It’s true.  Everybody DOES need somebody, sometime. The world of a small business owner / operator can be a lonely, lonely place. If you are like most, you started your business by yourself or maybe  one other person. You did everything yourself, because you have a passion for the business, and slowly, you’ve brought on more people to help you out. But because it is your baby and you have such a deep involvement in the business, everyone still comes to you to make the “final decision.”  You are supposed to be right, all the time, and you are supposed to have all the answers.  Right?

Does this sound familiar? It will to a lot of people. But we all know, or at least we should, that we can’t possibly have all the right answers (contrary to what a few people that I have worked with in the past believe). Being so engulfed in the business, you may not be able to see what is going on around you at a macro level. You might not be the first to spot new markets, new products or even warning signs of things to come. And even if you are lucky enough to have surrounded yourself with talented employees who eat and breathe your business like you do, you all might be suffering from the same issue of too much time in the business, and not enough time on the business.

That’s why you probably already have your unofficial advisors.  The people that you turn to that don’t have any vested interest in your business, but that you trust as intelligent or just easy to talk to. And if you don’t, you should.

Scott Thorogood, good friend and Chairman of Aegean Group, first showed me the value of “official” advisory boards when we worked together on a software company in California. Scott put together a well thought out advisory group that he knew could provide him with feedback on the direction of the business, open doors for to larger organizations and in general, make sure that periodically we all stepped back from the business and looked at it with fresh eyes. In addition to official meetings, these advisors were Scott’s resources as things happened in the business that he needed to bounce off of outsiders. And they were also advocates for the business, setting up and attending key meetings with Scott with the groups that could help our start-up business.

Small, self-funded businesses don’t often have the benefit of a stock option pool to incent advisory board members, or feel like they have time to manage an outside group and explain their actions, but they should find a way.   With no Board of Directors to answer to, no reporting requirements and often no one to even talk to, it is easy to lose focus on how best to grow the business.

Invite members to your advisory group that can provide you with:

• Honest opinions – no one needs a “yes man” as an advisor.
• General business acumen or specific industry knowledge. It’s good to have a mix.
• Connections into businesses or groups that can help you grow your business (and a willingness to make introductions and be an advocate).
• A desire to see you succeed, due to a personal relationship, a direct financial incentive (profit sharing) or an indirect incentive (business partnering opportunities).

Make the advisory board an acknowledged entity, both internally and externally.   Your team should understand and respect the importance of the advisors’ roles.

Get everyone together at least once every six months.   Many great ideas can come from a group dynamic, and the opportunity for your advisors to mingle among each other can be an attractive incentive to get, and stay, with the team.

Keep the size of the group to a manageable level.   Three or four official advisors should be more than enough.

Even though being challenged to defend your actions and the direction the company can be difficult, it is an invaluable asset to avoid foreseeable pitfalls and taking advantage of opportunities. Consider who you call regularly to “vent.”  Consider who is on your “must have breakfast with once a month” list.  You probably already have your advisors, so why not make today the day that you formalize it and start getting some real value out of those relationships?  You’ll be glad you did.

Do you have an advisory board?  Is it “official” or “unofficial?”  How has it helped you? Share your thoughts on how advisors help you manage and grow your business.

Next week:  Everybody Needs Somebody, Sometime – Part II: Coaches

Article: Are the iPhone and social networks making the classic Web and intranet obsolete?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/?p=1007&tag=nl.e539

It seems like most of the conversations about development these days are centered around the Mobile Market.  In the past, I’ve always recommended that clients purchase the .net, .info and at times .biz domain names along with their .com addresses.  Now, I’m recommending they also pick up the .mobi addresses.  It used to be that as a business, it was a requirement to host a website to give out information about your company.  In the next few years, I feel that the same will hold true for the Mobile Market as well – having a mobile friendly version of your website will be a standard, not a fad.

As for the Social Networking aspect of where the Web has headed, it doesn’t surprise me that the Mobile Market is replacing the Web as we all know it to be.  Organizations like Facebook and Twitter have enabled both personal and business relationships to flourish and grow with the ability to be in constant communication while in the workplace.  This ease of communication is naturally moving to the Mobile Market because hand-held devices are the best way to stay in constant communication.  We’ve already learned that from telephony and email.  Why not the Facebooks and Twitters of the world?

The Rise of the ‘Homepreneur.’

For any business that ships regularly, this article suggests some ways to reduce your shipping costs using online tools.

A Cheaper, Better way to Ship

There are as many types of bosses as there are people in the world. And much has been written about what makes someone successful, or a dismal failure, in this role. Over the years, I have seen a lot of management styles and few are more perplexing to me than the Thursday Morning Quarterback.

