I spent the last ten days cruising up and down the west coast with a quick stop in Vegas. Many of the entrepreneurs and professionals I met with this past week came to me to discuss ideas they had for business/career advancement. One thing that almost everyone had in common was this ‘process’ that they felt they had to follow in order to get to where they wanted to go. When I asked them how they had developed the process that they were following. They told me that it was derived from feedback they received from others. When I asked if their advisers had ‘done’ this themselves, the answer was unanimously…’no’.

So the question arises, why the heck would you take advice from someone who is telling you the ‘theory’ but has never practically applied it? Oh, I know…because that’s what we all learn in university. We learn about theory and how it ‘could’ be applied, but not how it ‘is’ applied.  This seems to be spilling over into the business world. Armchair quarterbacks are giving advice that they have really never taken themselves and professionals and entrepreneurs alike are taking this information as gospel and wondering why it isn’t working.

Take a moment to consider where your business information/advice comes from. Is it from someone who has been to battle or someone who has ‘read’ about battle. Are you taking sales management advice from someone who has managed a team or someone who watched someone manage a team? Are you taking investment advice from someone who has made their money in the market or someone who watched a Discovery Channel show about Warren Buffet. Talk is cheap, but not if you follow the advice and go in the crapper. If you want to learn how to do something, find someone who is doing it and ask them how, ask them to mentor you. Ask them to coach you, advise you, sit on your board. We’ve lost track of the apprentice model of business. Back in the day, if you wanted to be a master craftsman, you sought out a master craftsman and studied under them. Today, everyone says they are a ‘master craftsman’ butt they’ve never picked up a tool in their life. When taking advice, consider the source and don’t jump through any hoops that the lion tamer hasn’t jumped through themselves.

I have said time and time again (and even wrote about it in “What Men Don’t Tell Women About Business”) that it is a mistake to expect fairness in business. You can’t control how people act, but you can control who you do business with. Even being focused on working with the right people, you’ll still find yourself staring at someone who thinks they can take advantage of a situation and that you’ll roll over and take it. This my friends is a time for you to rely on your agreements. You don’t have an agreement you say? Well, what the hell were you thinking? Did you you think that everything was going to be rainbows and unicorns? Did you think that at some point, that Dr. Jekyll didn’t have a little Mr. Hyde in them? My dad had a saying:

“Business is business and friendship is bullshit. Your friends will fuck you over money if they get the chance.”

I always thought the old guy was a little too worried about getting worked over, but after my technology idea went sideways, I learned to have things in writing. If a deal is worth doing, it’s worth having in writing. But having the agreement is only the first half. The second half is enforcement. A contract is worthless if you won’t enforce it. The great thing about this is we have a legal system that will interpret the contract and determine who is in the right, and who is in the wrong. A client of mine is struggling to get paid by a client. She has an agreement and she is taking this dirt bag into small claims court to collect the money. It isn’t about the money (it rarely is). It’s about not getting rimmed by someone who thinks you are a pushover. You can be nice right until the point where they take advantage of you. And then, you let the agreement speak for itself.

Get all your business dealings in writing. Take it from a guy who is never surprised how far people will go to kite someone else, a signed contract simplifies a lot of legal issues. And if someone tries to take advantage of you, go the distance. You owe it to yourself and to your business.

• Have major growth on personal billing side
• Bring on new professionals as partners/coaches
• Look at more corporate development work (stuff we’ve done in years past but been unfocussed on due to other shiny things)
• Staying out of challenging partnerships
• Finding more HWs and RKs in the world of business to partner with

Here’s the update:

