From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

This picture, taken from an AdRANTs article, brings to mind a few funny, and true, points not the least of which is to not neglect what got you where you are now.

No matter what your profession of choice, at some point in your career you were a sponge. You would spend countless hours researching, learning from others, and soaking up every little morsel of information and experience you could find.

Don’t let that stop. The ability to continuously absorb and process more information is one the fascinations of the human brain that we shouldn’t abandon.

Feed your mind. Study. Research. Watch others. Continue your intellectual and professional growth at all costs. Don’t fall behind because the results could be ruinous for your career.

This is one of the reasons why I follow Chris Brogan. I love this man’s passion. I’ve never met him in person but I feel like I know him well because we share this same passion of wanting to share what we know with other people.

I love social media. I love new media. I love marketing and advertising. I love my work. And I love where they all intersect to make me a successful entrepreneur. Let me share my passion with you.

Chris Brogan:

… the message you believe with all your heart is getting out there to more people so that we can have more collaborators and not just share the glory but share the work.

Overnight success doesn’t sleep in. Overnight success doesn’t watch a lot of TV. Overnight success doesn’t doesn’t have a whole lot of hobbies right now. What it has is hours of hard work and moving on to the next thing.

“Rapid, flex development in a controlled space”

What does this mean to you? Could you work in this environment?

I know Mark has his faults. We all do. But as a businessman, in the truest sense, he has very few equals. I read this article yesterday on his blog. Enjoy.

The Most Patriotic Thing You Can Do

from Blog Maverick by markcuban

Bust your ass and get rich.

Make a boatload of money. Pay your taxes. Lots of taxes. Hire people. Train people. Pay people. Spend money on rent, equipment, services. Pay more taxes.

When you make a shitload of money. Do something positive with it. If you are smart enough to make it, you will be smart enough to know where to put it to work.

I don’t care what anyone says. Being rich is a good thing. Not just in the obvious sense of benefiting you and your family, but in the broader sense.  Profits are not a zero sum game. The more you make the more of a financial impact you can have.

I’m not against government involvement in times of need. I am for recognizing that  big public companies will  continue to cut jobs in an effort to prop up stock prices, which in turn stimulates the need for more government involvement.  Every cut job by the big companies extracts a cost on the American people in one way or another.

Entrepreneurs are needed to create and grow companies to absorb those people in new jobs. If entrepreneurs dont create those jobs, the government ends up having to spend more money to help them one way or another.

So be Patriotic. Go out there and get rich. Get so obnoxiously rich that when that tax bill comes , your first thought will be to choke on how big a check you have to write. Your 2nd thought will be “what a great problem to have”, and your 3rd should be a recognition that in paying your taxes you are helping to support millions of Americans that are not as fortunate as you.

In these times of “The Great Recession” we shouldn’t be trying to shift the benefits of wealth behind some curtain. We should be celebrating and encouraging people to make as much money as they can. Profits equal tax money. While some people might find it distasteful to pay taxes. I don’t. I find it Patriotic.

I’m not saying that the government’s use of tax money is the most efficient use of our hard earned capital. It obviously is not. In a perfect world, there would be a better option. We don’t live in a perfect world. We don’t live in a perfect time. We live in a time where the government plays a big role in an effort to help lead us out this Great Recession. That’s reality.

So I will repeat my point. Get out there and make a boatload of money. Enjoy the shit out your money. Pay your taxes.

Its the most Patriotic thing you can do.

Check out this guy in the video from the Sasquatch Music Festival 2009. Do you have the guts to be him?

He doesn’t care that he can’t dance or looks crazy dancing by himself. He doesn’t even care if no one joins him, but they did.

Can you be this kind of leader in business? Can you ‘just go for it’? Do you have enough courage and belief in your brand to jump out there alone?

Seth said his “favorite part happens just before the first minute mark. That’s when guy #3 joins the group. Before him, it was just a crazy dancing guy and then maybe one other crazy guy. But it’s guy #3 who made it a movement.

