Surround Yourself with Smart, Trustworthy People (Revisited)

In last week’s post, Surround Yourself with Smart, Trustworthy People, I talked about building teams of smart, trustworthy people around you.  In two LinkedIn groups that I post this blog to I got comments that I thought I should address here – especially as I thought I had covered the points they raised in last week’s post!  Also, I had a meeting this week with an individual where the subject of networking for leads came up, and which tells a similar story to that of the comments.

Surround Yourself with Smart, Trustworthy People

Recently, on behalf of a couple of new business owners I had met, I reached out to a past client because I thought they could provide some insight to and even connections for these new individuals.  This week, I got an email back from the past client in which they made a statement which I think is very apropos to the content of my last few blogs.

The past client said that the individuals should “surround themselves with smart, trustworthy people.  You can’t do these sorts of things alone.  Building a strong team around you takes time, a great deal of belief, money and tenacity.”  They clearly hit on my recent themes of “you can’t do this alone” and “get good people on your team”; but, in just those few words they touched on so much more.

Lessons from Facebook for Entrepreneurs

So the big financial news this week was that Facebook filed it’s IPO.  On Thursday, if you watched the financial news channels, you might have been forgiven for thinking there was no other financial news that day.

As I listened to the news reports and read the articles in The New York Times, I was struck by the little nuggets behind the news about how to be the founder/CEO of an entrepreneurial endeavor.  Not that any of this is new and hasn’t been said a thousand times before, but it always seems worth repeating.  So, I thought I would share with you what leaped out at me.  Perhaps you saw/heard some different things that could also be “lessons from Facebook for entrepreneurs”.

Building a Better ‘First-Time Entrepreneur’

This week I talked with an entrepreneur (no names; no pack drill!) who isn’t happy with the speed with which their business is progressing (come to think of it I’m not sure I’ve ever met an entrepreneur who was happy with their speed of business progress [superemotions file=”icon_biggrin.gif” title=”Big Grin”]) – and, actually, my conversations were with more than one such entrepreneur.

This got me thinking about weaknesses exhibited in the businesses of first-time entrepreneurs, specifically during the period before they get to revenue.  My conversation with this individual covered most of the topics that I’ve detailed below; they are ones that commonly come up in conversations with first-time entrepreneurs (I’m sure you can come up with others!!).

Business planning, not business plans

I usually cringe when I hear an entrepreneur or small business owner talking about writing (or worse, being told to write) a business plan.  The reason I cringe is that, too often, what people mean by “business plan” is some 30+ page Word document that no-one will ever read and which will end up as a dusty binder on a bookshelf, or some forgotten bytes on a dusty hard drive.

Isolation vs. collaboration

In The New York Times’ Sunday Review section (January 15th) the front page opinion article was “The Rise Of the New Groupthink” by Susan Cain.  It was subtitled “Collaboration is in.  But it may not be conducive to creativity.”

As someone who believes in the power of collaboration – it’s part of the name of my company, Collaborative Xceleration – I had to read the article to see if my view of collaboration and creativity needed to be revised.

Would You Want a ‘Fool’ Investing in Your Business?

Recently, in one of the LinkedIn Groups I belong to – Business Owners & Entrepreneurs – Sandra Brevett-Dib posted a link to an article on Forbes.com: ‘Early-Stage Startups Need Friends, Family, and Fools’ by Martin Zwilling.

I posted a comment that, when I talk about the 3Fs, I use the term Fanatics not Fools, because:

“I don’t like the term ‘fools’ when applied to people who are investing in your business – because to me it implies that your business is a foolish one to invest in.  Fanatics are people who love your idea so passionately that they are willing to overlook some things that a ‘professional investor’ may see as dealbreakers.”

That inspired me to talk in more detail here about Fools vs. Fanatics.