Albino Kangaroo: Life is A Journey – Where can I book for lessons?

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming....wow, what a trip!!"

If that is the kind of Journey that gets you excited, then you completely, absolutely without a doubt have to start your own business. It was much the same for the other companies I helped set up and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It’s funny when I look back, however, how life actually prepares you for that Journey (or doesn’t in a lot of cases). As I am doing my daily entrepreneurial activities swapping hats every 2 hours to cover sales, IT, clients, contracts, etc I find myself using skills that I actually picked up at SCHOOL! So pay attention class ;)

To give a direct example:

When you are actually thinking about starting a new business, you need to do research, build a business model, and then package it into what I would call an ‘investment’ grade product (well ordered and convincing business plan with substance and backing), before you can even consider going out there and asking for money.

Now think back at school when you were about to start studying a part of history that you were unfamiliar with and the teacher issued you with a 30 day 10 page assignment. If you were like me, you spent 28 days in serious ‘thought’ about it and then 2 of the most frantic days of your life. But you still had to follow a process, which was to learn about a new topic, extract the relevant information, then repackage it and present it as your 10 page assignment.

Creating a business plan is exactly the same process! You research your industry very well so that you have the facts to hand and can lend substance to your proposal/scenario and the need for your product/service. You then need to sit down and format it into a document with the correct sections, in basic terms a start (executive summary), middle (argument and backup info) and conclusion (extrapolated financials to show return and summary).

And finally, you need backing. This is probably one of the most important and also most neglected areas of the package. I am not necessarily talking about financial backing, although money definitely talks, but more of intellectual backing.

For my history essay, this would be finding suitable quotes and most importantly, to credit and reference them properly. I always found it slightly amusing that people would plagiaries, as I find it more impressive that someone has gone out there to find a supporting argument to reference than just claim it as his own. To be incredibly harsh, who cares what you think. Tell me what you think then find me experts who I respect that think similarly, and I will take what you think a lot more seriously.

In business plan terms, and this is a real cruncher, it is supporting letters. I see so many business plans with very convincing research and a plausible model, but nothing is more convincing than a letter of intent (supporting letter) from an established industry player confirming that he has looked at the proposal and IT MAKES SENSE TO HIM AS WELL. The person issuing the letter of intent is not someone you want money from. It is someone that can verify your idea and is willing to support it either via reference or even engaging in business with you once you do get the funding.

It is not too hard to go out there, find businesses or fellow established entrepreneurs in the industry you are looking at, and have them look at your business plan. This is because your future product or service will be of benefit to them. All they need to show is ‘intent’ to possibly do business if everything works out, which is no actual commitment on their side, just credible support.

Oh, and try and stay away from reams and reams of statistics and huge forward projections as your only selling point. They are essential and have to be done right, but no-one can predict what will actually happen in 5 years from statistics. Your argument and the support from others will generally hold more sway.

“Statistics are like miniskirts - they sharpen interest, but hide the most essential.”

Well, it’s Friday so I think class will finish early J

Albino Kangaroo: The Center of the Universe vs. Teamwork

"When they discover the center of the universe, a lot of people will be disappointed to discover that they are not it." Bernard Bailey

Although Albino Kangaroos are very rare, they are by no means unique and still need the support of the herd. You can use something cheesy like:

“The sum of the whole is greater than the sum of its component parts” which goes completely against Newton’s laws of Thermodynamics from an energy point of view, but is crucial to making any new, or even existing businesses work at their optimum.

With everyone chipping in together and doing what they do best, from an economic point of view, you get efficiencies of scale and specialization.

Another great example is a rowboat. If all the rowers are not rowing in the same direction, then the boat doesn’t move. Even if all the rowers ARE rowing in the same direction, but not in sync, the boat does not move optimally. The best option is to have all the rowers rowing at the same time in the same direction.

I think I have found a couple ‘secrets’ to good teamwork below:

Good Communication
Dynamic Strategy so everyone knows which direction to pull in

But this is very much a work in progress.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to post them.

In the meantime, I am practicing what I preach today and carrying on the Journey of Life (more about that tomorrow)

Albino Kangaroo: The Secrets of Flying High

Well, it’s a Monday morning and for those of you that actually get weekends off, back to the grind stone. For the rest of us, it is back to work, but in a slightly different way.

