How does Richard Branson manage 400+ companies? He doesn’t. Over the years he’s learned how to build teams and split ownership in a way that drives everything forward. In 2004, after 2 failed companies, I finally learnt this lesson. When I started my company Spheric Technologies I started it with partners. Why? I realized if I wanted to go far
In 2001, I got a job I wasn’t qualified for. I was hired by a big oil company to lead a new project with dozens of developers to build a product that would be used by every employee in the company. No pressure, right? On the first day, the hiring manager realized I was in way over my head and
The other day I had an old highschool friend invite me to a private facebook group for their network marketing product. When I scanned the posts in the group, they were ALL promotional and salesy. Nothing added value to their customers lives. It was all about them. Unfriend. I have a real problem with any company that doesn’t think of
What would it feel like hiring 150 sales people for your company in 6 months? That’s the question I asked Scot, the founder of Classy, a few months ago. Their story is EPIC! I’ll fast track his answer… essentially, he started out for many years being the primary salesperson, then hired around him, but remained inseparable from that process. After
If you want a good laugh, watch this week’s video. There may be some singing / rapping in it (if you want to call it that). What’s important though, are the lyrics. “Nurture – nurture – nurture that lead!” Even more important… … how many leads are you generating per month? If that number is 0, or not growing, then
“This is totally a company you would create!” That’s what people would say every time I showed them the prototype for Clarity. My passion for connecting people to have a conversation was something I had been doing for years… … first starting with Founder Dinners, and morphing over the years to my entrepreneurial events like Maple Summit, Idea to Exit,
When I first built Clarity.fm, it wasn’t a marketplace. It was a call list app. The concept was that I could add anyone to my list, with phone number and description, then it would robo call each person, reading to me the name of the person and reason for the call. In short… I was building a productivity tool, NOT
Have you ever heard of the Kano Model? I hadn’t either… until my buddy Merv told me about it. Here’s a diagram that gives you a visual: If you think that looks complicated, you’re not alone. It took a bit of marinating for my brain to fully “get” how much value this model has to offer. But let me tell
What’s your churn? If you don’t know this number, get it. Better yet, do you know why they’re churning? When I was building my company Flowtown, we had a 12% monthly churn. Not good. That meant that after only 8.3 months we had lost ALL of the customers we had worked so hard to attract & convert? Just so you
Are you down with SOP’s? Some call em’ Standard Operating Procedures, I call them Playbooks. If you’re tired of putting out fires in your business, then you’ll need them to keep your sanity. Recently I had the privilege of having dinner w/ the Godfather of system design for entrepreneurs, Michael Gerber (author of The E-Myth / 10M copies sold). I