• Have added 34 clients to my coaching client roster
• Have had the pleasure of working with both Moss Adams and HSBC Securities in Q1 with more work to discuss this year
• Connected with some great professionals in Toronto/Calgary
• Have met literally dozens of amazing professional women in Seattle.
• Have added a consultant to the Seattle scene (hi Kerry) and looking at how to move forward with our work after May in a slightly different direction.
• Have just added a new Ghost Adviser to the team Friday. Pierre Piche was a summer student I hired about 9 years ago for a company I was the contracted Director of Marketing for. It was an absolutely horrible situation (financially and with the venture capital group we were working for), but I had the chance to work with Pierre to show him how I developed out markets from a ‘grass roots’ perspective. Fast forward and after having working in the corporate world and then running his own high-end beverage company, we have decided that he will join the Ghost CEO team servicing Kelowna and the Interior. I think this will be a great fit because he delivers results, was trained by yours truly, he’s a hunter, and is a battle proven entrepreneur.
• My billings (personal/non-license) are up 136% over this time last year. My expenses are down 64% For those keeners out there, you can figure out that the margins just got much fatter.
• Simple Bookkeeping Systems and Lullably League are cruising along. We are getting ready to let LL full out of the gates and we have 9 interested parties waiting to look at licensing documents
• We are about to complete our first Campus CEO at UBC. I’m expecting business plans tonight and we will be having the judges panel on May 11th on campus. This is a program I’m going to be rolling out at the University of Toronto and UCLA in either Fall 2010 or Spring 2011. We will likely be running these regularly at UBC and the gals involved in this one have been stars.
• Two more companies are poised to launch. I’m having difficulties with scheduling with these two partners, but I think they will by dynamite business models once we put some horsepower behind them.

In the end, a very powerful start to a very important year. I’m dyno testing (a test mechanics use to figure out horsepower of an engine) my own coaching practice and will take it up to 100 clients. I’m poised to be in this position by end of Q4 this year. The Seattle market continues to heat up and I can forecast at least 20% of the clients being from Seattle. It’s a quick drive from the house and the level of clients coming out of that market are absolutely amazing.

That’s all for now. Need to get ready for a handful of prospect calls this morning, some conference calls with business owners later today, and drinks with a friend afterwork to discuss money-making ideas. Get in the groove my friends, it’s yours for the taking.

C/

Paul Rovers (www.leveragedsolutions.ca) has been educating my thick skull on the various ways to make small steps towards social media. He’s run some Google Adwords campaigns to show me how it works and suggested last week that I set up a business page for Ghost CEO. It seems only the local coaches are doing anything with social media and so I wondered if we would get any fans. I’ve seen these business pages and fan pages with two or three fans. It’s like showing someone your dating calendar with ‘date with cat’ highlighted each weekend.

Rather than be a Luddite, I thought, WTF, let’s see what happens. We have lots of contacts (many are on Facebook, many not), lots of partners, and we blog in lots of places. Why not, at least, have a place where we can all dump ideas, tools, pictures, etc. of the work we do or the things that keep our attention. It took me a few minutes to set up, we’ll see how it goes, and we (I) will try to regularly post things that are interesting outside of our group. We might do some free session giveaways, free registrations to seminars/ keynotes, some internal tools, shit I don’t know. If anyone has ideas, I’m open to it. No, I won’t buy you a pony, name a rainbow after you or let you take a picture of me wearing a Ergo Baby Carrier. Let’s see if Facebook Business is a place where people can come together other than to post drunk pictures, pick mafia wars, or tell people they are sitting in an airport.

If you have the time, and are interested, ‘friend’ Ghost CEO on facebook. It’s better than me dating my cat, and I don’t even have a cat. Regardless, we can collectively laugh at my success or failure as I try to execute this foreign territory for a guy who has built his life and career face to face with people.

Cheers,

C/

Last week I spent a couple of days doing training for HSBC Securities in Toronto. As part of our agreement, they flew my first class from Vancouver to Toronto. I am a firm believer of flying first class. Aside from the additional space (which I require at 6′6″), there is a business case for flying in a more civilized way:

1. I spent a total of 9 hours in the air. I was able to complete 8 hours of work at a billable rate of $400/hour. I billed $3,200 in time in the air. I was able to lay out my laptop, my paperwork, all while enjoying a continuous coffee service. In coach I understand that it is almost impossible to have our laptop out if someone is ahead of you and reclining in the slightest. You are banging elbows with the person next to you, trying to keep any additional paperwork on your lap, and heaven forbid you have an aisle seat. Someone has to ‘tinkle’ and you are up with your work product in your arms. The flight was on sale at $2K but even at $4K, I bought back 8 hours of workable time that would have been other wise wasted watching “Free Willie 6 – Isn’t that fish dead yet?”
2. Flying is a waste of time. If you can get your work done, you get from point A to B AND bill work that you would normally try to do waiting at the airport, or when you get to your hotel. My work was done by the time we landed so I could relax in the hotel and have a good night’s sleep.
3. Most first class fares come with access to the business lounge. If you are in some shitty airport that doesn’t offer WiFi, the lounge will get you connected to dump work product when you land or upload it before you board.
4. You meet interesting people in first class/business class. You get the odd upgrader (someone using their points), but in most cases, you are with either the rich (no much business value) or other senior level professionals that you can chat with. I made two great connections on the way to Toronto and one on the way back.

