You can listen online using the player below.

I thought it would be good to share. I hope you enjoy it. (Just forgive some of the old terminology like “BOSI Entrepreneurship”).

It’s just under 12 minutes long so hit play and just make sure you’re not operating any heavy machinery…

A Crash Course Entrepreneurial DNA

If you’d rather download the mp3 and listen on your favorite device, right click this link to download the file.

ALERT: I’ve taken every precaution to make sure the mp3 file is virus and bug free. However, by downloading this file, you are agreeing to 3 things.

1. This is copyrighted material owned exclusively by me. You may not repackage or sell this content. But you’re welcome to share it with friends for free.

2. You download this file at your own risk and assume full liability for any technical issues that may result including but not limited to your mp3 player exploding, your hard drive crashing or your dog running away.

3. This audio file is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not providing you business or legal advice.

Oh! one last thing…

If you don’t own your copy of Entrepreneurial DNA yet. You better get it right now.

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.

The Before: (What the company had when we met them)

• A proven product with market traction
• Patented innovation
• A passionate team of founders willing to out-work anyone
• Traction! Proven sales at the grass roots and national retailer level
• A successful friends and family funding round

What they needed:

• Guidance on how to take their company from a local phenomenon to a nationally recognized brand
• A scalable business model that wouldn’t break as the company grew
• Access to growth capital (they figured they needed around $500k)
• Help figuring out the roles, responsibilities and operating plan for the four founders – especially given their diverse BOSI Profiles
• Confidence that their company was going to be a big brand someday

What we did:

As with any engagement, we spent two half-day sessions with the founders going through every conceivable aspect of their business. 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.

The Results:

1. The company started receiving offers for investment and is well on its way to raising $1,500,000 in growth capital
2. The company walked into one of the top sporting goods retailers and with confidence asked for a larger order. The retailer took them from 20 to over 225 stores nationwide
3. The company’s business model was redesigned for scalable growth
4. The partners went from running the company by committee to a robust management structure where decisions and execution were scalable
5. The company is on pace to do 10x the revenue of 2011 and have a handsome exit within a few years

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

“Who are they, and what are they like?” They ask.

“They’re all rockstars in their area of expertise” I say. “And they’re a ton of fun to be around“.

But here’s a little more about each of them and their role on the team.

Steve Thompson is our resident human capital guru. He spent 25 years in senior human resource leadership with medium to large sized corporations. He was recruited to lead a startup that grew to over 540 million in revenues and went through an IPO. From 2000-2010, Steve was Principal at Sterling Partners (a Private Equity firm) that grow from $90 million to over $4 billion in assets during his tenure. His role at Sterling was to do diligence on incoming portfolio companies and build powerhouse management teams that could scale companies to massive revenues. In addition to being my business partner, he runs the human capital practice @ Dreihaus Private Equity. Third parties have told me he is in the top 2% of human capital experts in the country.

Tim Conway spent the first 15 years of his career in Marketing and PR for companies like Sears and McDonalds. He then transitioned into entrepreneurship to launch his own advisory firm. He then taught public speaking and marketing at DePaul University and now teaches entrepreneurship at Roosevelt University. Tim wears two major hats on our team. First, he heads up the development of any content and curriculum we create. He is our education czar. Second, he participates as a strategist when we’re working hands-on with a company to incubate or accelerate growth. His ideas come a mile-a-minute and he’s never shy of rolling up his sleeves and helping companies get important things done – especially in the areas of marketing and public relations.

Andy Parker is a serial entrepreneur like me. He’s built three technology companies from the ground up, raised tens of millions of dollars in funding, built huge sales teams, sold the likes of Microsoft on big-cash licensing deals. Andy plays two major roles on our team. First, he’s a master strategist and problem solver. I’ve sat with him through countless hours of strategy and never found him to not know what to do next. His brain is wired with so much Builder DNA, it’s not even funny. But more importantly, Andy is one of the few people I have ever found who rolls up his sleeves and goes to work in a startup or struggling company to create growth. Unlike most people who want to tell you what to do and then sit back and watch you do it, Andy shows you what needs to be done and then does it with you. That’s a priceless asset on a team like ours. Our portfolio companies are absolutely addicted to him.

Bob Rupczynski Bob is our digital marketing rockstar. But don’t take my word for it, know that top Facebook executives gave him that title. He was the brains behind Albert Culver’s competition crushing digital marketing rollout in the mid-2000′s. When TresSomme’ beat out Pantene in online marketing, that was Bob’s doing. He then joined Wrigley (yes, the brand we all love) and build their digital marketing footprint to one of the most dominant in the world. His Skittles Facebook page success was just featured in Forbes magazine. As busy as Bob is at Wrigley, I don’t call on him much, but when we’re incubating a startup or working with a SMB in our 18-month accelerator, Bob’s genius brain is always brought into the mix.

Jackie Camacho-Ruiz When you meet Jackie, you get the sense that she is always having a amazing day. Celebrated author, speaker and PR guru, Jackie runs her own marketing firm JJR Marketing. With a decade of marketing and public relations experience behind her, clients entrust Jackie with strategic planning, marketing planning and creative brainstorming. We ask her to play in the sandbox with all our portfolio companies when it is time to get big news coverage and leverage powerful media relationships to leapfrog the competition.

