Special week

This week my wonderful bride of 25 years celebrates her birthday and my parents celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary. Both of these marriages have made it successfully, although sometimes stressfully, through entrepreneurial careers. I am delighted to report here that traditional marriage and free enterprise are both alive and well!

Small Business Ethics and Customer relations

The NFIB site has an article which gives a good overview of the importance of stakeholder relationships for small businesses. The author stresses the importance of building integrity into every relationship a business develops as a critical part of building strong customer trust. A strong reputation takes hard work and time to build with customers. This article gives a nice outline of how small businesses can build a venture on a foundation of integrity.

When they finally caught the car

The Small Business Blog has a link to an excellent article at WSJ.com on the perils that small businesses must plan for when they face explosive and sudden growth.
Stories like this remind me of one of my favorite business parables: There once were two old dogs on a farm that spent their days chasing every car that passed by. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, they chased cars all day long. Then one day they actually caught one. At that moment one of these old dogs turned to the other and said, ?Hey, we finally caught one of these things!! But what the heck do we do now????!!!?

You need to be a little crazy?”retropreneurs”

Q: Barry, as someone who road the dot.com wave I am surprised that you sing the praises of a very old fashioned, indeed some might even say rather boring type of businessperson, namely the merchant. Why the change of perspective?
A: One of the reasons I wrote the book is that I thought the term entrepreneur became too sexy. I like the definition since the French word does mean “To undertake with Complete responsibility”. That covers it! But I think we need to come up with a new word so we can forget about the 1990’s since they are not coming back. I use the word “retropreneur” since I think we have to go back to the way businesses have always been started. Through hard work, passion and and one customer need at a time!

You need to be a little crazy?entrepreneurship builds character

Q: One of my favorite lines in your book is this one: ?Running a business will bring out the best and the worst of who you are? (p. 125). What did you find out about yourself during your time as an entrepreneur that relates to this quote?
A: It is easy to be a great leader when things are going well in your business. But you are truly tested as a leader and entrepreneur when things are failing. How do you pick yourself up and move on? You will truly find out what you are made of during this time as you stand at the edge of the business cliff realizing that the market does not care about you. Relay on your resilience, your passion and your support structure so you can fight another day.

You need to be a little crazy?Partners

Q: Barry, you seem to cast a pretty harsh light on business partnerships. Why are business partnerships so difficult?
A: Partnership is marriage without the sex since it takes excellent communication. Don’t choose a partner because you are lonely. Get a mentor then. Choose a partner that complements your skills. Have a legal agreement in place from the start to govern your relationship since getting into a partnership is much easier than getting out. I mediate a lot between partners that do not get along and it can be war 🙁

You need to be a little crazy?Family Business

Q: What should every entrepreneur know about how entrepreneurship will affect his/her family? What advise would you offer to the spouse of an entrepreneur?
A: Regardless of what we think, running a business involves your entire family and their support is key to your success. Running a business is like driving a car around mountain road banging into the guard rails. Guess what? Your spouse is in the back seat turn around and blind folded (knowing less where you are going then you do). Your business sleeps in bed with you every night! Entrepreneurship is tough on spouses and families. But if you can share the good and bad times with them, they will carry you far!
Many people believe that we need to separate out our personal and business lives. With all the tools available today, I think this is impossible. We need to learn to integrate them together with some safe havens in our lives where we do not do business at all.

You need to be a little crazy?Networking is not a verb

Q: Barry, you argue against something that many entrepreneurs are taught from day one, that is, the value of networking. Why do you think that networking, as it has become known in our business culture is basically a pointless activity?
A: Too many people think that networking is sticking out your right hand to shake another person’s hand and simultaneously giving them your business card. Immediately, they say who they are and what they want or are looking for. Real relationships are built over a long period of time. You need to build trust capital or relationship capital and that takes time and effort. Don’t try to trade on relationships too soon. Always ask what you can do for that person before asking for yourself. As Tim Sanders says. “be a lovecat” but connecting people of like interests together.