High-Impact Entrepreneurship

Reprinted from Ducttapemarketing.com. See original post here.

By John Jantsch

While one business may be organized in departments, job titles and roles and another basically made up of only one person doing it all, every business that grows and thrives internally and externally figures out how to manage three things at all times: purpose, projects and process.

Lots of employees come into businesses hoping to rise to the ranks of management. The thing is every employee in a business is a manager of something. Lots of business owners start a business and quickly realize they must manage everything. The question is manage what?

As a customer, if you enjoyed a remarkable experience with a business there’s a very good chance that experience enjoyed the complete attention of management from three very distinct points of view – but what really made it remarkable was that it didn’t feel managed at all.

No matter how simple or complex a business may seem if it is to come to life it does so essentially orchestrating these three things – communicating purpose as strategy, delivering innovation, growth and positioning through the implementation of project after project and creating a remarkable culture and consistent customer experience through the operation of process after process.

No matter how many people actually go to work in a business, every business needs to fill the role of Purpose Manager, Project Manager and Process Manager even if all three of these roles are played by the same person.

The role of the Purpose Manager is to create and tell the story of why the business does what it does, create and keep the picture of where the business is headed and act as the filter for business decisions made in the name of the brand’s positioning.

The role of the Project Manager is to continually look to break every business innovation, question, challenge, initiative or campaign into logical projects complete with required action steps and resources.

The role of the Process Manager is to receive and implement the tasks and action steps that fall from each project plan and operate established processes that ensure trust is maintained through consistency.

No matter how complicated we want to make our businesses, this is what success comes down to.

But, this is what makes owning a business such a challenge, this is what makes managing people such a challenge, this is what makes doing a job such a challenge. Finding the places where these three roles divide and where they come back together again is the art of the business and it’s not always obvious or even natural.

If you’re the sole employee you must spend some part of each day playing these distinct roles no matter that your innate talents may reside squarely in one or the other.

As you hire staff you must focus on first hiring for your weaknesses in performing or managing one or more of the three roles not on job titles or departments.

As you grow your business you must build purpose, project and process thinking into every new department, innovation and initiative.

You must also guide your entire team to approach their work in this manner and give them the tools that will allow them to embrace purpose, think in terms of projects and know when and how process that delivers purpose is the right path.

Reprinted from www.wamda.com. See the original post here.

By Omar Aysha

Saad Khan, venture capitalist and thought leader in the fields of technology, design and media, spoke recently at Startup Weekend Alexandria about why he believes entrepreneurs are “the new asset class.” He invests in people, not companies, he said, because, “the ideas can change- it’s the people that matter.” Khan also explained that the best entrepreneurs all possess three distinctive traits:

1. They rewrite the rules. Imagine that someone is beating you in chess, but you reframe the rules of the game so that you’re now playing checkers- this is the kind of flexible thinking that entrepreneurs use in innovation and competition. As an example, Saad mentioned Rich Skrenta, who created Blekko, a search engine that uses slash tags to facilitate topic-based search (Saad is an investor). Rich is credited with writing and releasing the first computer virus, which he did because he wanted to create the maximum amount of impact using the least effort.

2. They never say die. Saad gave the example of Tim Westergren, who founded Pandora over a decade ago. In 2000, Pandora was poised to be the next big thing, but legal battles and bad timing and planning caused Tim to blow his initial $1.5m in funding in no time, leaving him facing financial ruin. At the time, however, Tim believed in his product enough to use his personal credit cards to keep Pandora going. As Pandora’s strategy and product evolved, Tim met over 300 investors over the years who all said ‘no.’ But he persevered. His staff also believed in the product enough that they worked without pay for 3 years! Finally, in 2004, he got a VC to say ‘yes.’ This year, over 10 years after its launch, Pandora reached an IPO of $3 billion.

3. They inspire. Salman Khan (no relation to Saad) was a teenager who wanted to help his friends and family, so he made a few tutorial videos about standard school subjects and shared the videos with them on YouTube. He found that it wasn’t only his friends and family that watched these videos, however- thousands of others did as well. So he began creating more videos and got others to contribute as well. What he ended up inventing was the world’s first open-source virtual school, the Khan Academy. Salman is now Bill Gates’s favourite teacher.

