The Entrepreneurial Savant

When someone asks you for a price quote, resumé, copy of an article, name or phone number, estimate or for any other information, get it to them as soon as possible. My brother Richard, who owns a custom cabinetry business, has found that one of the most effective ways to beat the competition without price cutting is to get his quote back to the client ASAP, the next day if possible. This sends a clear message that he is businesslike and will not drag his feet through the job, a primary concern people have when hiring outside contractors.
We’re all time conscious and with the advent of overnight delivery and email, the expectation time frame for delivery of information went from weeks to days, hours or minutes. Most e-commerce businesses are now including one or two day shipment as a matter of course compared to those ‘delivery in 4-6 weeks’ notices that used to be common in mail order. All of these things mean we are time conscious to a degree never known before. The early bird truly does get the worm nowadays.

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Are you a logical hard-headed business person? Write a poem and send it out to a hundred of your friends, associates, customers, competitors and enemies (I hope you don’t have any). The results may surprise you. If nothing else, it keeps people from solidifying their impressions of you. You know what a solidified impression looks like don’t you? Cement.
To avoid being as exciting as concrete, do the unexpected. If you’re a pale-faced geek, train and run a marathon. Make sure you prominently display a picture of yourself triumphantly crossing the finish line in your office where your co-workers can see it. If you’re a mud spattered artist, show up for a lunch meeting in a three piece suit. If you’re going on a date with someone who may already have a certain idea of what you’re like, break the mold, do something wild. If you’re normally wild, go low key and classy. Whatever unexpected behavior you do, make sure you do it as though it is a piece of cake, even if it means practicing and studying fine wines or belting out a blues song at a local dive.
Doing the unexpected makes you a more interesting person, both to others and to yourself. Good preparation will help you to enjoy the process and will reduce your fear of failure. Try it, you’ll be amazed at the results.

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When you look back on how you met your friends, spouse, got your job, found your vocation or learned your skills, you’ll almost always find that you were led in an unexpected direction by something or somebody. A painter is asked to paint some theatrical sets and discovers a fascination with acting. A teacher and student discover a mutual passion for French cooking. A book about exceptional investors leads you to an interest in psychological modeling. An attempt to define your goals and learn more about the process of achievement leads to a book about the ‘Secrets of Success’. When you let a conversation or research project take an unexpected turn you never know what may lie immediately ahead. It might be something that changes your life.

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I’ve tried to avoid clichés in this collection but this is one that everyone can relate to. Scams, undependable people, dreamers and crooks have all flourished because people conveniently forget this simple statement. When something sounds really great, stop a minute and think it out. Seek informed opinions. Check references. Ask to speak to long term satisfied customers. Do a little research. Then and only then, if everything still smells like roses, go ahead. If there’s any doubt, throw the bums out because if it sounds to good to be true….

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If you want to learn more about the fringes of your business or art, read the classifieds at the back of the trades and on Craigslist. If you want to know more about all the work options out there suscribe to email feeds from Indeed.com. If you want to know about the hopes, dreams and delusions of your friends and co-workers, read the personals.
The classified ads are a window into all kinds of special interests, desires, opportunities and lifestyles. Like all information sources they lead the reader to all kinds of unusual subcultures. They can be very specialized if found in a web site or very general like those you pass by everyday in the daily paper. For small business owners, freelancers and anyone selling a product or service they represent many opportunities to form profitable alliances. Try reading just the help wanted once a week for a year. You’ll begin to get a feel for the economic ebb and flow of your community. You’ll find out who hires who and why. It only takes a few minutes to cruise through the ads.

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A rainmaker is someone who makes things happen. In a business she may bring in new sales when things are slow. In a creative situation, he may break up logjams and get things going again. Being a rainmaker means taking situations where things are not happening and looking for a way, sometimes any way, to get the momentum back. Rainmakers look for new angles, they throw ideas on the table, no matter how absurd or unusual, they ask people to do things outside of their job description or expertise and they look at a process that is stopped up and try to find a way around the stop.
Rainmaking is a skill requiring creative thinking and the nerve to go out on a limb. Sometimes it might mean being the first to say or do something that everyone has been hesitant to do. Often, it means diverting attention way from the thorny difficulty that has everybody stymied and back onto the bigger picture. Rainmakers say things like ‘Is this worth the effort?’ or ‘let’s just pick one small problem, solve it and then go on to the next’. They ask secretaries and dock workers what they think. Whatever gets the job done.
Rainmakers always find their way to the center and take the risks that take them to the next step. The best ones develop the people and listening skills that help them enlist others into their rainmaking.

