Once you’ve watch this, you’ve got some possible next steps
1. Take the BOSI Assessment (it’s free). There’s a “What’s your DNA” banner on this page in the sidebar.
2. Ask me a question or share some feedback. Use the contact form for that.
3. Invite me to share a talk at your next big event!
I’m here sitting at the airport in Louisville, KY waiting to head back home to Chicago.
Earlier today I had the opportunity to spend time with a group of Chamber execs attending the ACCE (American Chamber of Commerce Executives) Annual Convention. For years, I have been warning chamber execs that they need to reinvent or become obsolete.
During our session this morning, I taught the execs about the BOSI Quadrant – and what I had learned through my research about entrepreneurial behavior – especially as it relates to chambers.
Here was my main point to chambers (which would be the same point I make to any business-to-entrepreneur organization).
The fact is, how an entrepreneur is wired has everything to do with their needs, wants and frustrations. When b-2-b ventures (like chambers) understand that core behavior – and learn how to decode each entrepreneur’s behavior during the prospecting phase, several good things happen.
Here was another key point I made to the chamber execs…
After all…
I was very encouraged to see so many chamber execs from across the country show a genuine interest in learning more about their customer, the entrepreneur. I was even more encouraged to see many of them step forward to ask for help in further defining who their customer was – and how to message to that customer in more meaningful ways.
As brands get more sophisticated and focused on segmentation and messaging, chambers must follow suit. If not, entrepreneurs will hear chambers talk – but all they’ll hear is – blah, blah, waa, wa, blah, join our chamber, blah, blah, waa wa.
Will chambers become relevant again?
I have hope that the ones that change with these rapidly changing times – and rapidly changing customer needs will.
But it is time for some pruning of the ones that expect us entrepreneurs to keep paying them an annual fee for providing what we perceive as meaningless and “available elsewhere”.
In 2010 a group of former NCAA Football players saw an opportunity.
These athletes realized that in the history of football footwear, cleats had never been designed for specific positions on the field. Despite the different positions and needs of players on the field, everyone still wore the same replacement cleats.
When you think about it, at the snap of the ball a wide receiver running a streak requires a cohesive mesh of speed and agility to beat a cornerback. A defensive tackle fighting for every inch of space requires explosive power and balanced footwork. A tight end that is both a blocker and a receiver needs all of these elements to be the best at his position.
A little research showed that replaceable cleats had not seen any innovation in over 80 years. So Position Tech was born.
We invited the PositionTech founders into the BOSI Accelerator. From legal and accounting to business model and investor deck we tore the company down to its most functional parts and infused healthy growth DNA in.
We helped them rebuild their financial model. We helped them design their investor deck. We helped them identify pitfalls in their current investor structure – and why their capital structure needed to be restructured to attract new capital. We also helped them establish exactly how much money they needed to raise – and why. We took them through pitch training and invited potential investors in to hear their pitch.
After the intensive 2-days of intervention, we decided to invite this company into our 18-month incubator program. Andy Parker from our team went to work in the role of advisor and business catalyst- helping install growth systems and processes in the business.
We love working with driven founders who are coachable. The Position Tech founders fit that mold beautifully. We can’t wait to guide them to their big acquisition.
You can check out this rockin company at http://www.Position-Tech.com
I was at a meeting yesterday with some of my favorite business allies in the Chicago area and I walked away enthused about the news I heard.
Harriet Parker who runs the #1 Small Business Development Center in the state of IL (in # of startups) kicked off the meeting by talking about how busy she has been since the start of the year. She has seen seventy (70) clients since 1/1/12 and is booked solid through march. (That’s a very good sign!) considering there were tumbleweeds rolling through her office 18 months ago. She talked about how a mass of new clients were coming to the table with viable businesses and a strong commitment to get them launched. Some of her past clients were coming back with a renewed focus on growing their business and making investments to get the growth kicked off.
Austin Dempsey (third generation leader of Batavia Enterprises) joined us a few minutes later and while loosening his tie he said “Man! if the first 6 weeks of 2012 are any indication of how the year is going to go, this is going to be one banner year!”. He went on to explain that he has seen a significant (double digit) uptick in businesses taking on new office space and existing clients expanding facilities.
“Business owners seem to be fed up of waiting. They’re pulling the trigger and making their growth initiatives a reality”.
That’s really, really good news.
This has nothing to do with politics. Personally, I don’t think real entrepreneurs let Washington DC control any of their decisions. This has everything to do with the economy and the future of our country.
We hear is said all over the place – “Small business owners and startups are the key to economic recovery”. Unfortunately, 2009-11 was all about small business owners recovering from the 2008 crash while reinventing themselves, restructuring financing and geting healthy again. Reports like the ones I heard from Harriet and Austin combined with what I am experiencing with entrepreneurs we come in contact with suggest we [entrepreneurs] are making our move.
The politicians on both sides of the aisle will try to take credit for the recovery I believe is starting. We as entrepreneurs will know where the recovery really came from. It will come from the same place it always comes – entrepreneurs! We don’t do it for the politics or the press or the accolades. We do it to provide a better quality of life for our families, our employees, our customers and our community…period!