At the end of his speech, Saad was asked whether an entrepreneur should ever quit- surely some reach a point where the only option is to stop? Saad replied by saying that good entrepreneurs fail fast and move forward by changing strategy. In short, great entrepreneurs “don’t quit, they pivot.”

Saad Khan is a Partner at CMEA Capital. He’s a seed and early stage investor (in Blekko, Pixazza, Jobvite, Lending Club), passionate about the future of the Internet, a film fanatic (co-founder of the Film Angels), and an advocate for social entrepreneurship.

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Omar Aysha is a former video-game developer, turned IT entrepreneur and tech writer, who is weeks away from launching an Egyptian entrepreneurship magazine.

Reprinted from OnStartups.com. See the original post here.

By Daniel Tenner

Daniel is the founder of several companies including GrantTree. He blogs about startups and founders at Swombat.com. You can also find him on Twitter.

1. “Every no gets you closer to a yes.”

Permeating the human science (or art) of sales is this fundamental idea: sales fail all the time.

One of the hardest things for me to get used to, as a geek/artist/writer in business, is the constant disappointment of sales. The harsh reality, however, is that many leads will not turn into clients, no matter how exciting they might seem at first. And yet each lead must be given attention, enthusiasm, dedication, and so on, if it is to have any chance at all of turning into a sale.

Some people are very good at working on 50 new deals a week knowing that 45 will fall through. They deeply, personally understand that every no gets you closer to a yes, and yet don’t let it distract them from pursuing every answer with tenacity, ferocity even. We call them salespeople, and many people look down on them, but those people often make the difference between a business and yet another failed startup.

Competent salespeople, particularly those with an entrepreneurial attitude and the ability to work things out as they go along, are rare and precious. Treasure them.

2. “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

However, even if you’re not a salesperson, you will have to pursue and close deals. Deals, like sales, fail all the time. Never ever make critical decisions that depend on a deal happening (be it a grant application, an investment, a merger, or even just a new customer), until the money is in the bank. Even happily signed contracts are no guarantee that the money will actually change hands some day. The only thing you know for sure when you hold a signed contract in your hands is that the other person knows how to use a pen.

As an extreme example, one potential GrantTree customer we were talking to, at one point, asked us, “so, if you’re going to write this application for us, can I take on some loans right now on the basis of this grant?” That is almost exactly the wrong attitude when dealing with any kind of deal that’s not certain, and as we’ve already established, no deal is ever certain until the money is in your bank account.

Never base future expenses or commitments on money that’s not in the bank yet, even if it’s owed to you, even if you have an apparently ironclad contract. Any number of things can happen between now and then that can change that certitude into a painful (hopefully not fatal) disappointment.

3. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Another truism of sales, which emerges from the high failure rate of any deliberate sales endeavour, is that customers that you already have on your books are worth much more than potential leads.

This is actually something many (though not all) salespeople fail at, because of the natural focus of sales around getting more leads and converting them. However, as a business owner, you can’t afford to make that mistake. It’s very tempting, when chasing a $100k deal, to look down on the 4 or 5 $10k deals you already have as a comparative waste of your time. And maybe, when you regularly close $100k+ deals, you should start turning away customers that are just too small for you. But until then, treat every customer as well as if there were no more leads coming for the next year.

If you treat customers well and they like you and are happy with your services and products, they will provide the best kind of leads: “hot”, word-of-mouth leads. They will also provide you with testimonials, client success stories, and other sales materials that you can use to get more leads and more sales. Your customers can be your best salespeople, but only if you treat them right.

Conversely, if you treat your customers badly, word will spread about that too, and leads will mysteriously become ever harder to close. So, treat them well.

Reposted with permission from Sethgodin.typead.com. See the original post here.

By Seth Godin

You may be purchasing services from people with magical talents (artists) and it’s a mistake to confuse them with vendors.

As we get more and more service oriented, it’s an easy mistake to make. You’re busy buying cleaning services or consulting or design, and sometimes the person you’re working with is a vendor, and sometimes they’re not–they’re an artist, “the talent.”

A vendor is someone who exists to sell you something. It doesn’t always matter to the vendor what’s being sold, as long as it’s being sold and paid for.

