Check out this video with Techcrunch and Y Combinators Paul Graham it is pretty interesting.

This just goes to show you how abstract and interesting the Internet can be.  I did a Google search on the keyword “why” and I found Scott Berkun a best-selling author and kick-ass speaker. He writes books and essays, lectures at Fortune 500 companies & top universities on creativity, management and a fun mix of everything else.   It was late at night and I started his video lecture on innovation he did at Carnegie Mellon University.  He went into several Innovation Success Stories and really dove into the real stories behind these successes.

The real stories were about failure, the desire to solve a problem and to keep trying new and innovate ways to get to the end result.  One of the quotes he pulled out was a quote that is from the CEO of 3-M.

“As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women, to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way.

Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they must do their jobs.

Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it’s essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow.”

We see progressive companies like Google allowing their employees to work on other projects 20% of the time.  If there is success it might become another Google product.  There are probably many other companies using this same philosophy.  I think it is a great culture to embrace and the results can be enormous.  So next time you feel like taking a risk, take it it might be the best thing I/you/we ever did!

Why are those 1st 5 Sales for a Start-up so critical?

Sales traction turns a beginning product offering or idea instantly into a valid operating business, both for other prospective customers as well as for investors and bankers.

What makes these initial sales are so critical?  It is taking an idea beyond being just a “science project…” So what does it really show?

* Validate and prove the technology and product. Does it work?
* Prove out the core value proposition
* Validate the business model and initial go-to-market strategy
* Show that the organization can actually build and deliver the product?
* What is the market and customer acceptance of product?

1. Will they buy?
2. Will they pay for it?
3. Do they like how it works?
4. Will they buy it again?
5. Will they be a reference-able customer?

* What doesn’t work? And what do we need to do to fix or refine it?

What about free trials and give-a-ways?
We can learn from them, but they don’t validate most of the paying-value propositions and business model issues.

If you are big-time venture capital funded to get eyeballs for future sales or long term advertising revenue, then none of this applies. Most start-up companies are not playing that game, but are in the revenue and cash flow business.

What do we want from these initial sales beyond real paying customers?

* Reference customers- to get more customers, and for investors and bankers. Make sure they are open to this.
* Cash flow – typically even more important than booked revenue.
* A real, viable offering (product or service)
* A working and viable business model

Okay, now we are in business, are legitimate and for real. We still have a long way to go, but we have just now moved passed the “science project” stage of the business. Let’s go get more customers and more revenue.

How do you get the 1st 5 customers? I will offer some proven ideas on that shortly.

Please share your thoughts. Thanks.

Steve Ghareeb
steveghareeb.wordpress.com

This is a video that really drives home the point that the “bailout” Washington D.C.  is doing DOES NOT WORK, and there are others who fill the void.  No matter how you look at it, it looks like small business loan sharking, but it is better than no loan at all.

Would you do business with this type of guy?

So if we can’t find money from friends and family we might have to resort to these types of folks.  The regular banks have seemed to turn tail on making loans to small businesses.  What I am curious about is if small businesses are the engine that pull the economic train why isn’t there some sort of economic program set up by the SBA to get these types of loans in place?  In my understanding the SBA does NOT make loans, they help guarantee the loans that the small businesses must get from the banks on their own merit.

While the lobbying efforts for Fortune 500 companies is substantial there really is very little lobbying for small businesses that is effective.  If small businesses we just able to do two things:

1) be able to secure affordable loans

2) be able to get group coverage for health insurance at substantial discounts

We just might see the economy rebound significantly.  Think about this just two simple things could get the economy jump started.  Instead it seem like we have a snake trying to eat a horse with the new healthcare bill and the snake is not digesting it so well! ;-0)

In this day and age I am constantly confronted with decisions.  I am also constantly barraged with information of others whose business ethics are simply wrong.  They know it when they do it but because they can at the expense of their employees or clients.  Take for example WalMart.  In this CNN Money article there appears to be a trend where they are dumping brands for their own private labels.  This is called the power of market share, WalMart owns the retail space.  At the same time, the product company has the opportunity to come back should they spend heavily on advertising to get the users into WalMart’s stores.

Technically there is nothing “wrong” with this business practice, however is WalMart doing the right thing?  Are they giving their clients the best products at the lowest prices?  Maybe maybe not.  What if let’s say that Kimberly Clark is in the toilet paper business.  Let’s say they get squeezed out by WalMart because they choose NOT to pay for the additional advertising to be on WalMart’s favored status list. Let’s say Kimberly Clark has a $5 Trillion imaginary contract with the largest pulp manufacturers Big Pulp Mfg. Co.   What if WalMart also had a $500 Billion contract with Big Pulp Mfg. Co.  Kimbery Clark would rank over WalMart.