Over the weekends, although there is work to be done, I do try and shift down a gear. One big difference is that there are fewer calls to field and people don’t usually expect proposals in by Sunday close of business. I also do a lot of surfing and spend a bit more time online in general. This weekend was registering the blog in places like Google’s Blogger, setting up the YouTube account, and checking up on references in general as examples.

So Monday’s, even for me, are still down to ‘harder’ work, clients, and so on. And you can never replace hard work.

One secret to flying high is the one below.

"throw yourself at the ground and miss" Douglas Adams

Although a truism, it is perhaps impractical in our 4, or is it 6, dimensional universe. However, in infinite universes, anything is possible, and if you drop a rock enough times (a trillion trillion times maybe), whose to say it might not drop upwards once?

The actual secrets though, hmm, wouldn’t I like to know. It's like the saying "what's the easiest way to make a million dollars? Write a book on how to do it and sell a million copies for a dollar a piece"

Something that can never be replaced though is hard work and finding something you are or can be the best at. Doesn’t matter what it is, I have seen and envied people that have been successful doing everything from the mundane to the arcane better than anyone else. This will generally be something you enjoy doing as well.

With all that said and done, a mentor of mine still once said:

"sometimes, it's 90% luck and 10% brains, and I might have been more successful if I'd used my brains less"

However, I sleep better at night knowing, whether the actual business is doing well or not, that I put in 150% and even though I might have done something’s differently, I couldn’t have actually done more.

Albino Kangaroo: Relationships – ‘Nuff Said!’

Dear Diary – Day 4, Indaba’s over, nuff said.

Sorry if you feel misled by the fact that this is not going to give you any deep insights into ‘romantic’ relationships because I am still trying to work those out for myself. Still single with no kids (that I know off) is living proof of that. If YOU have any ideas, please send them to seidmand@gmail.com or post them on the blog comments.

What struck me was when someone asked me what I had done today.

Mentally, I told myself that I had cemented 2 relationships, formed 3 new ones, and was re-acquainted with an old one. To not sound like a total geek, my actual answer was “not much”. So much for being a creative geniuse.

But this got me thinking…….

What is a relationship? Like the misdirection in the title of the article, an obvious one is a romantic relationship. But this is not where most people’s relationships actually are. English is very inaccurate when describing ‘relationships’!

If you take French, as an example, you have:

Connaisance = Someone that you nod too at a party
Amis = A friend whose phone number you have on your mobile
Copain = Someone who invites you to their barbecue and you actually go
Pot = A brother you take a bullet for

In English, you end up having a friend. But that does not really define your relationship? Is he a good friend, a best friend, a wanna-be friend??

Regarding business, I tried to then find some definitions to my original thinking on what I had done today. I came to the conclusion that, as far as business is concerned, I have 2 categories of ‘relationships’.

The first category I would call ‘Contacts’. These are people I nod too, have on my mobile, find out what they do, and then store away for future use. This is where I think most of the value of networking lies. You go out there, meet lots of people, whether at a trade fair, event, cocktail evening, or otherwise, and have a very brief amount of time to ‘evaluate’ them and in a very mercenary way, determine their ‘usefulness’.

This is an extremely important process, as the whole point is not to necessarily close business here and now, but to have a resource of people you can contact when necessary to get a good service or product. Your ‘rolodex’ of trading so to speak.

The second category for me is what I would call ‘clients’. These are people that I have either found some kind of bond with (diving, sailing, traveling, technology, geekiness, etc) or are ‘critically useful’ (gotta be mercenary again, time is money). These I lavish attention on, attend barbecues, but, unless they become ‘pot’s” through time, I don’t think any amount business is worth taking a bullet for!

Hence, I really spent today attending to clients. I saw a couple good clients again and had good progressive discussions, I met 3 new clients, and I found a client I hadn’t seen in a long time. All in all, a good day.

Albino Kangaroo: You learn something everyday – The Art of Selling

Indaba: Day 3 – Dear diary, it feels like life before Indaba never existed. I miss the real world where people on the street DO NOT come up and talk to you constantly, the only food stand within miles DOEs NOT close for lunch, and I AM NOT shoulder to shoulder with 10,000 of my new best friends.

