The Essense of Being an Irrepressible Entrepreneur
Greg Balanko-Dickson is writing a new book about the irrepressible entrepreneur.
In his brief book overview he asks for people to participate - and one way is for Greg to do an interview with you via phone or email. I asked Greg to send me the questions so I could take a crack at them.
Be careful what you wish for! I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that Greg asked big, big questions…so here goes.
1) What has been your greatest challenge in business to date, how did you cope with it, and what did you learn?
My biggest single challenge was firing people when I couldn’t afford to pay them. I also consider it my biggest failure. It was a very difficult thing to do, and although it was many years ago, I remember it clearly. I coped by working to separate my feelings of disappointment and frustration and my personal emotions from the business. I was running a business. The business wasn’t doing well (it was during the dot-com bubble burst) and I had no choice. I had two choices: reduce costs (and salaries are always your biggest cost) or fold up shop. I chose to fight another day.
2) When you think of the word entrepreneurship, what does it mean to you?
- Starting companies from scratch.
- Passion.
- Going for it. Trying to hit home runs every single day.
- Fun.
- Challenging.
- Different. You’re an entrepreneur, you’re different. You stand out.
- A way of life.
3) What has been you greatest success in the last 30 days? Why is it so significant to you?
My greatest success in the last 30 days has been the continued growth of my network with an incredible number of amazing people. I’ve had phone conversations with people I’ve met through the blogosphere. I’ve met new people in-person that rock. I’ve started a Montreal Technology Entrepreneur Breakfast Meetup.
One of my biggest mistakes over the years was not networking enough in my own backyard. That’s changed a great deal in the last 30 days. It’s important because you will succeed in large part due to the power, resourcefulness and extent of your network. And while I can’t say enough about my online network of friends and contacts, there’s nothing that truly replaces meeting face-to-face with someone.
4) When you started your business, what do you wish you had known that you now know? How might things have been different had you known?
Success doesn’t come to you. You have to go out and grab it by the proverbial you-know-whats. That means always looking for opportunities. Turn everything into an opportunity. Find the angle. Make the connection. If you’re selling a blue box and everyone wants red boxes, find a new way of doing it. Either find a new market for your blue boxes, or paint them red, or do something. Success doesn’t just fall in your lap.
But for me, the question is really, “What did you know, but failed to realize was so incredibly important?”
Here are a few:
- You can’t carry lousy business partners on your back and succeed in spite of them.
- You need to develop a personal brand for yourself. You might not be THE business (it’s helpful if a business can succeed without you) but developing a strong personal brand helps.
- You can’t do everything. Find a way to outsource. And related to that, run a lean, mean organization. Stay organized.
5) When you look ahead at the world of entrepreneurship, what do you see, what concerns you, what excites you? And why?
In the technology world there are a few things going on right now that will continue. Namely, it’s getting easier to start new companies, ramp up quickly, launch quickly and do it inexpensively. It’s getting easier because technology is improving and more accessible, not because there’s some magic pill you can take to become a super entrepreneur.
I see more young people getting into entrepreneurship, which is great - although this is something we need to work harder at. They should be teaching entrepreneurship in highschool.
I see more angel investment going into very early stage startups. Examples like TechStars and Y Combinator are great; they show us that you can invest small amounts, bring in lots of expertise and help a couple of guys in a garage make something happen.
My concern with the most recent boom is that we get stupid again. Things are cyclical after all, and there are plenty of younger entrepreneurs that don’t remember the dot-com crash. Heck, there are plenty of people who lived through it that don’t remember it either. Money is being invested more smartly, and less of it is being tossed around, but nevertheless, I’d hate to see another dot-com fiasco with a rat-race of stupid ideas getting millions of dollars to go nowhere.
[...] The Essense of Being an Irrepressible Entrepreneur – Ben gives us excellent business insights from Greg Balanko-Dickson [...]
This is good, I learned good things reading this post, and now I have a point… I agree that is easy start a new business with the help of technology specifically on Internet , but I think that the most challenging thing is to maintain it.
Saludos desde Chihuahua, Mexico.
Jorge - thanks for the comment. Starting can be easy, maintaining and succeeding aren’t…you’re absolutely right.
[...] always looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-seekers. Everything is an opportunity. Failures are even an [...]
Hey Ben, Jorge: sorry to be so late responding, I am in the midst of moving servers etc. and time just seemed to vanish.
Maintaining momentum and building a sustained business takes years of effort. Along the way it is a journey in learning.
Simply put, the faster you learn the faster you can implement what you have learned and modify your approach. It is this process of trial, error, and try again that takes time.
We become impatient when things are not moving quick enough because we expected it to be easier, faster, or better in some way.
The reality is that the ‘assumptions’ we make about ourselves, customers, marketing, and finances all contribute to our results.