Everyone is familiar with, I’m sure, the concept of the Monday morning quarterback.  Answers.com says this about Monday Morning Quarterbacks:

A person who criticizes or passes judgment from a position of hindsight, as in Ethel was a Monday-morning quarterback about all the personnel changes in her department–she always claimed to have known what was going to happen. This expression, first recorded in 1932, alludes to fans who verbally “replay” Sunday’s football game the next day, the quarterback being the team member who calls the plays.

We’ve all worked with and for someone like this. Full of ideas and suggestions long after the decisions have been made and executed.   A frustrating part of the business world, but something you get used to.

So, what is a Thursday Morning Quarterback? We coined this term to describe someone that is so absent from the decision making process and so oblivious to its execution, and with so little regard for it’s impact, that they can’t even seem to bother with commenting on Monday.  They wait until long after to ever make a comment about it. So, you get the benefit of being criticized by someone that didn’t even care enough about the situation to do it timely.

These folks tend to either do a “drive by” with their commentary:  “Just running out for a meeting, but wanted to let you know that I think you really messed up that proposal last week. Obviously it was going to fail and you should have known better.” Sometimes they are simply deflecting a far more timely or important current decision by bringing up past (non) issues.

Infuriating. I have a rule that I try to follow that has worked well for me: if you don’t vote or participate in the decision-making process, then you are forbidden from commenting on the results. I have several other rules, such as “No stopping in the middle” and “What do you mean, left over wine?” but those are topics for another day and perhaps a different type of blog.

Do you have a good Thursday Morning Quarterback story?  Are you “that guy” or “that gal?”  What observations have you made about leadership styles that drive you crazy?

Entrepreneurial Edge: Treating Your Career as a Business

Don’t be afraid, it’s just cold calling.

When I meet new people and I mention what our business, Insight Professional Services, does, the first question that they inevitably ask is, “How did you decide to jump into that business?” It is a testament to the people that I meet daily that so many of them are interested in the entrepreneurial side of the business – how, why, when – in addition to details about what it is that we do. So, how did it all come together?

Like so many entrepreneurs, our business was born out of a personal need. My friend, Jim McDermott, was the founder of Stamps.com in the late 90s. He developed the idea for printable postage while he was in grad school at UCLA. Late at night, he was trying to send out a bunch of letters and was frustrated because he couldn’t get stamps anywhere at that time of night. “Why can’t I just print postage myself?  There has to be a way that could work…” and a company was born.

For me, it started back in 2007, when a good friend and colleague of mine, K. Trevor Chong, and I were exploring ways that we could provide CFO/COO for hire services to the venture-backed start-up companies that we had connections with.  The use of subcontractors, shared resources, collaboration technologies…we considered it all. But as so often happens, life intervened and new opportunities presented themselves.  At the same time that Trevor received a great offer to work with Sid R. Bass & Associates, I received an opportunity to move from Las Vegas to Denver to run the Progressive Home Colorado operations full-time. So, our plan would be moth-balled for the next 2 years.

Early in 2009, my desire to work with additional start-up companies heated up again and I decided that I wanted to head out on my own. But “on my own” can take a lot of different forms. For me, while I didn’t want to work for anyone else, I did want all of the corporate “comforts” that I was used to, so that I could focus simply on providing service to emerging businesses. I wanted a website, business cards, branded materials. On the technology front, I wanted to continue to use Outlook/Exchange, be able to sync my Blackberry, be able to work remotely without fear of losing all my data. I wanted someone else to handle all of the billing, collections, record-keeping for me. I short, I just wanted to provide my service, not handle any of the back office bullshit that gets in the way for so many consultants.

So, I started to ask around. There had to be a place where I could have all that stuff tied together, under a single umbrella, that I could just throw money at and let them handle it for me. But the reality was, there wasn’t a one-stop shop that handled all of that. Bits and pieces, sure. I could spend the next 6 months working with 5 different groups to get to something pulled together, but it seemed like overkill for “just me.”

Lightbulb moment: If I have to build it anyway, why don’t I build it and get other people to join on to the system as well.  If I believed that this would help me, there must be others that also need it, so why don’t we build a business around providing these services?

I talked to everyone I could about the idea, working through details, putting together the rough outline of a business plan. I received a tremendous amount of support and valuable feedback. I assembled a team of professionals (De Ann Garrison, Ash Boodel & Tom Coyle) that all believed in the vision and could make it all happen. In addition to building a world-class service organization, every member of the team is also a “client” who runs a successful consulting business of their own on the platform that we built. (Think of the Hairclub for Men: “I’m not just the President, I’m also a client.”)

And the rest, as they say, is history (well, history in the making, really). Personal need turns into business opportunity. Assemble a talented team and execute on the vision. Simple, right?

What ideas do you have that you haven’t capitalized on yet?  What are you waiting for?

Tips and tricks for being a successful entrepreneur