What follows is a random [tag]collection of tips, observations and ideas for those who are contemplating starting up their own business[/tag]. If you can find one nugget in the list that helps you as you begin your journey, great. If you cannot find a single usable thing,–well, as[tag] Steve Martin[/tag] used to say, [tag]“Excuuuuuuse me.” [/tag]

This list really started because no matter how much one studies entrepreneurship, a lot of it comes from the “learnings” that happen daily. Most of these learnings are counter-intuitive, meaning they are not all that obvious. All of them were expensive to learn.

This is the second installment of the list. Click here for 1-25.

26. Ready, aim, fire. Back when Beowulf was a lad, he used his trusty old slingshot to attack his enemies, kill squirrels and impress the maidens. Chances are he didn’t aim all that much. What he did was just let ‘er fly. If the rock fell short, he adjusted so the next time he got closer, and closer more the next time. Same thing in a new startup. The situation favors action over planning in other words. It really should be ready-fire-adjust. One of my favorite cartoons is the one with the two buzzards sitting in the tree waiting for the man to die from thirst…”Patience, hell,” says one to the other, “I want to eat something.”

27. Can you sell dogfood to the dogs? This is one of those things that most startup people know and do instinctively. They know, and so should you, that the first group you need to sell on your idea or on how the company is doing, are the people inside the company. Too often, we tend to forget that every employee needs to believe. You can never miss an opportunity to re-sell them.

28. Your sales people don’t work for you. The sooner you realize that all good sales people work, truly, for your customers and not for you, you will understand more about sales people than 90% of all non sales people.

29. Sales trumps all. Sales will mask a lot of internal problems. Or, said another way….sales mean you can live to fight another day, and buys you time to fix and solve internal problems…which are sure to come.

30. Just stay in business. Too many new companies flame out, just like the after-burner on some supersonic jet. The pilot kicks in the after-burner for an added jolt of power, but once it happens, that is it, no more power. If you can just continue your new business, first year to the second year, then to the third year…chances are great, you will make it. Do whatever it takes to make it to that third year.

31. People sign up for vision, fun and principle. Getting people to work for your new company will be difficult. You have nothing to offer. You can’t offer great benefits, a brag-at-the-parties company reputation, or even middle market salaries. What you can offer is something no other company can match….vision—meaning you are out to solve some big, hairy problem that your prospects are facing each and every day. You can offer fun; mostly because every day will be something new and interesting. Lastly, you must offer adherence to principles. Treat everyone fairly. Be transparent and be honest.

32. Can you ignore little things? I knew we were well on our way to a good culture at [tag]Jobdig[/tag], when one of our reps brought in his dog to work. He didn’t ask.

33. Is there an enemy? I would much rather have a company to compete against, a competitive enemy, than not. It makes your life so much simpler—all you have to do is make yours better, faster, cheaper. Everyone knows when you have reached success. When we started Varitronics, our basic mission was to put Kroy out of business. In a few years, we forced them from their monopolist perch to near bankruptcy. In short, we won. We started to flounder after that mission was accomplished. We needed another one.

34. Incremental improvements almost always wins. Too often we think we must improve in a dramatic fashion. All it really takes is consistent, small, incremental improvements in your new, developing business. Try to do something better each day.

35. Are you OK with being in charge? At the end of the day, in your new developing company, you are IT. It makes no difference how complete your team or even how good it is, or how well you are doing. You are in charge, everyone looks to you. You need to figure out THE key success factor in your business and get all consumed by it. In Varitronics, our key success factor early in the business was getting our dealer network signed up. I thought it was so important, that I hit the road for weeks at a time, meeting and telling our story to potential dealers. Your consuming focus might be to get financing. This top line focus is your responsibility.

36. Be ready for luck. Nothing irritates me than someone saying how lucky we have been in our new companies, implying pure happenstance. It really isn’t about being lucky, but it does involve being receptive to those moments where the stars line up to your benefit. When the Twins played in the 87 World Series, we were fortunate enough to get a bunch of tickets for our employees. I had a big sign made up, congratulating the Twins from us. I asked some of our warehouse guys to get to the game early to get this big sign-poster up along the right field foul pole. They did. The next day our phone rang off the hook because our dealers were thrilled our sign was on TV as the announcers went to commercial break. I guess we were lucky.

37. Dream globally, think locally. Sure, it is way fun to think about serving customers in every state and foreign country. You should for sure think about your business in regional or international terms. Just be aware that your best, earliest and most leverageable sales and customers will come from your hometown.

