Lucky or Smart Review

My most recent book read ... Lucky or Smart - Secrets to an Entrepeneural Life by Bo Peabody. A short but good read. Sometimes short and sweet is a good thing and true in this case. Here are some points of interest.

*******************************

Lucky things happen to entrpeneurs who start fundamentally innovative, morally compelling, and philosophically positive companies.

The best way to ensure that lucky things happen is to ensure that a lot of things happen. It's really that simple.

A company's mission, communicated by the entrpeneur with charisma and passion, is what creates the environment that attracts smart people and gets them inspired in the first place. Which is exactly what gets the luck rolling.

One does not decide to be an entrepeneur. One is an entrepeneur.

Entrepeneurs are B-Students. There is no one thing they do well. But there are many things they do well enought.

Managers are A-Students. They know alot about one thing. And this one thing they do extremely well. If they begin to fail it bothers them until they get it right.

In the end, the job of entrepeneurs is to attract, organize, and motiveate A-student managers.

A good decision made quickly is far better than a great decision made slowly.

Success in a start-up is being around tomorrow, a lot of days in a row.

Learn to love the word NO. Entrepeneurs hear this more than anyone else and for good reason. They are pursuing fundamentally innovative projects, and the vast majority of typical business people are lemmings.

Prepare to be powerless ... people are busy and will get back with you when they have time or feel like it, but be ready when it does happen.

In every meeting, in every situation, you must always, always, always be gracious.

Don't believe your own press.

Always be selling your stock.

It's ok to not have an answer as long as you don't make one up and get agree to find the answer, if there is one. Face it, sometimes you just don't know.

***************************

Good stuff. Pick up a copy yourself and read it in a couple evenings. Until next time...

RV That Floats?

Who would have thought of such a thing. I can't get over the mental picture of the look on folks faces when you are driving this thing down the boat ramp into the lake!

Shari, the InteractRV data goddess saw this on the Travel Channel and sent it my way.

Check out the Amphibious RV - Terra Wind.

Until next time...

Evolution of Email Communication

It does seem that the more we use email the more we depend on it for timely and accurate communications. I guess that's what we all expect from any method of communication that we choose. When we call someone we want them to answer ... if they don't we leave a message and expect we'll receive a call back in a timely manner.

Based on some recent email communications I'm beginning to question the direction the corporate world is taking regarding email communication for sales activities. Let me explain...

In the last month I have sent email requests to the sales departments of 2 different and highly respected companies. One being ClickTracks and the other RackSpace. Suprisingly, it took nearly a week to hear back from etiher of them and when I did get a response it came as email and seemed odd.

Both of their responses were letting me know that I had contacted them in the past and if I needed further assistance I could email or phone the person sending the email directly. Is this some new form of 'weeding out' the leads from their website? That's my best guess and when I finally do talk with these companies I'll be sure to ask.

Until next time...