The quality of what’s being delivered is rarely impacted by the method of transaction. The turnips will still show up, the house will still get painted. You can send an RFP to a vendor, bid it out, get the lowest price, sign the contract and if you write the contract properly, will get what you ordered.

The quality of the work you get from the talent changes based on how you work with her.

That’s the key economic argument for the distinction: if you treat an artist like a vendor, you’ll often get mediocre results in return. On the other hand, if you treat a vendor like an artist, you’ll waste time and money.

Vendors happily sit in the anonymous cubes at Walmart’s headquarters, waiting for the buyer to show up and dicker with them. They willingly fill out the paperwork and spend hours discussing terms and conditions. The vendor is agnostic about what’s being sold, and is focused on volume, or at least consistency.

While the talent is also getting paid (to be in your movie, to do consulting, to coach you), she is not a vendor. She’s not playing by the same rules and is not motivated in the same way.

A key element of the distinction is that in addition to the varying output potential, vendors are easier to replace than talent is.

Target understood this when they reached out to Michael Graves to design a line of goods that sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of items. When I interviewed Michael a few years ago, he had nothing but great things to say about the way Target invited him in and gave him the ability to do his work. Threadless embraces this when they treat the designers of their t-shirts in a non-corporate way. Etsy is built on this single truth.

Most industry is built on vendor relationships, and vendors expect (and sometimes value) the impersonal nature of their relationships. This scales… until you lump in the talent.

Should you treat vendors with respect? No doubt about it. Human beings do their best work when they’re treated fairly and with enthusiasm. But when the provider is also digging deep to put something on the table that you can’t possibly write a spec for, you’re going to have to respond in kind.

By Wempy Dyocta Koto (reprinted from Under30CEO).

Words change the world.

They inspire, unite, direct, empower and prompt action.

They also discourage, divide, anger, misguide, confuse and mislead.

Empires, governments, businesses, relationships and careers rise and fall because of words.

Study President Obama’s inaugural speech, John Lennon’s Imagine, Shakespeare’s King Lear, The Oprah Winfrey Show’s 25 years of broadcast, Forrest Gump’s sweet assessment of life and Pliny The Younger’s love letters to Calpurnia and you will realize the power of words.

In faith and belief, billions and generations of people have centered their lives on words within Judaism’s Tanakh, Christianity’s Bible, Islam’s Qur’an, the Hindu Sruti, Buddhism’s Theravada and more recently, Scientology’s Dianetics.

Words change the world.

As young CEOs and aspiring entrepreneurs, think very carefully about the words filling the borders of your emails, documents, instant messages and social media profiles.

Never, ever, underestimate the professional and personal impact of the words you write and send into the ether. Businesses rise and plunge, with written communications evidenced everyday in the world’s courts of law in cases against entrepreneurs, CEOs, leaders and colleagues for abuse, defamation, breach of contract, incompetence, misdirection, unfair dismissal, harassment and unlawful business engagement.

As email is the dominant communication tool for entrepreneurs today, here are thirty suggestions to protect and power your enterprise with words that inspire, drive business, loyalty and return on written investment.

1. Approach every email with the motivation of selling, optimizing or approving an idea, product, service, direction or recommendation. As an entrepreneur with major time, revenue and organizational demands, the opportunity cost is high when communication is not borne from this motivation.

2. Before writing, assess if your objective is more efficiently achieved with a meeting, call, office or workstation visit.

3. Your parents, grandparents, guardians and teachers taught you manners. Please use them.

4. Address the email recipient by her or his name. This also applies to cold sales prospects that you do not have a direct relationship with. She or he is not known to colleagues as a ‘Sir/Madam’ or ‘Whom It May Concern’. Research their name and designation and you are more likely to receive a response and better still, a positive one.

5. ‘Hi’, ‘Good morning’ and the like are acceptable ways of starting an email. A less traditional approach is the way forward and if the recipient is based in another country such as Thailand, use a warm ‘Sawasdee Krub’ and thankful ‘Khob Khun Krub’. Case study, glocal HSBC.

6. If you don’t have a direct relationship with the recipient, state how you are connected or where you acquired their email address, for example through a mutual contact, database, LinkedIn or web-research.

