A comment I made in a recent post deserves a little more room to breath.
"We have entrepeneurs in Ireland too, only we call them chancers"
Will be revisitied in later post about Irish attitiudes to "sole traders" as the tax man calls us.
Once, twice, three times removed.
I put in a call today to the MD of a PR agency cause what I do is very much related to what he does.
I prepped for an hour and a half for the call, I lined up all the ducks, thought out the call, what I wanted from it ( a meeting), answers to possible objections (he doesnt know me) and even upside for him (cudos with his customers). But he was in a meeting. Fine I thought, I'll call him back tomorrow and I'll keep calling till I get him and get a meeting.
But then I thought, hang on, how many steps am I from the end customer, how far am I from the guy who writes the check. Me to the MD, the MD to his account exec, the account exec to his opposite number in the client company, the client exec to his boss who probably has to clear spend with the client CFO. For a start up, with a staff of one, thats way too many hurdles, way too many potholes and way too many people to keep happy.
Dear Employee
Subject: New Company Policy
You can't afford the time required to deal through several people. Contacts are great but they must lead you to the end customer, ie the man who cuts the cheques.
qed
Fate! my arse!
Normally I would slap somone who would try to use language in an attempt to ascribe all sorts of idiocies to even more ludicrous entities. I shall however indulge my looney bone for a moment (My therapist says I should branch out). There is a book called, "First you have to row a little boat" and if you can get past the schmaltz (token american sounding slangy word for our readers across the pond) it's a good read about life being like sailing. I know , I know, but you'll just have to trust me on this one cause the Author's got some gems.
His thrust is that all the real fights we have are with ourselves. He says that all of lifes major battles are the internal ones. I'm not afraid of the market place, the product not selling, the competition, the banks, (ok I am afraid of herself but thats for another post) what I am afraid of is me. Me not being disciplined enough, and no this isnt a trip, I'm a genuinely lazy bastard.
My brother (remember him from such info-mercials as Fear, Mr President, Fear... and Caring, sensitive, emotionally atuned millenium man ) well he reckons its because I never got a handle on delayed gratification, never knew how to finish something and reward myself later. I was always cute and political enough to get the goodies upfront (Ask herself :-) and maybe he has a point.
And heres the bite, same day I was watching TV, (see I told you I was lazy) and some programme had another latin phrase, this one went.."Vincit Qui Vincit"... and means
"He conquers all, who conquers himself"
They'd cut you to the bone those feckin Romans.
Size matters, oh yes it does.
I used to think it was Fear but the closer I get to E-Day (Entrepeneur Day) I find that my most hated emotion is FRUSTRATION. Let me just put down this bottle of Tequila and I'll explain.
I have courted a guy who has a seriously kicking brand, he's on the up, lots of TV and press and I made some seriously clever moves to get a meeting with him. Nothing under hand or salesy, just straight talk. And I got the meeting.
I spent an hour with him and got him all fired up (look just ignore the sexual language and overtones ok, but he did smell good!) and at the end, he agreed to the first of a series of pieces of business and amazingly he never mentioned cost. Tom Peters would love me, I got him so enthused and on side about what we could do, he didnt care about cost and just appreciated that he had to have this service.
But I couldnt leave it alone. AGGHGGGAHGHAGHG!
Just before he left, I said, listen, cost wise we're looking at approximately X. Yes you guessed it. The X I mentioned was paltry and he practically laughed and in that moment I completely devalued all I had said. I remeber my brother telling me once that its not what you can do that matters, its what people think you can do. Following our phone and email conversation, this custmore thought I was big cheese, I talked big cheese, I walked big cheese and then I squeaked like a little mouse. eeeee, eeeee... eeeeeee.... eeeee.......e
Mr. Moynihan's Revenge
Heres a sentence you dont see much theses days. "I had a latin teacher". The implications are massive. Firstly I must be at least 70 years old when in fact I'm thirty five. I must have been beaten regularily at school for taking Latin and I was. But watching the bullies headscratch in front of my Latin grafiti gave me perverse pleasure (hat tip to "the Life of Bryan").
More importantly though was the daily ritual of deciphering Mr Moynihans accent. Imagine a man who pronounced the word 'yellow' as 'yullah' and now have him teach you latin. Oh the joy. Had we been beamed back to Rome and said a word in Moynihans accent, we would no doubt have been the first christians in Roman history, thrown to the lions for maligning the language. But, and theres always a but (title of an upcoming post no doubt), 20 years after forgetting most of my latin allow me to dazzle you with a phrase that beautifully sums up my approach to this blog indeed to any other site blog or book that would pretend to offer you some recepie for entrepeneurial success. Wait for it....
