisions – you’re closing yourself off from the advice and support of these people. Or you’ve surrounded yourself with yes men and/or idiots.

When you think you’ll call the shots you’re subscribing to the view of entrepreneurs being brilliant geniuses ensconced in their ivory towers handing down brilliance from on-high. If you look at really successful entrepreneurs, they are connectors. They form partnerships, they bring resources together, and they listen to clients. What they don’t do is engage in the relentless arrogance of thinking it’s about calling the shots.

In my own experience, discovering this myth was one of the more painful realizations of running my own business. It stinks to realize that it’s not about you and your brilliant ideas. It’s about putting yourself out of the picture and focusing on the client.

Any other myths you’ve seen busted?

3 Reasons Why Business Plans Fail

mistakes, start-ups

I’ve helped several people put together business plans. The business plan I put together for my comedy club was used as a sample form in a book on business plans. Theoretically, I know something about business plans. I’ve seen some bad ones. The worst ones I’ve seen tend to be bad for one of these reasons.

3 Reasons Why Business Plans Fail

1. Filling in the Blank

There are plenty of software packages and business plan templates out there on the tubes of the Internet. While they can give you bit of structure when you’re completely lost and on your own – they can also have you focusing on issues which make little sense if any. A business plan that’s intended for venture capitalists or other serious investors needs to have an exit strategy – a plan for cashing out the investors. If you’re putting together a business plan for a small business or some business that you want to build and grow – you don’t need an exit strategy. Your exit strategy is filing for bankruptcy and moving back to your parent’s basement. Don’t fill in the blanks if you don’t understand the blanks.

2. Failure to you know, plan

Want to create a bad business plan – don’t use it to detail what you’ll actually do, use it to provide a 10,000 foot view of something you need to have microscopic insight into. This tends to be compounded by the fill-in-the-blank approach, where a business has a ‘marketing plan’ consisting of ‘generating great word of mouth, building the brand and engaging in social media.’ I’m reminded of a stand-up comic who asked an audience member what he did for a living. The guy in the audience said “Nothing” to which the comedian replied “Then how do you know when you’re done?” If your plan is that vague, how do you know when you’re doing it?

3. A Plan for World Domination

Not every business is going to be successful. And yet every bad business plan seems to not only promise success, but promises the kind of success that results in each investor ending up with enough money to buy their own island and flood it with enough filthy lucre to sink the damned thing. Project a reasonable growth arc and realize you’re not going to turn a web design company into the second coming of the Roman empire.

Avoid these common mistakes and keep your business plan alive.

3.5 Tips for Being an Effective Coach (hint: be an asshole)

general

One of the things I’m trying to accomplish with this blog (and with my life at this point) is improving the way in which entrepreneurs are trained. One of the core elements of entrepreneurial training is coaching. I’ve had a fair amount of experience with coaching in different contexts. I’ve coached improv teams (at IO and the Playground in Chicago), and different entrepreneurs starting businesses (Go Comedy, and various entrepreneurs at Bizdom U), and I’ve picked up some tips from some great coaches. So here are some tips for coaching people. BTW, these tips can apply in almost any context where you’re helping someone. If you’re working with someone to help them – then essentially you’re coaching them.

Sympathy for the Devil

Before launching into it, a few words on Mike Leach. Unless you follow college football (and if you don’t you’re a communist), you may not know this, but Mike Leach was the Head Coach at Texas Tech. Generally praised for innovative pass-oriented schemes, he was somewhat of a maverick among coaches. He recently got fired for mistreating a player. I’m not here to defend his tactics (although I’ve dealt with my fair share of people whom I thought were faking it when they claimed they couldn’t do something). Rather I bring it up to simply say that coaching is a tricky business. When your mission is to maximize someone’s potential, you often find yourself doing weird things that you barely understand, much less trying to justify what you’ve done in the court of public opinion. In other words, being a coach, I feel your pain Bobby Knight and Mike Leach. Also, your mileage may vary. These tips have worked for me and helped me. They may strike you as a bit nuts. But listen to a Knute Rockne speech. Coaches are nuts.

3.5 Guideposts for being an effective coach

1. It’s Not About You

It’s very important to focus on your goal as a coach – to maximize the potential of your players/coachees. It’s not about buffing up your glory, making you feel good, validating your worth, etc. It’s about them. Be willing to do anything to achieve your goal – even if it deflates your ego, takes you down a notch or look like an idiot. You also need to be willing to be thought of as an asshole – and play the part of asshole when necessary. Some people are motivated when pushed. Some people are motivated to prove somebody wrong. You may need to be an asshole to motivate these type of people. Be willing to be hated, despised, and the object of scorn. Everyone loves success – and if you can help people achieve success, it won’t matter whether they love, like or respect you. Your job is to put them in the best position to win. Do that because nothing else matters. If you need unconditional love get a dog, don’t look to your players.

1B. Don’t cross the streams

Don’t become friends with your coachees. It’s okay to like them, and when you’re no longer in the coach/coachee relationship, you can be their buddy. That doesn’t mean you can’t be friendly with them. But don’t forget the essence of the relationship.

2. The first pulse you take is your own

While you may occasionally need to take on the demeanor of an asshole or screaming lunatic, internally you’ve got to keep your pulse in check. This is along the lines of not hitting your kids in anger (really – never hit your kids – but you get what I’m saying). It’s okay to be angry, frustrated and even incensed to the point of blinding rage – but you always need to make sure the choices your making in your coaching behavior are coming from a space of maximizing performance – not venting your spleen. If you need to vent your spleen, kick the dog you bought back in tip #1.

3. Know your role, and shut your mouth

Your role is to maximize performance. By focusing on that, and remembering that, you’ll realize that you needn’t coach everything that’s coachable. I see rookie coaches absolutely destroy people’s motivation by criticizing everything that can be criticized in a performance, game or business plan. If you call out every single thing that needs improvement, you’re not coaching, you’re showing off how knowledgable you are, and how observant you can be. That makes it an ego driven process – and – tip #1 – it’s not about you. You’ve got to say and do just enough to motivate maximum performance, then shut the fuck up.

Got any good coaching tips or experience with coaches you’d like to share? That’s what the comments are for friend!

Blunt on Business

One of the Great Myths of Entrepreneurship: Calling the Shots