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?

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Mark Kramer of Kramer Communications has a great article on Forbes, The 10 Questions You Should Never Stop Asking.  In the article, Mark (we’re not really on a first name basis) details some of his experiences acting as an Interim CEO of a couple of magazines in Philadelphia. It’s a really great article, and all of his questions are dead on.  The implicit assumption of his article is that people started asking these questions at some point, and then stopped.  In my work with and study of small startups, it seems these questions don’t get asked initially.  If they did the business may never have started, or certainly would have started smarter with a better chance of succeeding.

The questions he brings up cut to the core matters I address at Bizdom U, (as well as in my saucy presentation at TEDx).

The Three Questions You Should Start Asking

Kramer’s first three questions (I’m rephrasing slightly) are:

• What is your purpose for existing?
• Who is your target customer?
• Why does anyone need what you’re selling?

I’m going to take these one at a time.

What is your purpose for existing?

First-time startup entrepreneurs often confuse their business’s purpose in existing with what the entrepreneur hopes to gain from the business.  To use a technical term, this is a Big Ass Mistake.  Your business’s purpose is most assuredly to help customers satisfy a need – not to bring you personal, spiritual, or emotional fulfillment.  If you think that’s why YOUR BUSINESS exists, you’re mistaking your purpose in life (fulfillment) with your business’s purpose (satisfying customers).  Confuse this at your own peril.  If you keep this straight, you’ll keep your business focused on the customer and helping the customer.

Who is your target customer?

You can’t help people, or more appropriately satisfy customers, if you don’t know who they are and what their needs are.  It’s a struggle, but you’ve got to disavow yourself of the notion that your business will appeal to everybody (or some equally ridiculously large subset of everybody).  It can’t, it won’t, and it shouldn’t.  It will appeal to certain people with common demographics or psychographics and those are the people you need to have in mind and help.

Why does anyone need what you’re selling?

Get out, talk to customers.  In person.  Face to face.  It’s uncomfortable in the digital age, but it will give you deep insight into what clients really want and how to best give it to them.  Mark nails it when he says “I have rarely seen a company fail if management literally spoke to customers and gave them what they want.”

A bonus word to educators, consultants, incubators, etc.

If you’re in the position where you’re advising someone on starting up a business, make sure you’re encouraging your advisees to ask these questions.  Push them on these questions.  Hard.  Really hard.  The kind of hard that leaves a bruise.  That hard.  We do no service to people if, in the interest of protecting their feelings, we are not blunt, direct and honest in questioning whether they’ve plumbed the depths of these questions and come up with honest answers.  In my opinion, this is the great failing of entrepreneurial education, consultation, advising and incubation: the unwillingness to give honest feedback to someone and tell them their idea (as currently formulated and researched) is most assuredly crap.  In the interest of being kind, and not ‘crushing someone’s dream’ we let them blindly soldier forward to their doom.  If I see someone running headlong toward the edge of a building, I’m not going to encourage them.  I’m not going to try and support them in their dream of flying.  I’m going to yell “Hey, asshole, you can’t fly!” We all need to be willing to be that direct and blunt.

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Over at the Art of Manliness, there’s a great series of tips on running a meeting.  The Art of Manliness, despite the off putting name (to some people – me, I get it), is overall a really excellent blog – and an example of how to build a community of common interest. The common interest on Art of Manliness revolves around shaving with a straight razor and drinking cocktails (both of which I can get behind).

My favorite tip from the many is:

Summarize the meeting. At the end of the meeting, quickly tick off a list of everything you have accomplished and resolved to do. Delegate tasks and make sure everyone is absolutely clear on what their individual responsibilities are. Don’t ask for “other business.” You’re just opening a can of worms. Remember, if it’s not on the agenda, it’s not going to be discussed.

I’ve been to lots of meetings dominated by lots of talk which feels productive.  It’s only later, when absolutely no action has been taken as a result of the meeting, that you realize not only was the meeting ineffective, but you’ll never have that hour of your life back.  You’ll be on your death bed, and your dying words will be “If only someone had set some action items.”

In the comments share your meeting horror stories or tips.

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We had the pleasure of taking the current team of Bizdom entrepreneurs (whom I am calling Team Hammer Pants, since they can’t come up with a team name of their own) to Big Communications, to meet with Lisa Stern, the Founder.

Lisa gave a great overview of the founding story of Big, as well as a description of their culture.  I could easily write a dozen entries on Lisa and Big (hell, I could write one just on how great their offices are – they are absolutely beautiful), but I want to focus on 3 Big takeaways from their story and culture.