7. Be honest, write with integrity, recommend responsibly and sell your proposition factually.

8. Keep sentences and paragraphs short and to-the-point

9. Avoid unnecessary upper cases, exclamation marks, repeated use of symbols, emoticons and chat abbreviations.

10. Minimize corporate jargon, acronyms and big words.

11. Always use the spelling and grammar check tools.

12. Clearly explain instructions, use simple words and delete words which may be open to misinterpretation.

13. Reply logically, sequentially and thoroughly.

14. Numbering and bullet-pointing are effective.

15. Remove all negative emotions. If a subject matter is contentious, write or respond professionally with facts, void of emotion.

(more…)

Reprinted from Wamda.com. You can find the original article here.

Assad Hamzeh is the founder and CEO of Sharakeh (www.sharakeh.net), a Jordanian company that connects entrepreneurs and business owners to venture capitalists and angel investors and provides advisory services.

I am in the business of introducing entrepreneurs seeking funding to investors. Being based in Amman, I have met many highly motivated young Jordanian entrepreneurs who have great ideas. Unfortunately, many of their products fail to launch simply because they lack knowledge about pitching to an investor and negotiating deals.

Entrepreneurs and investors here tend to the look at the project from two very different angles. Entrepreneurs tend to be emotionally attached to their projects, and want to protect them from being taken advantage of. Investors tend to look at projects as risky ventures that could threaten their assets. If there are no formal shields in place to guard against the potential risks, they will not invest.

Doubt can be a healthy factor driving negotiations. But when one or both sides walk out on a lucrative business opportunity due to unrealistic fears, it’s unproductive. Unfortunately a lack of mutual understanding is a primary obstacle that I see in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Jordan. Entrepreneurs think that investors are out to steal their projects, and investors think that entrepreneurs are out to rob them.

So here, I will offer tips explaining how to rely on formal structures rather than allow unfounded suspicions to rule the day.

Here are my top five tips for entrepreneurs:

1. Create a good business plan summary.

Even if your business model is great, it won’t matter if the investor cannot easily understand it. Often when entrepreneurs come to pitch to me, I read business plans that are too short and incomplete, or too long and too technical.

An ideal business plan write-up should be 10-15 pages long, and should have an executive summary that explains the concept in one to two pages. Investors don’t want to read 80 pages of details to understand if they like the idea or not. Give them just enough material to get interested, so that your summary is a good foot in the door to future discussions.

2. Don’t be afraid to share your idea.

Often entrepreneurs are afraid of presenting their business plan because they are concerned that the investor will steal the idea and create the company himself. But refusing to show an investor a business plan is like going to a doctor and saying “I feel bad somewhere in my body, but I can’t tell you where.”

If you have a good idea, go and register for a patent, and do whatever it takes legally to protect your idea. But don’t withhold a business plan, and don’t ask for a nondisclosure agreement either- mistrust will kill a deal.

Believe me- ideas are a dime a dozen. And in reality, it’s difficult for someone else to take your idea and implement it. If you’re worried about sharing an idea because you think anyone can do it, perhaps it’s not that great.

3. Give investors a specific plan for partnership.

Often I see entrepreneurs that don’t know what they need from an investor. They will ask for a vague investment anywhere from $50,000-500,000, and won’t include shareholder or partnership agreements.

It’s best to create a plan for the partnership. Explain whether the investor will be an active member in the board of directors, and what his or her voting rights will be. Offer a specific amount of equity. If you say, for instance, I will give you 30% equity and put you on the board of directors, then you can negotiate whether he or she votes, and on which decisions. This will put the investor at ease.

4. Don’t overestimate the value of your company.

Often here, entrepreneurs will overestimate their market. They will begin with the population of Jordan- six million- and determine the size of their market based on too large a slice of that population.

Or instead aiming first for a local market, they will aim to scale up right away without taking into account the costs of new staff, new facilities, and new management structures.

Another mistake is underestimating the competition and undervaluing the risk. It’s important to do good market research across the board and accurately predict the impact of these factors and the size of your market.

5. Be ready for a real partnership with your investor.

Finally, I often see that many business owners are not ready and willing to work with investors as true partners. They tend to present themselves to the investor as though they do not want to be questioned. They would simply like to take a monetary investment and then work to deliver a profit.

Again, this fear of partnership stems from entrepreneurs’ misperception that if they bring investors in as partners, the investors will somehow kick them out and run the business themselves. But investors don’t want to run a business. And a formal business agreement will set clear guidelines for the partnership.