Think about this…
“We do what we are. We are what we think. What we think is determined by what we learn. What we learn is determined by what we experience and what we experience is determined by what we expose ourselves to and what we do with that experience.” - Mike Vance, founder and dean of Walt Disney University
We need to be willing to try new things. Observe and adjust. Rinse and repeat.
Just remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a sustainable business. Put the power of time to work for you, keep pressing ahead.
Ben: I will respond to your answers on my blog once my DNS and hosting move is complete. I appreciate your input.
I do have one question, “What was it that got in the way of you making the decision to let people go?”
Greg — letting people go was hard emotionally. I considered them friends. We had worked together for a few years. It was my first experience having to fire people and that’s what made it tough.
Business-wise I knew it had to be done, but personally and emotionally it was not a pleasant experience.
Hi Ben, thanks for responding. It never is pleasant expereince letting people go.
You mention that “I coped by working to separate my feelings of disappointment and frustration and my personal emotions from the business.”
I would like to better understand how you kept your “personal emotions from your feelings of disappointment and frustration” - how did you actualy accomplish that?
Was it mental toughness?
Did you simply ignore your feelings?
Did you ‘cope’ in the way you ‘talked’ yourself through it?
Did you confide in others?
Did you ever think that had you acted sooner things might have been different?
I hoping to understand the inner game…
Greg, that’s so true, and now it’s what is happening to me now, some times I get desperate because the things are not getting faster, by the way now I’m starting my own business, and I have to repeat it to me several times that “A business that grows fast, dies fast too”.
This time is time to learn, learn about clients, about the market and even learn how to sell my services
Thanks for your advices, and now you have a new loyal reader, disciple and friend.
Jorge: As long as you are pointed in the right direction and are moving forward, even if you fall, at least you are pointed in the right direction. Keep it up and let me know how I can help.
Greg - you’re asking tough questions!
My feelings of disappointment and frustration WERE my personal emotions - I don’t think I explained that clearly.
What I did was recognize the fact that business is business. Yes, there’s a place for your personal feelings in business but when push comes to shove business owners (and entrepreneurs) have to make tough decisions that they may not like personally.
Part of it was mental toughness. Part of it was desperation. I didn’t want the business to fail. Failure wasn’t an option on such a grand scale; the business HAD to survive.
Part of it was “talking myself through it” in the sense that I reminded myself that the business could survive because of the choices I made. I was giving myself (and the remaining employees) a shot, and that’s all I could do.
Had we acted sooner I’m not sure things would have been different. We held out as long as we could, but had we fired people earlier, I don’t think it would have improved our situation. Nowadays, having gone through the experience once, I’d probably be faster to fire, knowing that I can handle it. (I have fired others, for legitimate reasons, where I wasn’t upset emotionally…)
But in terms of acting faster, I think that’s something I’ve thought about a lot in general. It’s hard to be a successful entrepreneur and act slowly or indecisively.
The inner game is that firing people sucks. No matter what the circumstance. When you fire someone because YOU couldn’t keep the business successful it’s particularly difficult. As the boss, it’s your job to make sure things work. You’re paying the bills. When you can’t, you fire people. Even though it wasn’t their fault.
Ben, sorry if they are touch questions and anytime you would prefer to discuss privately, that option is always open.
As a business coach, asking the tough questions is a big part of what I do because it pushes us to dig and cannot hide from ourselves. Self-deception is a most dangerous drug.
Disappointing family, friends, and employees when a business fails is very hard.
You faced even more tough questions when you were in the midst of it.
Would it be fair to say that your greatest learning from that situation was the need to be decisive and act quickly? Would that be accurate?
BTW, thanks for being transparent and open, that is one of the qualities I will be talking about in the role of Advocate in the book.
Greg - that’s OK, I was trying to be tongue-in-cheek there. I don’t mind the tough questions, hopefully people are following this discussion and getting something from it.
My greatest learning lesson was that I had to separate the welfare and needs of the business from my personal feelings. A key part of that was remembering that I was in charge. And being in charge meant doing things you didn’t always want to do, and you couldn’t feel guilty for that. It was your business, you started it, nurtured it, ran it. You made choices for it, for better or worse.
Perhaps the real learning experience was one of leadership and a clearer understanding of what it means to “run the show.”
Acting decisively was certainly a part of that - but more than that I think being a business owner and leader of employees became something bigger/more important as a result of having to fire people.
[...] I have been exchanging comments with Ben Yoskovitz at the Instigator Blog, who wrote a post titled The Essence of Being an Irrepressible Entrepreneur. [...]
[...] always looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-seekers. Everything is an opportunity. Failures are even an [...]
[...] always looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-seekers. Everything is an opportunity. Failures are even an [...]
[...] always looking for opportunities. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-seekers. Everything is an opportunity. Failures are even an [...]