Seriously though, it is a unique opportunity for any company to have 1,000’s of potential customers all effectively manacled to 6 square meters of stand for 4 whole days. You don’t get pawned off to a PA or have to worry about people not returning phone calls.

So now, what do you say to all these people?

Well, from upbringing and professional training as a derivatives trader, my approach in general has been the hard honest sell. Yes, a good product sells itself, and yes, you have to adjust your style to reflect who your potential client is, but in general that has been my ‘style’.

My ‘hard’ honest sell is quite straightforward. Get a product you really believe in, make it innovative, useful, practical, efficient, and obviously profitable, not only to you but to your target market. And then relay that to the client in an effective manner. Identify the client’s needs, and deliver the best product or service at the lowest price.

There are all sorts of spins, nuances, value-adds, bundling, and so on that you can work with. It allows for flexibility and customization to the clients needs, especially if the range is ‘modular’ and can be reconfigured easily.

Today, however, I was SOLD! As a supposedly hardened businessman who has seen the angles and knows the tricks (yeah right), at the end of the session, I had to stop myself from demanding that I be given the service this instant or my world would implode into spontaneous bankruptcy!

Basically, I went to a seminar dealing with online reputation and new online tools. It was given by Rob Stokes, the MD of Quirk, who also handles all our online strategy. It was a great break to the normal routine and the format/information was excellent. At some stages, I even felt my homesickness evaporate as the slides were whizzing past me like the bullets in Joberg ;) If you have any interest in the actual content of the seminar, and you should, go check out Quirk. I only know enough to be dangerous at this early stageJ

Right, now that the commercial’s over (Quirk, please convert my brownie points into links J ) here is what I learnt, but more importantly, how I learnt it:

I was brought into a magical mystical world of ‘mention tracking’ fairies having wonderful picnics with companies who had found the hidden path, giving them the tastiest morsels of cake. On the other side of the enchanted valley, AI lords and ladies were busy receiving all sorts of ‘A-Lerts’ telling them when the people were happy and when the people were sad, allowing them to be one with the people and keep the Kingdom a happy and prosperous place

And I was very subtly told on numerous occasions that, not only was I not even close to getting close to the Kingdom, I did not even know where to apply for a tourist visa.

And just as I was coming to the brink of despair at how provincial and backward I was, I was told that a guide was there standing not 3 meters away from me.

You can imagine the relief! Looking back at this almost emotional experience, I was intrigued, as he had sold me, but had rarely actually directly sold his product. The way things worked was like this:

I was presented with a scenario and a lot of back-up data and information regarding that scenario. It was a very convincing scenario. It was explained to me that this scenario already exists in certain parts of the world, that there are currently people interacting with it, and that they are gaining HUGE benefits that I, not being part of that scenario, was not receiving. Hence, I was at a distinct competitive disadvantage, and no one likes to be in that position.

Now the basics and facts were easily understood and it was disconcerting, because how to actually become a part of that scenario was not immediately made obvious. Then when the potential client starts panicking (i.e. ME), you tell him not to worry, because you have identified the problem, but as this is your lucky day, you also have the solution.

And this was so effective, especially because the scenario was real and all the facts and information had been tied together to prove it.

I suppose that if you want to take this example to an extreme level, the plot in Mission Impossible I or II (the one with the terrible South African accent) revolved around someone creating the problem AND the solution, Romulus and Remus.

DON’T WORRY ROB, I promise to only use my new powers for good. So later in the afternoon, I decided to try and apply this technique for myself. Instead of approaching a stand holder and letting him know the wonders of our productsI did things like this:

I started off by talking about the Tourism industry in general, how travelers today were getting more sophisticated and independent, and then led into how it was virtually unacceptable today for travelers to not be given convenient information in their native languages.

I had all sorts of facts and figures showing that people from certain countries had a high resistance to non-native language products, that there were 10 times more mobile phones in SA than computers, and so on.

Eventually he actually asked me if I had found any solutions to these problems. Step one a success. For me however, the proof is in the pudding, and that is when I see my bank balance change, so I still have to close, but I will keep you posted.

I really enjoy learning new things like this and trying out new techniques. Something that has always given me encouragement in this regard is:

“ Insanity – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”