Initiators are rare indeed, but it’s scary to be the leader. Guy #3 is rare too, but it’s a lot less scary and just as important. Guy #49 is irrelevant. No bravery points for being part of the mob.

We need more guy #3s.“

I attended an event last night that included panelists and audience participants from many different verticals. Each member in the group was an entrepreneur at heart and by living the life. Each member has a passion for entrepreneurship so much that sharing those experiences is imperative to portraying their vision.

When we entered the panelist event room after a half hour or so of casual networking, I snapped a few pictures (see photo below) with my BlackBerry to send up to TwitPic >> JASEzone >> Twitter >> FriendFeed >> Facebook.

While I was doing so, a friendly woman sat down next to me. Here’s how our quick conversation went -
New Friend: Who are you here with while taking pictures?
Me: No one. I’m just taking them to send to TwitPic to get onto Twitter to share with my network of friends and colleagues.
New Friend: Really? [short pause] What is Twitter?

Since the event was getting ready to start, I spent all of 20 seconds explaining Twitter to her, its purpose, and its popularity. She seemed interested, but not really very interested.

Not thinking much more about our quick encounter, the Twitter conversation entered my thinking again when my new friend raised her hand during the panel discussion to ask a question. Her question was not what intrigued me; her introduction actually astounded me. She introduced herself as a “marketing” entrepreneur in Hampton Roads that has owned a marketing agency for over 20 years.

Huh?! Are you serious?! And you’ve never heard of Twitter? Do you do online marketing at all? Do you know what inbound marketing is? Have you heard of social media marketing? Immediately I had 30 questions for her running through my head.

Here’s the lesson for my readers: Question your marketing / advertising agency. Don’t take for granted they know your audience, much less know where your audience lives.

I’ve talked about this lesson a lot on this blog and on my vlog at Coffee with the CEO. Read through here. Watch a few videos. Don’t let my new friend be your marketing guru. Because they’re not, not matter what they say. Call our team at JASE and let’s get your organization on the right (successful!) track.

Tonight’s Entrepreneurs Forum of Hampton Roads event should be very informative. I will be there with eyes (and ears) wide open. Succeeding with Partners is the topic; panelists include Bob Golden of The GBS Group, Glenn Davis of Comverge, Mark Bernecker of Corporate Recruiting Partners, and Stacey Wanish of 757JobsNow.com.

Succeeding with Partners
Anecdotes suggest that having a business partner is a recipe for disaster. Studies have proven, however, that a business run by partners will experience accelerated growth. Come hear our panelists discuss the benefits of having a partner.

Date: May 13, 2009
Location: Town Center, Williams Mullen (sponsor), 222 Central Park Avenue, 17th Floor, Virginia Beach, VA
6:00 PM - Networking
6:30 PM -7:30 PM - Panel discussion
$5 Admission fee
Free parking
RSVP TO: kbrowning@williamsmullen.com, 757-499-8800

Grab your 2nd cup of coffee and let’s chat. I want to introduce you to what economists say it takes to make you an entrepreneur. Let’s see if they say you have the beans or not (coffee pun intended ).

Reference post: The Entrepreneurs Forum of Hampton Roads - Born, Not Made by Dr. James V. Koch

Mark Cuban published on his blog yesterday an idea on how he thinks we can help the economy.

Mark’s blog entry is only a few sentences so I’ve copied the complete entry for you. You can see his original blog post here.

Consumer savings are way up.  Doesn’t more savings mean more money in banks to lend ? Isn’t that a good thing ?

Here is an idea for you. Create rewards for putting those savings in lending institutions, and reward the institutions for lending it out. 

Make the interest earned on savings accounts and CDs tax free for individuals and corporations if the funds are deposited with lending institutions  that lend out 100pct of those funds.  Its a simple concept. If we are going to increase our savings, lets make sure that money is recycled into the economy and frees up credit.