3 Big Ideas from Big Communications

1. The business you find success in may not be the one you start in.

Big originally started purely doing video production.  Now they handle communications for health care companies.  This isn’t to say your initial idea is unimportant and therefore unworthy of proper research.  Rather, the lesson here is that you’ve got to follow the natural wave of your business and fish where the fish are – build on the success you earn, rather than the success you wish you had.

2. Passion means emotional investment in what you do.

This was a point I tried to emphasize at my TEDx presentation.  It’s not about doing what you love, but rather loving what you do.  I’ve heard lots of people talk about ‘passion’ and seen people confuse obstinacy and unfounded pride with passion. Having passion doesn’t mean that you can magically will something to happen.  Instead, it means bringing an emotional investment to what you do – finding the love in what you do.  When I asked Lisa what she’s currently passionate about she said “I’m really passionate about how we staff projects.”  Trust me, no one says “When I grow up, I want to staff projects!”  But she’s found the interest and passion in that task, and that’s a beautiful thing.

3. Vision is about having a goal you’re moving towards

Another great insight into an oft-cited entrepreneurial trait: vision.  Vision isn’t about having a grandiose vision about what success will look like (yachts or being on Oprah), but rather about having a very specific goal you’re moving towards.

Bonus idea: Not really a bonus idea, but rather a combination of the final two, and it’s this – any old passion or vision won’t do.  You’ve got to have a specific type of passion and vision to be a successful entrepreneur.  I meet a lot of people who are very emotional (what they think is ‘passionate’) and have a well defined vision for themselves (usually of them on a yacht with Oprah), who think as a result they’re entrepreneurs.  I can give you a well defined vision of what I’d do if I won the lottery (it wouldn’t be Oprah or a yacht), but that doesn’t mean I’m going to win it.  I’m extremely passionate about fantasy football, but that doesn’t mean I should make a career out of it.

What do you think? Will any old vision or passion do? Or do you need something more?

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If you had a business partner, would you want them to be truthful with you or bullshit you?  If you’re in the “bullshit me, please” camp, let me know – I’ve got a great lead on a Florida swamp land investment.  If you’re in the “just tell me the truth” camp, then you’re probably like 90% of most people – and unlike 75% of the pitches I’ve seen recently.

It never ceases to amaze me that someone who’s asking you for an investment – who’s essentially asking you to become their partner, will start the relationship with an unhealthy dose of bullshit.  These snake oil salesmen act as if somehow, after the relationship is entered into, the bullshit won’t be revealed and stink up the whole deal.  Some people assume ‘fake it, ’til you make it’ is the rule to apply here. Trust me, if your ‘beta ready software’ turns out to be a sketch on the back of a bar coaster, your partner will not appreciate your moxie and aggressiveness.  And shame on you if you’re reaction to this is to claim ‘caveat emptor‘ or expect your partner should’ve caught your BS during due diligence.

3 sure signs you’re bullshitting in your pitch

1. Abuse of the royal we.

Back when I was a lawyer starting my own law practice, there were lawyers I knew who advised me to call it “Daniel A. Izzo & Associates” on the theory that it’d make my practice seem more established (on the subtheory that the fax machine was an associate of mine).  I did not follow this advice.  I was a solo practitioner.  I didn’t want to misrepresent this with a lie, however acceptable or commonplace.  I hear lots of entrepreneurs saying “We” in their pitches when they really mean “I” or “me.”  Look, if you’re a one man show, you’re a one man show.  You aren’t a “we”, you are a “me.”

2. CEO, President and Founder.

I find that most of the pitch-stage or development-stage entrepreneurs I come across, don’t really know what ‘CEO’ stands for, much less what one does.  If the company consists of you.  Or you and your three buddies, you don’t really need a CEO.  You don’t really need titles at all.  If you call yourself ‘CEO’ you’re just revealing your immaturity.  You might as well call yourself “Superman Lightning McQueen” which is what my son calls himself when he’s playing superheroes.  It has an equal basis in fact.

3. “In development” or “in process”

This one’s a bit more gray, but I often find it is used as a replacement for “I don’t know”.  For example, saying “Our business model is still in development” when you mean “I’m still figuring it out.”  ”In development” implies someone is off somewhere working on it, not that you’re still noodling it over.

Honesty is the best policy.

Yes, I seriously wrote that.  Honesty is the best policy.  People invest in people (whether that investment is time, money or other valuable resources.)   When you engage in these bits of puffery, you reveal yourself as a bullshitter, and a pretty sloppy one at that.  Don’t do it.

Have any stories of people who overrepresent themselves or other examples of signs of BS? Share them in the comments.

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I’ve often struggled with the notion of what should and shouldn’t be mandatory when training entrepreneurs.  I’ve decided that nothing should be mandatory.  If you have to make someone do something, they’re not really ready to be their own boss and run their own enterprise.  Why? Because in business, when you’re the entrepreneur, no one is going to stand over your shoulder and make you do things.  If a person can’t motivate themselves, they’re not ready.

