3 Secrets you should know!
Photo: arekmalang/ Resource: www.bigstock.com

In this post I’ll share 3 misconceptions, you should be aware when running a start-up company.

These 3 dirty little secrets can become a huge asset for you. Knowing about them will help you to make the right decisions in your business.

When I started my businesses I would have wanted to know them – but I didn’t!

Failing Rate of Start-Ups

Based on research of the University of Tennessee
55 % of all start ups fail or give up during the first 5 years! 55%!!!

There is a bunch of obvious reasons why entrepreneurs fail, for example:

• Being into business for the wrong reasons
• Lack of market awareness
• Falling in love with the own product and therefore ignoring customer needs.

Three important things you should be aware of!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynoxWD2t5u4

But from my own experience and from talking with lots of entrepreneurs there are 3 common misconceptions.  Most entrepreneurs learn about them the hard way.

Sometimes they are the reasons why companies fail and entrepreneurs go out of business. Here they are:

1. The company you plan today will not be the company you end up!

You developed your business plan. You are pretty detailed about where you want to go with what kind of product and what you want to achieve with your business. That’s great, but be prepared that you will end up running a different business than the one you planned in the beginning.

Helmuth von Moltke

Why? Well, German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke once said:

“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy!”

When your plan meets the real world, the real world wins. That’s life! And you better always keep this wisdom in the back of your mind.

Does that mean planning is useless? Not at all! Thinking about the framework for your long-term objectives, having a compelling vision knowing about your core competencies are important assets to your business.

Planning your actions is crucial, because you get a better understanding what works, what is important and how things might develop.

Plans don’t lead to failure, but strictly relying on a plan leads to failure. The crucial point is: If circumstances are different to what you expected you have to change the plan. You have to adapt your goals and actions so they fit into reality!

That’s why I say:

The company you plan today will not be the company you end up – and that is totally OK!   

2. Overnight success does not exist!

Nobody is an overnight success!  When an entrepreneur or a company suddenly seem to appear out of the blue, it usually arrives out of 5-10 years worth of work and failures. Starting up a company and making it successful is hard and you will go through lots of Highs and Lows.

You have to adapt often and you probably have to fail many times before you truly understand how to do things successfully. Successful entrepreneurs fail often, but they get up and start again.

Entrepreneur Henry Ford
Photo: markaumark/ Resource: www.bigstock.com

Surely you know Henry Ford as a successful business man, well known for his innovative assembly line.

But he wasn’t an instant success. In fact, he failed 5 times in his early businesses. He was broke five times before he founded the successful Ford Motor Company.

Don’t get me wrong: That does not mean that you have to go thru bankruptcy but you will have to cope with lots of failures until you make it.

There is no overnight success in business! Never!

 3. Everything takes longer than you think!

Starting and building your business takes time. You seldom get immediate rewards and most of your planned projects and forecasts will not come true – at least not on time. You better be prepared for delays and exceeded deadlines. You better work with internal time buffers and you should have sufficient financial buffers.

This is especially true for sales and profit forecasts in a start up environment. I’ve seen such a lot of forecast charts showing the typical hockey stick curve.

Typical planning with Hockey Stick Curve!

This hockey stick curve illustrates exponential growth following a short, flat incubation period or following an even decreasing profit growth curve.

There are only very few companies which really have strong or even exponential growth in the beginning – and even if they show it – in most cases the growth will come later than predicted.

Why? Well, the initial phase of linear growth can be for years before the right product and the market fit is found. This point in time is mostly impossible to predict accurately.

So always be prepared and have buffers, because everything takes longer than you think!

What are your tips for successfully running a start-up company?

Mastermind Meeting in London

Just recently I attended my first Mastermind Group Session in London.

One day in one room with 8 like-minded entrepreneurs talking about our ideas and challenges in our business.

WAOH! I already was excited to go to this meeting but it was even better than I expected. Thanks a lot to Chris Ducker for organizing and moderating it and to all participants! Chris, you’ve done a great job!

In such a meeting you give and receive useful feedback on business and strategies. It is very motivating to brainstorm on new business ideas together with other entrepreneurs. It is inspiring to hear how others are doing and how they overcome their business hurdles.

If you are an entrepreneur I strongly recommend taking part in such a Mastermind Group.

What exactly is a Mastermind Group?

One of the best definitions I found is from Pat Flynn. He describes it briefly as

“Group of people with a common goal that meet either in person, on the phone or via Skype etc to share and learn to improve what they do. Think of it as a show and tell (and ask) for highly motivated individuals who want to get things done.”

In 1937 Napoleon Hill wrote his book “Think & Grow Rich”. He was the first introducing the idea of Mastermind Groups:

“The coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people who work toward a definite purpose in the spirit of Harmony …
No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind.”

What are the benefits?

There are lots of benefits you get, e.g.

• You receive feedback on your ideas!
• You brainstorm together with like-minded individuals!
• You build supportive relationships!
• You hear differing views on business models which helps you to see issues and get insights you may not be aware of otherwise!
• You exchange helpful resources and tools!

Getting a clear understanding where you stand!

