Sunday, November 19, 2006

The Circus Called Entrepreneurial Endeavors


Short week this week, and that’s a good thing. The forced rest will be welcomed. Though, I did rest this weekend a bit.

The masthead photo for this entry was a snap shot after an a.m. meeting in DC on Friday. Welcome to the circus called entrepreneurial endeavors (sorry, I could not resist, that's really how it is sometimes). I’ve taken to keeping my camera with me, just in case. It’s a fun thing.

Held my rescheduled board meeting on Friday afternoon. That was great. It really helped me pop my head out and above the day-to-day rat race to get a strategic view of the business.

In many ways, if used correctly, a board can provide a great inventory of your company – good and bad. For the first time the road to my vision is extremely clear. I understand what’s stopping me from getting there, and for the most part it’s that guy in the mirror who’s thinking too small.

Secondly, I have my old sales VP and another senior statesman on my board that helped me work out some pipeline mechanics. There’s a problem with an inverted pipe. That means the bulk of my new business opportunities are in the next 45 days, and afterwards I have an empty pipe. The next 30 days will see me throwing leads into my long-term pipe from a few sources (sorry dear competitors, no tips as to where I am getting my traction).

The other thing is getting the immediate leads closed. Good suggestions from the board here, too. For the first time in a while, I think I am going to pull out some pretty unique tactics to bring these clients on. The primary objection seems to be the newness of the firm, but there are ways to counter it.

Couple of things to note. We’ve done a great job launching a company’s new product. They have no referable major clients of note yet, but because of a ton of blog traffic and interest from the web 2.0 community, we were able to surpass objections from key reporters. We just sent reporters to our favorite blog search tool, and had them type in the company name. Top trades and major national newspaper are writing the product up. Nov. 27 is going to be a good day.

Other notable: I got invited to join the board of an arts organization downtown. This has been a year-long objective of mine, and finally it’s come to fruition.

Monday’s quotes are:

“Once you've taken inventory, you can start to make sense of your runway. But then comes a second challenge: finding the time to do what you need to do.”
-David Allen

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.”
John F. Kennedy

P.S. A comment about #1 was posted recently. I am not #1, actually. My first full-time employee is dubbed “#1” for the sake of anonymity. Think Start Trek. Again, it’s never good to give your competition an opportunity to cherry pick employees, prospects or clients.

P.S.S. This is the last entry for the week. Have a great holiday.

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