38. Break your business down to a few key metrics. Far too many business plans say something like…”By only achieving 5% market share, we will be dominant in our industry.” Ok, maybe that is true. Figure out a replicable, repeatable sales formula. Quick simple example: Let’s say you send your customers a direct mail letter selling your small item. For every 100 you mail out, your costs including postage will be approximately $1 each. If you assume a 2% response (you have to keep this very practical and honest), two people will buy. So, you have invested $100 to get two customers. How much is each customer worth to you? We use to have a program we called “mail ten, call ten.” Every day, our reps would mail ten new prospects and then call ten that had been mailed. It always worked. Nowadays, modern company leaders have access to a dashboard that is updated daily or even hourly. Know your metrics and what effects them.

39. On average, your people are not average. This is a simple fact. If you were to ask for a vote and ask your people if they think they are performing below average, average or above average, most would believe they are above average. Your job is to be able to honestly assess their performance and to positively bring them up to their own perceived level.  But keep in mind, each person is unique, special and has very different skills, and talents. Use them wisely.

40. Assume waste. And a built-in bias toward doing less work. This is not me being cynical, just realistic. You should understand that we all, even you and me, waste time at work. Even more, there are many of us who, because of upbringing or whatever, have a tendency to avoid work. You can pay a lot of people to not do the work. I think you have to be very upfront with your employees and let them know you expect them to work. If you are blessed with a natural style that allows you to do this without pissing them totally off…more power to you.

41. Be friendly but not so much. This is touchy advice and actually hard to pull off, especially with employees who are more skilled and older than you. I believe it is one thing to be nice, friendly even, and quite another to hang with them, and drink beer all day on Saturday. Your call. Your perceived friendliness will be an issue with someone not in the group. You want to be over the top fair with everyone.

42. Are customers always right? No, they aren’t. In fact, some are unreasonable and even not profitable for you as business. Realize this fast. I am not saying you want to mistreat customers, far from it. But if a bad customer is negatively impacting you, your top performers and the business in general…fire them.

43. Get more than 50% of your people totally engaged in the business. If you have less than 50 employees your goal should be to get 50% of them…that is all you need!!!..to be passionate and engaged in the business. By this I mean, if over half of your people think about your business after they leave work and are always thinking up new approaches, new solutions, you are winning and winning big. That is awesome because most companies have an engagement factor of closer than 20%.

44. Suggestion boxes suck. I know there are a lot of management gurus who recommend having suggestions boxes spread around a business, to generate improvement ideas. If you need a box to generate such response, some other communication process needs fixing. If you ask for suggestions, you have to react to each and every one. Some, odds are, won’t be do-able. So, now you have a negative moment in your company. You have to tell the suggestor that no, we are not getting a trampoline for those who need an afternoon break. (An actual suggestion for me, once)

45. Formal performance reviews are de-motivating. One of your biggest challenges in a start up environment is keeping the motivation high. Remember what it is like–no prospect knows your company (yet), the pay isn’t all that great, you are working your people hard—all requires the utmost in motivational ability on your part. I was in the Air Force and like all military and large organizations, the AF had a very well thought out and detailed performance review system. They had teams of people being trained on it, how to give effective performance reviews and so on. It was documented ten ways to Sunday. It still sucked and it was basically a fast way to un-motivate people. I know HR people will have all this justification for formal reviews. Maybe they are needed once you get several hundred people. Til then, insist your managers discuss performance on a daily or weekly basis with their people. They have the right to know how they are doing. Why make them wait for some artificial performance review deadline.

46. Find a lead dog. It is absolutely imperative that you find and nuture a top performing sales person. If you don’t, high level goals are nearly hard to achieve. Always keep your eyes out for this sales leader. He will help you in many, many ways.

47. Put people in positions where they can be successful. Get to know the individuals and allow for difference. Helping them find success is now your job, not their mom and dad’s. You must figure out what position or tools they need to do the job you are demanding of them.

48. Know the lyrics, understand the tune. Business schools are very good at giving you the background and knowledge to deal with many business issues. What they are not good at is helping you know what to do when someone has an issue with drugs or alcohol. What do you do? What is your responsibility? What about trust? How long do you stay with a key guy who is not performing? What is the tune here? Can you hear it?

49. Never talk down, talk up. Disrespect shows up in small, insignificant ways. Your people can smell disrespect like bad gouda. Listen harder and talk less. Use ‘and’ more than you use ‘but.’

50. Don’t dominate meetings. This is incredibly easy to do; after all, you probably know more about the topic than anyone else if only because you have been thinking on it 24-7. If you dominate discussions, just expect to be in this position time and time again. Your job is to build a business, NOT your own self worth.

50 more tips soon

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