Trey Morris Trey is a sales and marketing machine…period. With over 100 million dollars in personal sales production over his career, he knows what he is doing. He comes from the advertising sales world but along the way has owned his own ad agency and full service marketing firm. He is also a restauranteur. He is co-owner of the best BBQ restaurant north of interstate 40 called Q-BBQ. If you’re ever in the Chicago area, we’ll be glad to meet you there for lunch! Trey engages when companies need a killer sales and marketing plan. He’s a no-nonsense, old-school sales and marketing guy. He’s not a digital marketer like Bob. He’s all about windshield time, building relationships and closing deals. So when a company’s business plan calls for people-driven sales and marketing, Trey’s our guy.

Rob Armstrong Rob is another multi-million dollar a year sales producer and world-class relationship builder. He’s topped the charts in production in every industry and company he has worked with (most recently becoming one of the top producers at Northwestern Mutual Life). Today, he spends his work hours as partner in a boutique insurance advisory firm and jumps in with both feet any time we have a company that needs his expertise and guidance. A sales manager and leader at heart, Rob is able to take young companies with promising sales talent and develop those individuals into money-making machines. He is fanatical about personal development – and ensures that every salesperson and staff member he mentors is on a healthy does of good brain food.

Satish Rao Satish is a financial model designing brainiac. I can’t say it any better than that. He is a Kellogg MBA who spent almost a decade with IBM Strategy and Change. He also works as a principal in a firm with world-renown professor and author Robert Wolcott. We bring Satish in when we’re working with a company that needs to raise a boatload of capital. Satish builds the financial model and participates in pitch training and investor deck prep sessions. I seldom trust anyone else to build a financial model for one of our portfolio companies. He’s one of the best I have ever worked with.

Jim Haluczak graduated from DePaul University in Chicago with a passion for entrepreneurship. While at DePaul, he was President of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization Chapter on campus. After graduating, he co-founded SmartOwl, a creative agency and grew it to double digit growth while his competitors struggled to get new customers. Jim is our business development guy and all-around “friend maker”. If you contact us to learn more about working with bosiDNA.com, BPI or our team, you’ll probably end up in some discussion with Jim as part of the process.

So there ya go! The team @ the ranch (and interestingly enough, the longest blog post I have ever created).

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″

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.

If you (or your organization) target small business in any capacity, getting certified or licensed in Entrepreneurial DNA is going to be a must for you in 2012.

For organizations that provide advisory, consulting, coaching or similar services to startups, small businesses and/or entrepreneurially minded large corps, learn more about licensing Entrepreneurial DNA.

I’ve also gone back into my sales training archives, dug up all the good treasure, infused Entrepreneurial DNA into it and put it together in a 1-day certification program like no other. It’s all about decoding the behavior of entrepreneurs and customizing your marketing and selling process to meet the unique needs and buying style of each DNA. Go through this process and they’ll be backing up UPS trucks in your driveway with the cash from new business.

Before officially releasing the sales program, I need some guinea pigs to test the material on. So if your organization has 20 or more people who can participate in a 1-day learning extravaganza , contact me. Guinea pigs are known to get great deals…

We shot this video of Seyi Fabode in September of 2010 (wow that feels like a long time ago!). This was his demo video for a documentary we shot later that year. Watch the video and then scroll down for my takeaways…

My Takeaways From Seyi

– Seyi is an inspiring example of the entrepreneur who was given plenty of opportunities to quit – but chose not to. Even though the video above doesn’t tell an ounce of his story, those of us who know him have seen him persist and succeed despite the obstacles.

– When we shot this demo video, Seyi was just another tech startup – big dreams and goals but struggling to find capital. Seyi stayed persistent. He improved his product. He worked on himself. He surrounded himself with the best people and advisors he could find. Fast forward to today and Power2Switch has been the subject of a ton of publicity. In 2011, they were selected to incubate at Excelerate Labs . They’ve raised some much needed capital and are on their way.

– Seyi also didn’t go the journey alone. He had partners. I can’t stress enough the importance and value of having business partners. People you can lean on when times get tough – and also celebrate when the cash register rings. Seyi has great partners – it’s part of his formula for success.

– Seyi leveraged his Entrepreneurial DNA. I remember the look on Seyi’s face the day he read through his Advanced Assessment report to discover his predisposed strengths, weaknesses and modus operandi. He used that information to optimize his team, build strategy and even walk away from some opportunities that appeared lucrative on the surface.

– Seyi was relentless in asking for help. This to me, is a major piece of Seyi’s success. He was never afraid to ask for help. Even though he graduated from one of the top business schools in the country (Chicago Booth), he stayed humble. (Most of his peers think they walk on water and will soon find their businesses at the bottom of the lake). Seyi sought out advisors and help. He applied for help from the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center. He did everything they told him to do. He signed up for every pitch opportunity and business plan contest (and won a few along the way). I can’t think of many tech events I attended that he was not present at. The point? Seyi didn’t hide in a dungeon wondering why the phone didn’t ring. He put himself out there – took the risks – and reaped the reward.

I’m sure there were days he didn’t feel like shaking hands, asking for help or applying for another business plan contest. But he did anyway. That’s the essence of entrepreneurship!

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