In general, investors will see right through you if you try to sideline them from the start or obscure information. It’s best to engage investors as the powerful mentors and facilitators that they can be. When you walk into a meeting with an investor, bring your confidence and research to the table but leave your suspicion at door.

Image by Antonio Bovino via Flickr

This editorial is reprinted from companyfounder.com (@companyfounder).

By Paul Morin

Small businesses, even those that appear promising at the start, have an unnerving failure rate. Here I’ll discuss three common small business killers, and what to do about them. In my extensive time in entrepreneurship, I’ve experienced and seen them all, in my own businesses and those of my clients. The good news is that if you are aware of these issues and keep vigilant watch, you can spot them early and often prevent them from killing your business.

Common Small Business Killer #1: Insufficient Funding

I guess this one should come as no surprise. Most businesses are started on a “shoestring budget” and tend to stay that way through most of their lives. While this may be unavoidable for some who are starting a business, for others, it is simply an issue of not understanding the likely capital requirements of the business and planning accordingly.

Solution: Perform a break-even analysis before you start your business, so you can get a basic understanding of the sales volume you will need to break even. This will, of course, involve making many assumptions and it will never be perfect, however it will at least give you a target and a basis for understanding where you need to take the business. It will also help guide you as you put together your pro-forma financials, including a cash flow projection, which will help you understand when the business is expected to start generating, rather than burning cash. Realize that if you make your projections too “rosy,” you are likely to miss them and run into cash flow problems. Project conservatively and leave yourself a buffer for projection error. Finally, make sure you understand the potential sources of capital available and stay ahead of your capital requirements, so you’re not in a compromised position, trying to raise cash in an emergency.

Common Small Business Killer #2: Weak Profit Margins

Some businesses have inherently weak profit margins, due to a variety of factors, but usually because of intense competition and the pricing power of key suppliers. If you know from the get-go that you are entering a business with weak margins and little hope of improvement in that area, you’re either crazy, don’t realize this issue, or have some other ulterior motive.

Solution: Before you enter any business, make sure you have a very good understanding of the profit margins of the business. In particular, you should look for gross margins of sixty percent or better. I will agree with you that such businesses are not easy to find, but as one of my first mentors told me, when you have gross margins of sixty percent or better, you can make a lot of mistakes in the remainder of your business and still survive to fight another day. Make sure that as you are putting together the pro-forma financials for your venture, you are very realistic regarding the direct costs you will have in producing your products and/or delivering your services. Any unrealistic assumptions regarding these costs will give you an inaccurate picture of the likely gross margins you will enjoy in your business and make your pro-forma financial projections misleading and dangerous. Likewise, be very realistic about how you will be able to price your offering, as this will be the other determinant of the gross margins you will be looking at. Finally, be realistic about how these direct costs and pricing power are likely to change over time, given the competitive forces and other market trends you see at work in your industry.

Common Small Business Killer #3: Unskilled Management

The unskilled (or under-skilled) management issue occurs quite a bit. Two scenarios where this issue is particularly common are: 1.) a person comes out of a larger corporate environment with a very specific skillset and decides to become an entrepreneur; and 2.) a family business employs its family members in key management and leadership positions, regardless of the fact that they don’t have the experience or the skills to do the job well. There are many other situations where entrepreneurs do not have the proper skills to run the business they have chosen, but these are two of the most common.

Solution: When you are starting a business, or even if you already have it up and running, take a close look at the types of skills that will be necessary to run and grow the business effectively. If you are not sure what it takes to be great at your endeavor, take a look around at those who are already succeeding in the same or similar businesses. Take a close look at the core skills and knowledge they employ to allow them to do well in that business. In some businesses, the most important competency is financial acumen, in others it’s operational knowledge, in most all, it’s marketing and sales capabilities. Make an honest assessment. Where you see gaps in your knowledge and capabilities, partner with or hire others to fill those gaps. Remember when you’re doing this assessment that, regardless of how talented you may be, it will be very hard for you to have the time, energy and capabilities to do all tasks well. Be sure you have the most critical ones covered and seek assistance everywhere else.

It’s important to understand that these are just three of many potential “small business killers,” but start with making sure you have these three under control.