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. Roughly translated it means 'after this, therefore because of this' and it shines a light for me on one of the most widespread human fallacies. It suggestst, that just because B comes after A, that A has caused B. Watch it beautifully at work in the interviews that you read with successful busines men and women as they trawl their past actions and ascribe to them a meaning and weight that they can ill carry.
As if succes in business were reducable to a set of key moments or events ar actions and the implication being that if us poor mortals could but re-produce these activites, we too would have equal success. Doctors advice when it comes to successful business web sites, blogs and interviews that fill our pages and cyber spaces, - take it all with a grain of salt (and that includes this too!)
Fear, Mr President, Fear...
Fear, my brother re-assures me is the greatest motivator, its also the one that stops you sleeping, eating, having sex and generally enjoying anything. Isn't there a chineese saying that a man who has a toothache cannot be in love. I sat in a restaurant last night with herself, and tried my damnest to keep focused, to listen to the details of the week but my brain kept drifiting away to how many clients I have, how many more I need, where they’ll come from, when they’ll come and what they’ll look like. A man who wants to start a business cannot be attentive. As if I really needed to be any more self absorbed.
Admittedly the whole week wasn’t like this, there was that 45 minute period last Monday. I got some business and the buzz lasted oh all of 45 minutes, during which I sat back watched an episode of West Wing had a bite to eat, and generally congratulated myself for being such a great- what is it the Americans say? -"Entrepeneur". That’s me I thought, I'm an entrepeneur, this must be what Wired and Fast Company talk about all the time. The buzz and thrill of the win.
Lo and behold 45 minutes later, once the episode was over, there was the fear again.
Shit, I thought, now I actually have to deliver the work I've won, and according to the business books I need to be turning them into customers for life, I need to be upselling, I need to be maximising value. I turned the TV back on and cued up the next episode of West Wing, hmmm, I thought, now lets see what President Bartlett has to say on the issue of stakeholder value.
Caring, sensitive, emotionally atuned millenium man.
I had, what I thought, was a flash of inspiration, it was a 'Gerry Maguire' moment to be precise (No fool, not "you had me at hello"!!). Remember the part where he's in the locker room, asking the footballer "help me to help you".
Well there I was, wanting to start the discussion about going solo and I suddenly thought, why could'nt I be the caring sensitive emotionally atuned millenium man and ask herself what it is she needs for me to go solo. I had given much consideration to my own pavolovian, emotional and psychological needs (I had surmised that in order to start a business I needed, a dressing gown, a full fridge, a computer, a TV, oh yeah and a credit card with a paypal account to hide the money from the Tax people.)
So lying in bed one fateful night, I decided to pop the question, fully expecting herself to need some time, a week or so to come up with a list of fluffy, bunny rabbit needs. Without blinking she turned to me and machine gunned off 5 things. Straight out, she came, with a list of 5 issues that she was concerned about and worried about and needed adddressed in order to support my dive into independence. What were they?
- 6 months worth of the mortgage in the bank
- Propper financial accounting
- Complete compliance with all tax laws
- Somewhere to go so I wouldn’t sit in my dressing gown all day
- Somewhere to go so I wouldn’t eat and watch TV all day
Oh yeah and number 6, she didn’t want to be my boss and have to chase me on all these issues.
New Buck Stopping Policy
Dear Employee
You have a job, you've had jobs for years, about 15 now, and whether you liked them or hated them, they provided you with somewhere to go in the morning. There was a place, a time, an office, people, a reason to rush in early or stay late. Even the down time had structure 'cause you were going somewhere and meeting someone.
And now in three weeks time, all that will not be provided by someone else, it will have to come from you. Things like meeting the Tax people and get yourself properly set up and registered are not really worrying you, the business development side of things is not really worrying you, in fact the financial side of things is not really worrying you either, as you have a 6 month cushion of savings should the worse happen.
No, the thing that really scares you is you. You see, you're rather lazy and disorganised and you tend to put things off till the last minute. Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after. You are having to face aspects of your personality, that are deeply ingrained, the synaptic pathways are hardcoded into your cerebral cortex and you're not sure how its going to work with no one breathing down your neck, telling you what to do. No I'm afraid the buck stops very firmly right here with you.
Deja Vu
I tried this once before around 1999, and spent three years in a dot bomb, the last 9 months of it without any pay til I ran screaming back into the arms of corporate culture and swore I'd never venture forth again into the dark unknowns of independence. 
I lasted three years in what i lovingly called Behemoth Corp, and dallied daily with my sanity 'till I eventually escaped to a Public Sector retreat I call Neverland and slept there for 18 months, but in sleeping come dreams, colorful, creative, exciting dreams and so here we go again.