Being an entrepreneur is like running a marathon.  It is a challenging endeavor which requires commitment, focus and motivation.  And yet, like a marathon, it’s a totally voluntary endeavor. No one can make you run a marathon – no one can make you become an entrepreneur.  If you asked a marathon runner if their training regimen were ‘mandatory’, they’d likely look at you like you were a fool. ‘Mandatory? No.  100% necessary – absolutely.’ There’s nothing mandatory about a proper marathon training regime.  You could easily show up for a marathon one hundred pounds overweight, never having run a day in your life, and wearing high heels.  It’s your choice.  But one choice will lead to success (completing the marathon) and the other failure (being forever known as the guy who had a heart attack while wearing high heels at the marathon).

When training would-be entrepreneurs, design your program with this notion in mind.  Self-motivation is crucial.  It’s a hard thing to train and coach people on.  It’s certainly not impossible, but the first time someone asks if something is mandatory, give them the marathon speech; the second time they ask show them where the door is and wish them well somewhere else.

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On June 15, 2009, I gave a presentation as part of the National Summit.  Here are my lecture notes, as well as the PowerPoint.  Both are a bit unpolished, but you get the general idea.

“I’d like to talk to you today about taking an idea and turning it into a business.

Ideas are like elbows, almost everyone has at least one.  There are a lot of personality traits and behaviors that can help a person with a business idea undergo a personal transformation or growth and become an entrepreneur – an actual executor of that idea.  I’m not here to talk about that today.  I’m assuming that if you made it this far into my spiel that you’re already the kind of person capable of starting an enterprise.  What I’d like to focus on in the next 15-30 minutes are the very specific and deliberate actions you can take to shepherd your idea and turn it into a business.

In a nutshell here’s the key: To turn an idea into a  business you need to refine the idea until it becomes a product or service that is so inherently attractive to users that they’ll change their behavior and use your product or service.  And you need to do this all in a way that brings in more money that it burns up.  Thanks for coming, enjoy the rest of the conference. But seriously, it is that simple, but in the simple lies the complex, so let’s break this down.

I very deliberately break this into two parts.  I do that because here’s the problem most people face.  They mix all this up together and try and eat the entire sub sandwich in one bite.  There are two components: what the business is, and how it makes money.  When you cross the streams, you lose focus.  And brilliance in one of these areas won’t cure utter stupidity in the other.  But when we let ourselves think of this as one undifferentiated mass, we can delude ourselves into thinking we’ve got a great business, when maybe all we have is a clever idea that’ll never make a profit, or a clever way of making a profit that’s attached to a product or service no reasonable person would ever want to use.

Refining the idea is what I want to talk about.  Figuring out revenue and costs is extremely important, and a vital area for innovation.  The business model end of things is a matter of marketing, sales, and being clever about costs.  I want to talk about Refining Ideas.

You need to research to refine your ideas and the first thing you should do is GET OFF THE COMPUTER.  Look, I’m no technophobe, but at some point the thinking became, if it’s not on Google, it doesn’t exist.  Computers are supposed to make us smarter, not us more stupider make.

The most important thing you can do is Talk to People, better yet, Listen to People. Get out of your office, get away from the desk and talk to people.  Have actual conversations with people.  Preferably face to face, so you can sense the whole conversation.

Talk about what? WOOD BEFORE SCREWS. You’ve got some sort of idea for something.  You saw some sort of problem, or opportunity.  Something you noticed or experienced triggered this idea of yours.  The person who invented the screw had wood that needed to be held together.  Put your idea aside and get back to the wood.  Talk to other people who might have this problem, and confirm that they’ve got the problem.  Go deep on the problem, before you even begin to talk about your solution.  People want SOLVING NOT SOLUTIONS.  Your initial idea can change wildly because what you may have discovered in that initial a-ha moment isn’t a solution, but a deep problem that needs solving.  And maybe your ‘a-ha’ solution isn’t a good solution.  Good solutions achieve the ends sought, they resolve the problem fully and directly Without identifying the problem on a deep level you can’t know if your solution fits, much less if its a good fit, or what you’re really hoping for, a fit that is so good it motivates changes in people’s behavior. So RESEARCH THE PROBLEM BEFORE THE SOLUTION

CONTEXT IS KING.  Talk to the people who have the problem about everything that surrounds the problem.  What’s their mental state before and after solving the problem.  What solutions do they employ now? You want to understand everything around the moment where the problem occurs and is resolved.

