What I Learned From Doug Edge – The Three “R”s of Entrepreneurship
Last week I had a chance to see my old friend Doug Edge as he presented to Rainmaker’s Incubators. A serial entrepreneur, Doug is one of the two founders of Rainmakers. (The one most people don’t know about.)
In his remarks, he shared the Three “R’s” of Entrepreneurship.
Research-from market surveys to interviews with other business owners, this is a critical first step for every entrepreneur.
Risk-you have to take chances, recognize you may lose your investment, so be sure you understand the risks up front, and be prepared. If you aren’t willing to take the risk, it is unlikely you will reap the rewards.
Reward-When it comes to being an entrepreneur, sometimes money is not the only, or most important reward. What you learn and who you meet along the way are important benefits you will take with you to your next venture if you are a true entrepreneur.
IBJ Forty Under 40
The IBJ ( Indianapolis Business Journal) Released their list of the Forty Under 40 this weekend. This is a group of outstanding young professionals making a difference in the Indianapolis Business Community.
It was nice to see a few of my friends on the list. Congratulations to Kyle Lacy, Jennifer Ruby and Joel Russell.
Episode # 10 – Marketing in a Down Economy
About a year ago, Ingrid Cummings invited me to be a guest on her radio program Rubicon Salon. In the course of the hour, we talked about marketing, social media and staying ahead of your competition in an economic downturn.
While the entire program is too long for More Than a Few Words, I thought it would be fun to share a few excerpts over the next few weeks.
In this first segment, we talk some of the strategies small business owners can employ when the economy slows down.
From the interview: “When everyone is pulling back it is a wonderful time to invest. It is easier to look bigger then you are”
And now, as the economy is starting to pick up, those same strategies will work. Don’t wait for a full blown recovery, it will be too late. Start investing now!
Click here to listen to the interview
Shop Local!
As the internet makes the world seem smaller and smaller, it is easy to forget that you are part of a local business ecosystem. As you make purchase decisions you choices impact the local economy. If, like me you are concentrating in a specific community, hoping to generate revenue from the community, then you need to put money into that community.
As consumers, we have power. Use it to actively support the businesses you care about and force change in the ones we don’t. Seth Godin summed it up well when he said:
If you don’t like what an organization stands for, work actively to spread the word and force them to change
AND
If you will miss a product, a service, a book, a site or a professional when they close up shop, stand up, speak up and bring them masses of new business.
This was the theme of my presentation at Rainmakers last month. ( I just got the video links) . The video is in two parts and it contains a serious call to support local businesses.
With this local focus in mind, I thought I would share just a few of my favorite local restaurants. These are places I would miss if they were gone. . I hope you will consider voting with your dollars this holiday season, paying them a visit, and helping to build a strong local economy.
No links to websites sorry, but more importantly I have listed address so you can check them out yourself.
Ocean World on 86th Street and Ditch. Some of the best and most reasonably priced sushi in town. The food is so good it is easy to overlook the mediocre service. It is usually busy, but not overcrowded at lunch time, 1/2 prices specials on Sunday, and always a long wait on Friday night.
LaPeidad 6524 Cornell Ave – Great, authentic TexMex. Fast friendly service, good food, reasonable price. Nice outdoor dining when the weather permits. When I need a TexMex Fix this is my favorite.
Kona Jack – Meridian and 96th Street – Not to be confused with the Kona Grill chain in Clay Terrace. This Indy tradition has a wonderful, diverse fish menu, and even sells fresh fish for you to take home and prepare yourself. Sharing a kitchen with Daddy Jacks, you can often convince your waitress to serve something off the menu from the other side.
Santorini Greek Kitchen – 1417 Prospect Street, in Fountain Square – Well worth the trip to Fountain Square for the huge portions, home-style Greek food, and great service. It is also the only place in the city that makes Eggplant parmesan the way I like it – I think you will too.
These are just a few of my favorites. What are yours? List them here, and more importantly, pay them a visit this month!
Did You Miss Smaller Indiana, Bigger Ideas?
If you were out of town, or too busy to attend Smaller Indiana Bigger ideas last June, don’t despair. You can now experience all the presentations through the magic of video. Today I am featuring two of the introductions. These were not presentations themselves, simply intros for the primary speakers.
The first is Doug Karr – who reminders us that members of Smaller Indiana are the Rebels and the Roudpeg. The second is my intro of John Ketzenbeerger, where I explain that for me, Smaller Indiana is a family affair, and a three dimensional place.
Doug Karr from Smaller Indiana, Bigger Ideas on Vimeo.
Lorraine Ball – Roundpeg from Smaller Indiana, Bigger Ideas on Vimeo.
What was your favorite moment from the conference? I had many, and over the next few weeks, I will share a few of them here.
Local Economic Ecosystem
At the October Rainmakers meeting, I had a chance to talk about my passion for LOCAL business and the impact we make every day with our purchase decisions.
This is just a short excerpt from the program, the rest of the presentation will be available on the Raincast soon.