This article, “The Not-So-Secret Secrets To Making It Big: Five Surprisingly Doable Steps That Will Propel You To The Top,” is re-printed from youngupstarts.com. These insightful tips on effective leadership are provided by entrepreneur Michael Feuer, author of The Benevolent Dictator. He cofounded OfficeMax in 1988 starting with one store and $20,000 of his own money, a partner, and a small group of investors. As CEO, he grew it to more than 1,000 stores worldwide with annual sales topping $5 billion. He is also CEO of Max-Ventures, a venture capital and retail consulting firm, and cofounder and CEO of Max-Wellness, a comprehensive health and wellness retail chain that launched in 2010.

Have you ever said to yourself, How in the world did [insert name of powerful business executive] get to where he is? He’s not any smarter than I am! Well, chances are you’re right. That executive who made it big probably doesn’t have more powerful brain cells than you…but what he (or she!) probably does have are three non-glamorous but crucial qualities: focus, discipline, and follow-up.

These three qualities might not sound extraordinary, but they can truly set you apart. The truth is, there isn’t a simple magic bullet that will propel you straight to the top. Success in any endeavor, especially business, really comes down to specific character traits and habits. If you have those qualities, you’ll excel. And if you don’t, you probably won’t.

Before you ever craft a sales strategy or walk into a client meeting, whether or not you have a chance of success has already been decided by how you think about your work, what you have to do, and how you do it. Outcomes are shaped by your focus, discipline, and commitment to follow-up… or lack thereof. It’s important to remember that achievements are often less dependent on your technical know-how and more dependent on how you organize and think.

Read on to learn what these three qualities look like in practice, and how you can make them work for you:
Take good notes.

Taking notes in business is just as important as it was in your advanced economics class in college. Your brain isn’t always as powerful as you think it is, and having a written record of your boss’s project analysis or your colleague’s sales strategy can save you from having “oh darn” moments, and can set you apart from the pack and put you on a straighter path to success.

I’ll frequently dictate the notes from a meeting the second I walk out, or appoint someone to act as a scribe beforehand. I keep all of my past notes in a folder on my computer, and I also always make sure to jot down next steps. These habits ensure that nothing falls off the radar unintentionally, and that I always have a good idea of what needs to happen next. Oh — and I often shock new team members by writing the letters ‘FU’ and a date at the bottom of my notes. New people are always relieved when they learn that those letters aren’t a pejorative, but a shorthand I use as a reminder to ‘Follow Up’ by a specific date!

Do what you say you will, period.

In today’s dog-eat-dog environment, a person’s word isn’t always his or her bond. And that’s a shame. When you fail to follow through on promises and commitments, you imply that you lack discipline and — perhaps — shouldn’t be trusted with more important tasks and objectives. However, if you cultivate a reputation for being completely reliable, you’ll enjoy more responsibility and success as well as better business relationships.

I routinely tell my employees that I’m not their father and won’t babysit them, and that if they tell me they’re going to do something, they’d better make good on that assurance. I can’t afford to have people on the team who are undependable. However, I do provide alternatives by giving everyone three acceptable ‘outs’: They can tell me that they can’t finish on time, that they don’t want to do it my way because they have a better idea, or that they think their assignment isn’t worth the effort and can convince me why.

Give homework assignments.

A leader’s job is to make people think and discover alternatives. It’s a great way to determine who on your team you can rely on and who is capable of taking a project to the next level. You can afford to invest in developing someone who is interested in developing.

When I give assignments, I keep a running tally of what happened or changed from previous sessions on the same topic or project. No matter if you’re on the giving or receiving end of homework, remember that the way these assignments are handled is a great way to gauge attitude, commitment, potential, reliability, and whether or not someone is a player.

Scrap your iron-clad five-year plan.

Being able to work with focus and discipline is generally a good thing…unless you’re focusing on things that won’t help you or propel you forward! To help prevent this, Feuer recommends developing a short-term plan with a six- to nine-month outlook. This plan will help you get through the year. He also recommends creating a longer-term plan with a seventeen- to eighteen-month strategy. It will encompass the goals and benchmarks you need to achieve during this time period. Why have two plans instead of one? Well, the world is simply evolving too fast to rely on a one-size-fits-all five-year plan.