It’s inside that context that you’re solution needs to operate.  YOURE NOT TRAINING MONKEYS TO RIDE BICYCLES.  You take the customer as you find them.  Can try and change their purchasing behavior, but woe if you’re trying to change the context. CHANGE IS SCARY.  You’ve got to find out where the customer is at to move them to where you might want them to be.  TALK TO OTHER CONTEXT PROVIDERS.  See who else is solving the problem or providing context to the problem.  They will have insights you and the client both lack.

So, identify the PROBLEM, the CONTEXT and CHANGE their behavior.  How do you do that? REFINE THE IDEA SO THAT IT PROVOKES CHANGE.  How? Well the problem and context will help you understand the customer’s feelings and motivations, and you need to craft your idea to have the greatest appeal to their feelings and motivations.  You do that and you end up with a BETTER TARGETED CLIENT DRIVEN IDEA.  A better idea than the one that led you down this path.  Once you’ve got that PULL ‘EM, CLOSE ‘EM, KEEP COSTS DOWN and make a PROFIT.  Better yet, make VALUE.”

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This week I was a Curbside Consultant at the Launch of FastTrac to the Future, an entrepreneur development collaboration between TechTown, The Kauffman Foundation and the New Economy Initiative.  Bizdom has received grants from the New Economy Initiative and Kauffman, so we’re tangentially part of this.

The final event of the day was  a panel on ‘Entrepreneurial War Stories’.  It featured the inimitable Patrick McInnis (CEO of FatHead), Jane Sydlowski (AMI Strategies)and Randal Charlton (former CEO of Asterand).  The stories were great, as were the lessons.  At the end, the moderator asked each of the three for a couple of tips for entrepreneurs to survive and succeed as entrepreneurs.

Pat McInnis

• Control your control freak
  • relinquish control
  • don’t relinquish accountability
• Culture matters
  • you create a motivated workforce when you focus on people and help them achieve their dreams

Randal Charlton

• Money will be tight
  
  • but get going on the least amount of money you can
    
• Leverage existing resources
  
  • there’s much more in place around you than you realize

Jane Sydlowski

• Consider ‘No’ a ‘Yes’
  
  • you’ll experience more ‘no’s’ than you know
  • don’t accept ‘no’
    
• Show up for yourself
  
  • network
  • share your story with pride

Great tips one and all.

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I emceed the TechNow09 conference last night.  The panel presentation was outstanding and I was glad to be able to host that.  It was also pretty impressive that they landed both Congressman Gary Peters and Oakland Country Treasurer-Elect, and the man behind the Michigan Movie incentives, Andy Meisner.

Apparently my duties were well received, I was even a notable quotable at a few points.

Here are some Tweets (boy I hate that word):

@rsmudge: @DanIzzo good job tonight. You had good stage presence.

@RyanMeray: Had a great time at #technow09! Got to meet @damnredhead, got coffee at Bean & Leah afterwards with @hcwlau, and dug @danizzo’s emceeing.

@RyanMeray: Dan Izzo – “Did they check you for the secret Apple tattoo?” #technow09

@RyanMeray: Dan izzo is awesome. #technow09

@RyanMeray: Dan Izzo drops the #tweetoprahcalypse awesome. #technow09

@RyanMeray: Dan Izzo – “What we have here is a glimmer of light.” #technow09

And my personal favorite:

@Rebeccakim11: I’m the guy with the microphone, stop me bitches! #technow09

Thanks to everyone for coming out.  Remember your assignment: in the next week promote living in Michigan on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, email, wherever you can.

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It is important to know how you, and anyone you might partner up with in a business endeavor, will react to stress.  The life of an entrepreneur is filled with moments of stress, and the ability to deal with stress, to channel stress positively, is one of the stronger characteristics an entrepreneur can possess.  Uncertainty is inherently stressful.  We’re hardwired for certainty and being in a state of uncertainty puts us in a state of stress.  Running an enterprise is filled with uncertainty: uncertainty of income, uncertainty of success, uncertainty about the long term prospects of the enterprise.  So if you’re unaware of how you will react to stress, you’re not really prepared for running an enterprise.  You need to know how you’ll react to stress so that you can begin the process of replacing any unproductive, unhealthy, automatic stress-reaction behaviors you have with behaviors that allow you to be productive and healthy in moments of stress.  Changing how we react to external stimuli is absolutely possible.  You certainly can’t change the external stimuli, so you may as well try to change your reactions.  If you decide you’re unable to change your reactions, you’re ultimately saying that you’re a victim of your circumstances.  And do you really want to say that?  Do you really want to believe that?  If so, running an enterprise is not for you.  If not, then commit to studying yourself in stress, and then commit to reacting in a more positive, proactive, and healthy way when you’re in stress.  Do that, and you’ll put yourself in a much better position to successfully run an enterprise.

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