I hear all the time that ‘first class is a waste of money’. Yes, and so is wearing leather shoes, eating out in restaurants, and going to a movie. Life’s too short to be a money martyr. Don’t think about “why you can’t afford to fly first class”. Think, “what can I do to make enough to fly first class?”

Consider flying first class or at least business class if: A) You are flying over 3 hours and B) You bill more than $200/hour. By getting your work done on the plane, with lots of room, not only can you arrive and relax, but you remind yourself that you are building a profitable business so that business class isn’t a luxury, it’s the only option.

Remember, friends don’t let friends fly coach.

Cheers,

C/

(p.s. Yes I know that whales aren’t fish.)

My seat

First class on an Airbus 330. (Air Canada)

This week, I’m doing a bunch of work with banks in the US. Many of these institutions have realized (after facing the abyss) that they need to go back to the old school model of banking. Lending money to people that can afford it, supporting their small business clientele and professional, and doing more for their community then offering banking services. Banks like Umpqua, I’ve been a fan of since 2006 when I first did some work with their senior lenders. This bank models its branches like the hotel atriums of 5 star hotels. Rather than reception, there’s a concierge type desk. Free resources, cookies, coffee, and beverages as well as magazines for people to come in and browse. The best part, everyone is welcome, whether you are a client or not. Guess what? Many non-clients become clients simply by ‘experiencing’ the difference of Umpqua compared to other lenders in the market.The US is a competitive banking market. Our coaches work with financial services in Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK. Of all, the US is the most competitive. I expect US banks to do something different because they have to.

The Canadian banking industry has a reputation (among trainers) as being slow with uptake of programs that are outside of financial services. Experiencing this first hand, I was pleased when HSBC approached me to do some business seminars for their market. They wanted to take a leadership role in their community by having me come out to Greater Toronto and offer four sessions focused on Business Development (Ethical Negotiations, Building Champions, Selling to Men, and The 10 Deadly Sins of Business Development). These are very popular seminars and were great choices for HSBC.

I asked them, “Are you making these available to your high-value clientele?” Their response was, “No, we want to make these available to everyone. You shouldn’t have to be a client in order to get good business information. We want any business owner or professional who would like to add tools to their kit to be able to do so, regardless of their financial institution affiliation.” I have to admit that this is a FIRST in the Canadian market and something that caught mw off guard. HSBC is changing the status quo for their market and I’m happy to be involved.

They were willing to foot the bill for me to come out and do the training personally and are renting space at the Congress Centre to host the events. Each seminar is going to be 60 minutes long and will provide participants with real world tools to build a business model in today’s environment. When we offer these seminars publicly, we charge $99.oo per person. HSBC is picking up the cost for everyone that comes.

A handful of their team began inviting the market (both their clients and those that weren’t clients) to the events. I’m impressed to say the least that HSBC is stepping out of the traditional routine of financial services and championing business owners and professionals in their markets. Not only is it a huge step of goodwill, but it sets the tempo that banks today are going to go back to the fundamentals that helped them grown. Supporting the clients that support them and supporting the markets in which they operate. I should add that not only is HSBC the first bank to do something like this in Canada, but they were the ones who approached us.

If you are in the area and you’d like to join us (sessions happening March 30/31), drop us a note at: admin@ghostceo.com and we’ll wiggle you in for one (or all of the sessions.) It will be time well spent and your bottom line will thank you. Regardless of where you are, I challenge you to go into your local banker and ask them a simple question: “What are you doing to support your business/professional clients?” It’s time that institutions follow the lead of Umpqua and HSBC in being more than just a lender in today’s business world.