The Local Economy – by Lorraine Ball from Dave Anderson on Vimeo.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Buy Starbucks
The other night, I think I surprised a number of people with my presentation at the Rainmakers Main Event. Folks in the audience who are familiar with my typically motivational, marketing and personal development messages, were introduced to my other passion : local business!
In a brief 15 minutes I advanced the argument that as business owners, we need to go out of my way to support other local business owners. If we don’t support and promote these companies, they may not be there when we need them.
Asking the audience to think about the companies they would miss if the businesses closed their doors tomorrow, I was surprised by the range of responses. From local coffee shops and resutants, to a neighborhood dry cleaner and a web hosting company it was clear we as a group depend on these local companies and need to do more to insure their success.
And it just isn’t enough to talk about it. We need to put our money where our mouth is, and shop local. If we are annoyed when the ICVA hires an Ohio based marketing firm, then we have to stop drinking at Starbucks and support our local coffee shops. Erik Deckers explains the cost of this choice in a follow up post he wrote Wednesday morning:
In fact, out of every dollar you spend at a local business, 40 cents of it stays in the community. When you spend a dollar at the big chain stores, 13 cents stays in the local economy.
Every time I have Starbucks, a the majority of my expenditure leaves the Indy economy and heads to Seattle. Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the people of Seattle, but they aren’t sending me any money! So until I get a client from Seattle or those people simply start sending me money, I won’t be sending them any more! Look for me at LuLu’s and Hubbard and Craven instead.
Remember, Friends Don’t Let Friends Buy Starbucks!
Shake it Off and Step Up
I heard this old story recently and though the message was especially relevant to small business owners, especially in tough economic times.
There was a farmer had who had a very old donkey. One day, the donkey slipped and fell into the well. The farmer looked down into the well and realized there was nothing he could do to lift the donkey out of the well.
He decided it would be far kinder to put the donkey out of it’s misery quicly, then to let it slowly starve to death. He asked several of his neighbors to help him shovel dirt into the well, thinking they would bury the animal alive, and it would die quickly.
At first the animal howled as the dirt began to fill the well, but after a few minutes there was silence. The farmer peered over the rim of the well, and was amazed by what he saw. Every time a shovelfull of dirt hit the doneky’s back he shook it off and took a step up on the dirt. Shovelfull, after shovelfull of dirt fell into the well and onto the donkey. And each time the donkey shook it off and stepped up until eventually there was enough dirt underneath the donkey that he could climb out of the well by himself and trot off into the field.
The moral to the story is very simple. Life is going to shovel dirt at you. You have two choices:
You can be buried alive by the dirt life throws at you
or
You can shake it off and step up
If you want to be survive a down economy and be truly succesful in a rebounding one you have to keep moving, shaking off the dirt life throws at you.
Local Business is Key!
As an advocate of the Indianapolis Small Business Community, I am often frustrated when I see our city and state government spending money to support the large business community and ignoring this vital segment.
Most recently I read about Indianapolis investing in training companies how to do business with firms in Taiwan and increasing economic development activity focused on bringing more, bigger companies to Indy.
While important, I am frustrated by the mathematics. There are 65,000 small businesses in the Indianapolis metro area, with sales under $1 million. That is 65,000 chances for success!
This article by Jeff Stibel, from the Harvard Business Review suggests I might be right after all, and gives some very specific suggestions for outsourced execs considering a switch to small business ownership. He says:
- Action. This is an entrepreneur’s best weapon
- Planning is important. Plans aren’t.
- Innovative financing
- Give the people what they want
Rest, measure, refine, repeat
Pull Your Head Out of The Sand … Unless You Want to Be Buried There!
The ostrich is a strange creature. When frightened it will bury it’s head in the sand, convinced if it can’t see the danger, whatever is creating the threat can’t see it either. Over the last few months I have noticed a number of small business owners behaving like an ostrich. Instead of facing the challenging economy head on, the are hanging around with their heads buried in the sand, hoping they can ride it out!
But it doesn’t work. Hiding with your head in the sand is a good way to get run over, or simply miss an opportunity that comes along. Now more then ever, small businesses need to be making and executing growth plans, investing in their business and reaching out to existing customers and prospects.
Seth Godin touched 0n this topic in a post entitled Death Spiral as he cautioned small business owners against trying to shrink their way to greatness. He provides several examples of how companies sabotage their own survival by trying to cut back when things slow down:
The fish monger sees a decline in business, so they have less money to spend on upkeep and inventory, so they keep the fish a bit longer and don’t clean up as often, so of course, business declines and then they have even less money… Eventually, you have an empty, smelly fish store that’s out of business.
The doctor has fewer patients so he doesn’t invest as much in training or staff and so some other patients choose to leave which means that there are even fewer patients…
The newspaper has fewer advertisers, so they can’t invest as much in running stories, so people stop reading it, which means advertisers have less reason to advertise which leaves less money for stories…
What should you be doing? Invest now! Invest wisely, but spend some of your available cash on marketing, new product development, system development which will allow you to provide better or expanded services to your clients. As Seth says:
Right this minute, you still have some cash, some customers, some momentum… Instead of squandering it in a long, slow, death spiral, do something else.