I wonder if others feel the same way about this whole notion of - “there’s something different about 2012″
You’ve probably heard the saying “Build the people, and the people will build the business” (if you hadn’t hear that before, I’d like to take credit for it 
).
I was reflecting today on the people I’ve had a chance to work with in companies I have run. There’s a consistent thread of people-building that took place across every brand. It’s interesting to look back on the collective as well as the individuals and see where they are today. It has been a real a-ha moment for me. I realize now that being an entrepreneur (and building companies) is much more than business models and funding sourced; jobs created and/or retained. Being an entrepreneur is (potentially) about building a legacy of success.
I say “potentially” because for a majority of entrepreneurs, “people building” isn’t even on the radar. Either they don’t feel qualified or flat out don’t care. The reality is, people building doesn’t happen in 80% of businesses. (Yet the C-suite wonders why the company is stagnant in areas like growth, innovation and corporate culture).
The next 15% of companies are engaged in people building, but it’s a human resources effort (not a CEO effort). There’s a BIG, BIG difference between those two efforts. When people building is a human resources effort, it ends up being me-too stuff. Me-too books, seminars, consultants and in-house programs. There’s much more that can be said about this, but that’s a rabbit trail someone else can chase.
In 5% of companies, people building is a CEO-driven initiative. It isn’t a perk or checkmark on the “how to build a great corporate culture” checklist. It is the ethos of the brand. it is who the CEO really is – someone passionate about seeing people become better (and more successful).
You know why only 5% of companies are true people-builders? The answer is counter-intuitive.
If you actually succeed in building people, you’ll eventually lose them. They’ll outgrow you (and your company). That’s the whole point of building people. You’re not building them to make you more money, you’re building them for the purpose of their personal success.
As I reflect on a tech startup I was recruited to run in 1999, I realize now we were all about building people. The two graphic designers we had on staff now run a multi-million dollar a year credit education company they started up while working for us. Our top biz dev guy (and his wife) are now top money earners in a direct sales company (they probably cleared a million dollars in total compensation last year year). A teenager we hired to answer phones and do tech support is now CEO of his father-in-law’s water purification company. The guy we hired and trained to be our media buyer was a law school dropout/ambulance EMT when we met him. Today he is VP of Marketing for one of the top insurance quote websites in the world. The list goes on and on – and it crosses all the companies I’ve had the opportunity to build.
Here’s the point.
If you truly want the best for people, you’ll create an environment of innovation and entrepreneurship in your company. You’ll encourage fresh ideas and breakthrough thought. You’ll give people opportunities to take risks, fail and grow in the process. You’ll hand them the keys to the car and walk back in the house (rather than get in the passenger seat). In the process of authentically doing those things, you’ll build a breakthrough company.
You know what got me thinking and reflecting on this topic?
Just today, our lead engineer got featured in TechCrunch. He took some of his downtime over the holidays and on his own entrepreneurial muscle did something really incredible. He did that because he felt comfortable (and encouraged) to do it. As I look across our current (and growing) staff, I see the same people-building trend emerging – and I’m excited about it.
Build the people – let them be entrepreneurial – and your business will grow as a result.
Here’s a segment from my roundtable chat with Craig Wortmann (CEO of Sales Engine and business school professor) and Eric Plantenberg (CEO of Freedom Personal Development).
My takeaways from this session:
- There will always be an excuse NOT to start your business. If you ask, people will be glad to give you all the reasons not to launch. Talk to real entrepreneurs though, and they’ll tell you now is the best time ever!
- Economic uncertainty has a way of weeding out those who are unprepared. If you have the right strategy, the right team and the right advisors, you can weather almost any storm. As I sit here and watch this video, I am reminded that these guys on the video have seen economic uncertainty in their businesses before. From the 2008 crash to the dot com crash and more. What allowed them to survive (and thrive), was the fact that they were prepared. They modified their strategy and executed with confidence.
- The best predictor of the future is one’s attitude today. If you’re feeling like the sky is going to fall, chances are, it will. The saying is so true – “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, either way, you’re right!”
Eric Plantenberg’s company
Craig Wortmann’s company
We all like to belong don’t we? None of us like to be the odd man out – standing on a soapbox ranting and raving to change the world – only to find oneself on a deserted island with a couple of sea gulls staring intently.
For the last couple of years, I’ve felt that way as I was digging into my study of entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial eco-system. As my frustration about “the way things work today” grew, so did my desire to start beating a new drum.
But then the fear kicked in…
“What if I’m the only lunatic who feels entrepreneurship is broken in many places?”
“How will the established leaders of the eco-system respond when I start throwing hand grenades at the way things are?”
“Will I be the only guy out there?”
But then, to my absolute pleasure arrived the REBEL Alliance. A group of high-output CEOs, educators and researchers – all with a common mission to give old-school entrepreneurship a much needed “reinstall and reboot”.
It happened quite by accident. It started with Dr. Suresh Kumar (Inc 5000 CEO and educator) and Dr. Norris Krueger (Startup Weekend fanatic and world-renown researcher) sharing some of their thought leadership articles (we call em hand grenades) with each other. Then Tim Conway (entrepreneur and adjunct professor) joined the crew and put it on my radar as well. It wasn’t long before Gary Schoeniger (founder of the breakthrough course in entrepreneurship The Ice House) jumped in. And that was just the beginning.
