Hang out with me as I share insight and experiences as the entrepreneur's biggest fan, a dad of two growing boys and husband of the most amazing woman in the world.
// January 28th, 2010 // View Comments // video
From a guy who has had GREAT business partners and some nightmare ones…here’s a quick 30 second video thought-of-the-day on the topic of business partners.
Share your thoughts and comments below 
// December 1st, 2009 // View Comments // Small government
Here’s the audio track from a recent radio show I did with host Wayne Powers on WBT (Charlotte) on the topic of growing unemployment and what that means for entrepreneurship.
We also end up talking about small business in general and what government should/should not do (purely opinion) to make this a better business and growth environment.
You can also download your a copy of this audio and listen on your favorite MP3 player by subscribing to the podcast here.
Your comments and feedback below are always encouraged…
// December 29th, 2008 // View Comments // Next Gen. Entrepreneurship
Before the story gets too convoluted or watered down from the numerous times I’ll probably have to tell it, I wanted to archive the “real” story of BOSI DNA.
In case you didn’t have the faintest clue what BOSI DNA is, BOSI is the concept behind the book concept I am working on called “BOSI Entrepreneurship”.
So here’s how the story goes…
I was sitting at my desk one afternoon…frustrated!
I was frustrated with our clients (both past and present). We had rich clients and broke clients, we had super-high profile clients and clients who were only celebrities to their own kids.
We had men, women, those in their early twenties and those in their sixties.
Every shape, size and culture was represented in our historical records.
But here was the frustration. They didn’t all act like I wanted them to!!
After all, they were all entrepreneurs right? So why was it so hard to figure out which ones we wanted to work with and which ones we didn’t?
I had learned the hard way that just because a client can “pay” for our services didn’t make them a good client. Sometimes the ones who could pay us the most, were the biggest jerks!
So what I had was a profiling problem. I guess it was no different than being the high school football coach on tryout day. If coach didn’t know exactly what he was looking for in a quarterback, a lineman and a wide receiver, he’d have a small nightmare on his hands right?
But fortunately the big beer bellied high school coach had a “system” with which to profile his athletes. Through a series of exercises, he could evaluate which players had the highest potential to be stars and which ones were better off printing flyers for the booster club.
I didn’t have a system. Come to find out, nobody did. I search all over the web and through my library of business books and ALL of them lumped entrepreneurs into one big category.
The mindset was that “One Size Fits All” if you’re an entrepreneur.
But that just didn’t sit right with me. So I prayed (more about the frustration than anything else). Then I took a pen to paper and 20 minutes later, BOSI was born!!
No kidding, that’s the honest truth. In 20 minutes or so, I ended up putting on paper a few dozen names of clients and business owners from my past. As I put their names down on paper, the movie was playing in my mind of how these particular entrepreneurs functioned.
I pictured their faces. I recalled their MO in business. I though about how they each ran their enterprises.
As I did, lo and behold, they started to separate themselves like oil and water. Jim and Sue seemed to be more similar while Steve and Jane bunched up together.
At first, I ended up with 3 categories. The B, O and I. Then I discovered the “S” (who happen to be the largest group of the bunch).
So I called Adam and Jon (now former staff members), and ran them through my finding. I was greeted with the typical “Ah ha, that’s great Joe…sounds interesting…”. It was like being told your ugly drawing from art class was “interesting”. But I knew I was on to something.
[ADD moment - maybe that's why Adam and Jon are now former staff members???]
The more I thought about, the more real it became. Then I happened to be in Dallas meeting with Garry Arasmith who heads up our Advisory team. We grabbed dinner at an italian joint (Maccaroni Grill I think). From the time it took the waiter to take our order and bring us our meal, I had done my paper napkin presentation to Garry. (That’s what I like about chain restaurants…they feed you on paper table cloths – excellent for brainstorming!!)
As I walked Garry through BOSI, he lit up like a Christmas tree! Now I really knew we were on to something.
I was ready to tell the BOSI story to the world!! But first, research! I bet that’s going to take at least a year or so.
So there it is, the story the way it happened. Maybe a year from now, after I’ve told it enough times, I’ll be claiming it was delivered to me in a vision by angels wearing dancing tights.
No, no, no. This document will serve to confirm that the BOSI story began with very meager means. It began with a frustrated entrepreneur trying to prayerfully understand how to deal with his zany and unpredictable peers!