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Imagine if, when you were a baby and just learning how to walk, you fell several times and just decided that walking wasn’t for you? The only way to learn and experience new skills is to start as a beginner, realizing that all those experts around you were beginners once. Interestingly, if those experts are really interested in their skill, they’ll welcome your first clumsy attempts and provide help all along the way. Whether you’re starting a new business venture, learning how to kayak or going back to school after years away, you have a great learning advantage: You’re a beginner. Exploit your ignorance by using it to get the ‘experts’ to help you. It’s human nature to want to help others with knowledge we already have. Just remember when you’re an old hand and some greenhorn is struggling along behind you to turn around and lend a hand. It can make all the difference.

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When I first started writing and for a long time after that I always considered myself a creative person. I played music and was good at problem solving at work. My definition of a creative person was one who created original ideas, stories and concepts, coming from some mysterious internal source. That’s still a part of my definition of creativity but now I’ve discovered that this kind of creativity is only half of the creative equation and to my surprise, not necessarily my most effective half.
This kind of creativity is content creativity. It is the source of art and music at the composition level, entrepreneurship and idea generation. It’s the resource we tap into when we brainstorm for new ideas. The other half of the creativity equation is process. Process is how we put those ideas to work, how we get the paint on the canvas, how that new company sprints ahead of it’s competition. One example might be found in your neighborhood fast food joint. The burgers and fries are the content, the semi-automated methods used to get them to you quickly is the process. In the case of fast food (and many other franchise type businesses), the process is what makes them successful and what makes you go there. The process results in fast, consistent tasting, hot food every time you drive through. These companies have realized that their process is what makes successful, rather than their cheeseburgers. On the other side of the coin, the one of a kind restaurant specializing in a local delicacy may be more content-oriented. However, even the mom and pop restaurant must be focused on process to remain profitable.
Finding new methods to process ideas is in itself a creative act, though one of a totally different nature. Process and content cannot exist without one another. When you’re faced with a difficult problem to solve, try separating it into two components. One is the basic creative material involved, the other is the process used to make that raw material into a solution or product. By separating content from process, it becomes much easier to identify the nature of a problem and apply the right kind of solution.

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This is a simple yet powerful way to achieve your goals. Many of us depend on appointment books and calendars to organize our life. Taking this one step further, as part of your goals achievement process get a five year calendar that is on one page. These are available as poster size planners at office supply stores. Use them to make specific appointments for each step of your goal achievement process. For instance, if you are a musician and you dream of making a record, break your dream down into realizable steps. These might include getting 12 songs together, rehearsing with other musicians, saving a certain amount of money each week for expenses, playing a certain number of gigs to prepare for recording, looking at studios and talking to others who have put out records, booking your first recording session, finishing recording and mixing, having cover art done by a designer, having CDs duplicated on your own label and selling them to stores, opening social networking pages etc. Each step can be entered into your calendar as a specific appointment or deadline by which you hope to have things ready. This project may stretch over one or two or more years but you can always see the next step and have a good idea where you stand. Not only that but your five year calendar will keep having new projects and goals added to it, serving as a record of your dreams and achievements.

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 *Virginia Satir

When problems crop up look for the specific problems and attach specific solutions to them. It is easy to generalize when something seems difficult to cope with or is beyond your immediate ability to solve or resolve. Virginia Satir was a founder and very effective practitioner of family therapy. She believed in getting immediate results from therapy rather than discussing problems endlessly. Going for the specific source of a conflict was one of her most effective tactics for helping families change the way they interact. This problem solving approach of avoiding generalities can serve as the first step in the process of handling difficult situations or challenges. Look for specifics.

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