Let’s say there is a new beetle that destroys most of the trees in Big Pulp Mfg. Co. and demand goes through the roof.  Big Pulp Mfg. Co. decides to reward Kimberly Clark with paper allocation and not WalMart.   Now WalMart customers run out of ass wipe.  Oh my, Houston we now have a problem of epic proportions.  WalMart begs Kimberly Clark to sell them their toilet paper. However, the relationship is destroyed and there is no longer any trust, so Kimberly Clark decides to return the favor by selling to WalMart as such a high price it prices WalMart out of the market.  This is what is known as a pissing match and no-one wins especially the consumer.

We are seeing similar business model fluctuations with Google taking over the Yellow Pages, Book Publishing, Newspaper Advertising etc.  While market supply and demand don’t involve business ethics necessarily many businesses have become dependent on Google either for SEO or PPC or traffic in general, they literally have the power to make a break companies by deindexing them.  And have done so for various reasons.  So they say, “do no evil.”

Here is a online video from a man who feels his insurance company is committing extortion through price gouging.

So on a smaller scale for small businesses we are faced with similar situations almost on a daily basis just not as visible.  When it it OK to bend the rules a little and get the competitive advantage and when is it not?  I guess we have to ask ourselves that and search deep down for the right answer, or ask our colleges and mentors for guidance.  If you are “too ethical” I have found to be on the losing side so there is a fine balance.  In this era of “gotcha” bad news travels fast and it only takes one bad incident to destroy a life time of creditability, ask Tiger Woods.

Let me start off by saying I am “out of integrity.”  I am out of integrity with myself on too many occasions.  For example, I tell myself I will go to the gym today, and guess what?  The exercise to the refrigerator is a whole lot more enjoyable.  (However today I actually did make it to the gym!)   But I can tell you I had a task on my written to do list and I have not done it yet, I chose to write a blog post instead.  I’m supposed to call a client on their content and just don’t want to, it will require me to think about their content which I want to do but don’t want to actually have to think about it.  Now I know I can wait another day to do this but it just makes the flow of the project and the organization a little messier.

My integrity in the workspace really has more to do with my personal integrity with self.  Because no-one knows about this other than me.  I do my best to follow through on my word all the time and every time weather it be personal or professional because I treat others differently than myself, I am kinder to them than to I.  I follow through with them than to I and I think you will hear that if you talk to friends and colleagues.

But back to integrity in the work place.  It is these little types of things that break down communications, they then break down relationships both personal and professional.  A glaring example is Tiger Woods saying “I do,” but what he really did was something entirely different.  He was out of integtity with himself and his family and who knows who else.  How many times in the workplace have you had a boss or a client say I will call you tomorrow with the <fill in the blank> and the call never comes.  Guess what?  You are left hanging.

There was probably some justification for not making the call but that person is out of integrity in the workplace as well as personally out of integrity.  S/he made a promise to call and did not follow through.  I can guarantee you that this happens ALL the time.  We tend to be blaze about it, and say “oh they are just that way.”  But at the end of the day weather it be a promise to your kid or a promise to your boss we get much better results in life by doing what we say and saying what we do.

So I will make that call to the client regarding the content. 

In this article published today in the New York Times they hit home on something we all can do, get a mentor or get a coach.  Think about it.  Joe Montana and Tiger Woods had/have coaches and mentors.  Tiger could use some really good outside advice from some new folks.   Guy Finley a mentor of mine said something to me either in one of the interviews I did with him here on MSG or in a telephone call afterwords, “that the only reason we ever feel any pain in life is when we have stopped learning.”  And guess what?  I have to catch myself each week on that truism.

At My Success Gateway we cover the 3 keys to personal and professional success:

1) invest in yourself

2) get a mentor(s) or get a coach(s)

3) expand your extended network

Getting outside of our comfort zones is a great way to start off the new year in 2010!

On April 21^st we are sharing with the rest of the free world some of our findings/interviews re: social media insights for businesses in a Live Online Virtual 3-D Conference (if we can get enough people we will put it in a “virtual stadium.”) 

Your registration(s) tweets are welcome of course. J

http://blockbustergraffiti.com

We have a Facebook group going on it as well.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=71160233407&ref=mf 

@jimpeake 

@gorongo