I’ve found that many organizations spend too much time thinking about what’s going to happen way down the road when all they’re doing is guessing. And when their predictions turn out to be inaccurate, they find out too late that they’ve been focusing their efforts on the wrong things. You must always be ready to modify your plans when necessary, change quickly, and deal with the unexpected. That’s what will make the difference between a company that might get by and one that is good or even great.

Use a rifle, not a shotgun.

When you fire a shotgun, your shot hits a wider area, but it lacks focused precision. In business, a shotgun approach gets the job done… but usually doesn’t yield outstanding results. Sure, you’ll hit something with a shotgun, but the price in doing so seldom provides the big payback. Yes, a rifle or laser-sharp approach will take more planning and forethought, but in the end you’ll probably save time and resources. It pays to identify exactly what needs to be done and then focus relentlessly on accomplishing those objectives.

Trying to cover a wider area and hoping that something resonates is inviting your efforts to fall short of the mark or even backfire. A laser-sharp strategy is much more practical, productive, and economical. So make sure that you’re ready, and that you aim well before you fire!”

When you take the time to focus, have discipline, and require follow-up, whether you’re a business owner, a manager, or an employee moving up the ladder, you’re creating a road map that documents what has to be accomplished and by when. Few things ever fall through the cracks when you follow this process. It is the most direct way I know to set yourself up for success!

This article was reprinted from youturn.com, a resource for intern candidates and young professionals running an entrepreneurial driven company or change-oriented non-profit. Author Martin Zwilling is CEO & Founder of Startup Professionals, Inc.

Starting and building a company is all about leadership – formulating an idea, building a unique plan based on vision and experience, and forging a path over and through all obstacles.

Yet the image of leadership in business is at an all-time low, according to national leadership experts, considering the political debacles, record business bankruptcies, and executive fraud cases.

If the country is to recover financially and politically, new leaders will have to emerge to fill the leadership deficit – new leaders who understand that leadership is a privilege, not an entitlement, according to executive coach Michael Schutzler, author of the book “Inspiring Excellence – A Path to Exceptional Leadership.”

Entrepreneurs are well positioned to become the new leaders, because they perceive problems as opportunities, and have the mental mindset to innovate and execute. They have the required passion, perseverance, and work ethic. What they don’t have by default are the skills required, or the relationships. These don’t come automatically with the CEO title.

Schutzler’s view of leadership is different than many academics and executive coaches, who feel that leadership is an innate character trait. He urges people to focus on developing a few key relationship skills, and I agree. Here are some key conclusions:

Leadership is a learned behavior, not a character trait. Good judgment, for example, is certainly a hallmark of exceptional leadership, but it isn’t something you are born with. “More than anything, good judgment comes from listening,” he says. It also comes from paying very close attention to every situation, and learning from it.

Listening is the most important skill for a leader. We need to pay attention to the words and actions of others while suspending judgment long enough to allow your intellect to catch up with your instincts. Why? Because as leaders, if we speak too soon, we shut off creation. We shut off contribution. We force the adoption of our ideas.

Communicating and storytelling. This is not a skill everyone is born with, but it’s a skill we can all develop. People on your team want to believe! They want to believe you know where we are going, or you will get us there even if you aren’t sure of the exact path at this moment. They want stories that compare what they are doing with others.

Acknowledging contribution. This is necessary to sustain motivation during the hard times. It’s not hard to do and doesn’t require a lot of effort or expensive gifts. A thank-you note or peer recognition is enough most of the time.

Negotiation is a practical skill for every leader. Negotiation is often misunderstood to be the domain of clever deal makers. It’s actually really simple. Make very clear requests for a promise. Understand exactly what the promise is – what is being done, when, and what the standard of excellence is, and then check up on the status to make it happen.

Too many leaders are focused on personal ambition. He believes that we need leaders who use power as a tool for inspiring others to create a better future, not as a tool for retaining their position or perks.

The middle four points are the essential skills for great leadership, inspiring excellence, and building a successful business. They are easily practiced, and serve as the foundation for successfully attracting talent, reaching consensus, making tough choices, and harnessing ambition.

In this fashion the general leadership deficit is really an “opportunity” for new aspiring entrepreneurs in business. So practice the leadership skills needed, and step in when you are ready. Now is your golden opportunity – let’s see how many of you are up to the challenge. We need you all.