The informal mission? To create a more fertile ground for entrepreneurship in the US and around the world while ridding the eco-system of mindsets and processes that simply don’t work. There is an old guard in the halls of power who are clinging dearly to archaic approaches to entrepreneurship. For example, the old guard is convinced that classroom teaching/reading books is what builds great entrepreneurs. We’re convinced that a 3-day or 3-month immersion experience does way more to foster entrepreneurship and create jobs.
I certainly found that to be true when I ran my startup incubator from 2005 to 2009. More sophisticated and recognized incubators like Startup Weekend, Excelerate Labs and Techstars further proved that point. Entrepreneurship is all about experiential learning. I was reading one of Dr. Krueger’s recent white papers where he claimed entrepreneurship is a verb.
I couldn’t agree more!
All that to say, it’s nice to belong. I can’t wait to see what the group comes up with for 2012 and how many new REBELs join our force.
There’s plenty of room on this bus…(or spaceship – depending on your level of geekness).
While most of the world (thanks in great part to the media) worries and frets about the future of our country and world economy, I stay highly optimistic.
Here’s why…
I get to spend most of my working hours around entrepreneurs – the coolest and most energizing people on earth. You can’t help but be energized being around entrepreneurs – especially the next generation version of them.
Enter IMSA (Illinois Math and Science Academy). Past home to founders of companies like YouTube, OkCupid, Netscape and Paypal. It’s a high school that is consistently rated one of the best in the US and top 40 in the world. Needless to say to be that good, you have to be doing some pretty special things.
One of those really cool things at IMSA is the TALENT program. A place where entrepreneurially minded students can meet, learn and collaborate.
IMSA’s TALENT program is the first high school entrepreneurship program where the cornerstones of Entrepreneurial DNA and BOSI are being installed to build teams, design strategy and create business models.
We’re working together to build optimized teams (based on BOSI DNA) of students who will design the next-generation products and companies this semester and pitch those ideas at the end of the process. The results (I can assure you) will be nothing short of outstanding. Carl Heine and Jim Gerry who run the TALENT program at IMSA are two of the most passionate supporters of the entrepreneurial spirit in students – and it shows!
I can’t wait for the day when every high school in America (and around the world) has an authentic entrepreneurship program like IMSA’s TALENT program. Meanwhile, it’s going to be exciting to see what this next generation of entrepreneurs at IMSA have in store for us. I am confident they have game-changing innovation up their sleeves. Innovation that will solve major challenges and save money, time and even lives!
We’re excited to be a part of it and see what impact BOSI has on ensuring these innovations achieve their greatest market potential.
The best is yet to come.
Learn more about IMSA
Learn more about BOSI
Chambers of Commerce had a good twenty-five year run. After all, create a tiered membership structure with fees from around $300 to as high as $50,000 per year, multiply by a few hundred businesses, and you’re in business!
For that, the Chamber was tasked with providing educational programming and networking, sending out a newsletter, publishing a member directory, and organizing and participating in events while serving as the “voice” of business in the community.
But in the last five years or so, the climate has changed. Chambers have watched as membership numbers fell, revenues dropped, recruiting rates stagnated, and overall member satisfaction declined.
Chambers used to be such an integral part of the small business ecosystem.
What happened?
Simple: When you stagnate you fall behind… and eventually become obsolete. That’s what happened to Tower Records (Napster played their role in that too).
In essence, that’s what happened to Chambers.
Once, the only way to get connected with other business owners was through the chamber. Recent data shows that face-to-face networking is down 20% globally. Entrepreneurs just don’t have the time for networking events.
Then companies like LinkedIn (the Chamber’s version of Napster) disrupted conventional networking by offering it on a global scale – and for free. Then other ventures like BOSI, OnStartups and Entrepreneur.com started providing networking and information access on a global scale.
Leading the charge in reinventing the Chamber to meet the needs of a new generation of entrepreneurs is the Durham Chamber led by ACCE rockstar Casey Steinbacher.
I had a chance to spend several phone sessions and one on-site day with Casey and her team as they were going through their reinvention process. Some things I noticed right off the bat were.
I am sure there are a handful (and I’m being generous) of Chambers who are doing Casey-like re-engineering. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t spoken with a single Chamber President who hasn’t done a ton of strategic planning in the last 18 months. It’s just that most of them are just revisiting old habits and recycling outdated best practices.
But I’m encouraged by the few who are doing breakthrough things. That’s what the entrepreneurial eco-system needs right now. Breakthrough Chambers. Not a bunch of “give us your $350 and we’ll send you a newsletter and a few postcard invitations to boring events” Chambers.
Some quick tips off the top of my head of what Chambers should seriously consider? Here goes…
Instead, focus on being really excellent by:
There is so much more to be said on this topic – I could fill a whole seminar on it. But I just hope that more Chambers get wise to the changing times and do what they have to do to keep adding value to their marketplace.
If not, they’ll be obsolete just like Tower Records.