Here is how I see it.  As of June of ‘08, there were 7 TRILLION dollars in deposits held by lending institutions.  If that number can grow by any percent, and be recycled into the economy through incentives, it completely changes the dynamics of an economic incentive plan.  Plus, Im certain that banks would rather take in funds through deposits than by being required to pay 10pct for government bailout money.

More importantly, it works in a manner that we all understand. The only certainy about the proposed stimulus programs is their uncertainty and the queasy feelings we all will have as we watch the rules of unintended consequences create headlines on a weekly basis.

My Thoughts

I think anything that changes the public’s perception of a ’savings account’ would be a good thing. And if folks shifting their money into a savings account at their local banking institution helps the economy, that’s even more of an added incentive that the average joe would get behind. What do you think about Mark’s suggestion?

At our most recent Entrepreneurs Forum of Hampton Roads meeting earlier this week, we were honored to have Dr. James Koch speak to us on his economic study of entrepreneurial traits. The topic of his presentation was follow-named with his newest book, Born, Not Made.

For those that do not know, Dr. Koch (pronounced like cook) is a world-renowned economist with at least 9 books and over 100 hundred journal artcles published. He is also President Emeritus and the Board of Visitors Professor of Economics at Old Dominion University. You may read more information on Dr. Koch at his website here.

All in all, the presentation was very interesting and intriguing. Personally, I received validations on several fronts that my personality does fit the entrepreneurial model Dr. Koch expresses.

Here are a few scratch notes I took during the meeting -

• Entrepreneurial traits in an individual stem from 60% heredity, 40% environment.
• Heredity: risk taking, behavioral genetics research, uncertainty.
• Environment: education, wealth, training from parents, parental influence is much smaller relative to pier influence.
• Entrepreneurs think more outside the box than managers.
• Entrepreneurs have more innovative ideas than managers.
• Entrepreneurs stir things up more than managers.
• Entrepreneurs encourage less creative thinking and ideas than managers.
• Entrepreneurs do not agree with organizational charts whereas managers do.
• Entrepreneurs violate the chain of command more than managers.
• Entrepreneurs make good employees only if you expect them to do entrepreneurial things.
• Higher wealth does not equate to a greater risk taker.

I’d like to thank Joel Nied for organizing & moderating and Williams Mullen for their sponsorship and hosting the event. Hopefully the next event in March I’ll be able to live blog or live microblog the event.

Amazon.com describes Born, Not Made this way -

Books, magazine articles, and educational programs on entrepreneurship are all based on the idea that anyone can be an entrepreneur–that entrepreneurs are made, not born. Well, maybe not.

In a study of 234 CEOs funded by the Kauffman Foundation, James L. Fisher and James V. Koch came up with a surprising conclusion: Some individuals are simply more naturally fitted to become entrepreneurs than others. They are pre-wired. Because of heredity, some people are much more likely to become successful entrepreneurs or pursue entrepreneurial strategies within a corporate setting profitably.

By recognizing that, this book will significantly improve corporate selection processes, strengthen entrepreneurship programs, and boost the confidence of aspiring entrepreneurs through invaluable insights. Among other things, Fisher and Koch show that true entrepreneurs not only see the world differently–they act differently. Compared with corporate managers, for example, they are more confident, more decisive, more likely to upset the apple cart, and more energetic. They love to compete but are notable for the partnerships they are able to fashion with friend and foe alike. Such conclusions are remarkable. Why? Because they are based on the only empirical comparison study yet conducted on entrepreneurship.

The insights are not based on personal opinion or case studies but on valid and reliable personality indicators. Because the book shows that certain kinds of people will find it much easier to found successful companies than others, it has many practical applications. It will help organizations fit the right people into jobs requiring an entrepreneurial bent. It will challenge corporations to hire entrepreneurial CEOs who will transform businesses rather than maintain the status quo. And it will speak directly to entrepreneurs and those contemplating starting a business, who will learn if they have the right stuff to start and sustain a business. In short, this book provides insights into the entrepreneurial soul that can change the fortunes of individuals and companies for the better.