Cheers,

C/

I like Dragon’s Den mainly because it gives me a reason to scream at the television. Knocker entrepreneurs overvalue their junior business ideas, show up with no sales, and act like they are on the same level as the dragons. I really like when a moron tells them that they ‘are going to miss out’ and they ‘obviously don’t see the opportunity.’

This week’s show gave the background on each dragon. From single mother of four to an immigrant who came to Canada with almost nothing, these five people never got anything given to them. Most thought they would fail, there were times when they came close. But they all stepped into it and made it happen. What I found to be the nugget (the gift) in that show was Kevin’s story about working in an ice cream parlour. The nasty owner told him to “get down on his knees and scrape the gum off the floor.” He told her no and he was fired. He decided at that point to NEVER work for someone else again. Never give his power to someone else. That story really resonate with me as I’ve been similar situations where the person I worked for asked me to do something so insulting, so demoralizing, that I realized I was selling my soul for money. That doesn’t work out.

True entrepreneurs, those of us that don’t make it a choice, but it is a calling, have had this story happen to us. Recently, I told a would-be entrepreneur that they might be better served going to work in the corporate world. Running the gauntlet will let you know if it is for you, or if you must have control of your life in each and every way. Employees think starting a business is risky; entrepreneurs think that having someone else responsible for if you eat or not is risky. I’m the latter, but many friends are the former. It is up to you to decide what works for you. Life is too short to scrape gum off the floor.

Invictus, by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul

If you’d like a copy for your room/bag/fridge, grab a PDF here.

Best,
Chris.

A Board of Directors is: a group of individuals that have a certain level of ‘authority’ over your business operations. Many times they have some vested interest in what the company does, how they do it, and importantly, how it makes money. They have legal liability regarding the decisions of the company and have fiduciary duties as part of sitting on the board.

An Advisory Board is like having a group of advisers that support the ‘captain’ in steering the boat in the right direction. They make suggestions or recommendations that the owner will or will not action upon. An advisory board can make suggestions on how to cut costs, develop markets, offer moral support, or suggest opportunities that the owner might not otherwise see. Normally advisory boards are comprised of people with different expertise and areas of experience that they can lend to the owner of the company.

It isn’t a Kumbaya (as many times they become). Instead, it should be strategic, measurable, and honor the time of all involved. If you approach it this way, you’ll keep your Advisory Board engaged; if you make it unstructured, a free for all, and without deliverables, the good people will quickly fall off. Here are some things to consider when forming an Advisory Board:

• Be clear on what the role of the board is. Are they a sounding board for new ideas? Are they providing strategic input for development/expansion/retention of market share? Be clear on what role you want each individual, and the board as a whole, to play.
• Honest feedback. You don’t want a bunch of cheerleaders on your board. You need to have people with opposing points of view and that will call you on things if they don’t make sense. My most recent step-mother was a great sounding board for development. She would question everything I was doing to make sure that I had covered the details (my weakness).
• Consider people already in your circle. You don’t have to hunt out brand new people for your board. Make a list of the skills that you require and then look to recruit from your existing contacts. Look for those that are better in the area than you are (i.e. accounting or marketing). It is hard to take advice from people who normally come to you for advice. They don’t have to be the smartest, just smarter than you.
• Document the process of board meetings. How often they will happen, requirements of sitting on the board, roles and responsibilities. Don’t take this lightly. If you want them to act professionally, treat them professionally. You will also want a non-disclosure agreement signed by everyone on the board. Board members may ask (and you should oblige) that they are acting in the model of an adviser and protected (indemnified) from any choices that the company makes. This is always a concern for me when asked to sit on an Advisory Board.
• It shouldn’t cost them anything to be on your board. Make sure you reimburse for parking, feed them, make sure they have something to drink. If they are important to your business model, make sure your actions showcase the value you put in their time.

Be careful about offering your advisory board interest (i.e. stock/equity/etc.) in your business model. It will muddy the role of advisor and them having ’skin in the game’ may move them into a more ad hoc role of a Board of Directors. Look at how you leverge what you do, who you know, and other things to support your Advisers in what they do. The focus on reciprocal support will be noted.