Going to my first Mastermind Meeting forced me upfront to think thoroughly about my own business. Just this already helped me a lot to get a clearer picture on where I stand and what I want to achieve this year.

Why that? Well, I wanted to be well prepared for the meeting so I put together a short presentation introducing myself and my challenges. Talking about 20 min is easy but putting it together to a 5 min presentation forced me to think hard about the important issues.

Accountability

In a Mastermind Group you discuss your business and your business goals very openly. If you meet not just once but you stay in touch or even meet regularly you will be asked how your business progresses. In the next meetings your fellow group members will ask if you have achieved your planned goals and if you have taken the action steps you wanted to take to get your business to the next level. In order to achieve success it is very helpful to talk regularly to other like-minded people about what you want to do. They will hold you accountable.

Fighting entrepreneurial loneliness

If you are an entrepreneur working mainly online it can feel quite lonely sometimes. Even Email, Facebook, LinkedIn and Skype cannot fully replace real world meetings. Meeting with other entrepreneurs in a Mastermind Group surely helps to fight this loneliness.

Watch the video with the Six Minute Strategist John Colley interviewing Chris Ducker on this subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0OOjEblaQ0

Resources on Mastermind Groups

Do you want to know more about how to start, find and join a Mastermind Group and how to run it? Here are some internet resources I found useful on this subject:

• How to organize and run a mastermind session for the first time!
  by Chris Ducker

• How to find a Mastermind Group!
  by Pat Flynn

• How to start a Mastermind Group (and why you should)!
  by Tom Ewer

• The benefits of creating and starting a Mastermind Group (for any area of life)
  by Dawn Barclay

When will you attend your first Mastermind Group Meeting?

Are football stars paid for their efforts?
Resource: www.bigstock.com/ Photo: Rinderart

Lots of employees complain about the little money they earn. It is too less compared to the hard work and long working hours they put in every day. They feel they are treated unfair.

I believe that is a misconception. You are never paid for hard working or for your efforts, but you are paid for your impact – no matter if you are an entrepreneur or an employee!

Do you get paid by the hour?

Employees mostly believe their company pays their salary because they spend a good amount of time working for the company! But that is a wrong assumption!

I know what you want to say:

“But my contract of employment exactly describes that I get paid X amount of dollars per hour. I am paid for working per hour. So what’s wrong with that?”

It is the mindset which leads you into the wrong direction.

Why is your company paying you?

Your company doesn’t really want to pay you money for the time you are working.
In the end it is irrelevant for your company how long you are working.

In the end it is also irrelevant for your company how hard you are working. Only what matters is: The outcome, the impact your work has on the bottom line of your company’s business.

The more positive your impact on the business is perceived the more money you will get paid. Full stop! Therefore, you should change your mindset from working hard to working effectively towards what matters to the business – in the perception of your boss!

The same is true for an entrepreneur. Your clients will only pay for your impact, not for your efforts!

Football Stars

Take a football star in the Champion League. He is playing football, having lots of fun and for this he gets paid Millions of Dollars, right?

Wrong! He is not getting paid Millions of Dollars just for playing football. He is even not getting all these bucks because he plays football very well. He gets the money for winning games.

The management of the Champion League Team perceives that he has a big impact on the team for winning games. Only the teams earn big money who win games. That is why these football stars are highly paid. It’s their impact on helping the team earning money.

Is it important if the football star is practicing lots of hours and working out hard. No, not all – as long as he has a strong impact on winning the game, it’s irrelevant.

You are never paid for your efforts, but you are paid for your impact!

What does that mean  for you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKXNDMTEFtM

You need to change your mindset: If you want to earn more money, stop complaining and don’t try to work harder. But focus on working effectively and focus on having more impact.

Change how you work in your job or – if that is not possible – get another job: a job where you can work to have significant impact!

Money does not follow hard working, but money follows impact!

The more perceived impact you have the higher your payment will become!

Are you having a strong impact on your company’s business? Does your boss or your clients perceive your work as significant?

Photo: Phase4Photography/ Resource: www.bigstock.de

Asking questions can be a great method helping and coaching your employees.

But you need to use questions carefully. Otherwise they can be counterproductive.

In this video I’ll talk about how to ask questions in the right way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oc_Eqjz1QQ

Short questions in rapid succession

If you shoot short questions in rapid succession your employees may feel like being interrogated by a police officer.

They feel pressed into a defensive position. They know they are under attack. They become more and more afraid and threatened.

If a project went wrong and you talk to the responsible person, avoid asking short questions in rapid succession. One question is enough. Allow your employee to think and to find the right answer.

Don’t trigger fear with your questions

The shorter you formulate your question, the more pressing it is perceived by your employee.
So, avoid this kind of questions. Instead of

“Why did you make the decision this way?”

You can ask:

“I can see that you were in a tough situation. What led you to make the decision this way?”    

You see? Asking in that way does not trigger fear and defence.

Talk about the background of your question

Sometimes it can help to introduce the background of your question with one or two sentences before asking the actual question.

In the end you ask these questions in order to help or to understand – not to frighten, to demotivate or to frustrate.

Questions can be a terrific way to get others to think. But this will only work if your counterpart feels that you respect him.

Therefore, never ever act like a threatening inquisitor! 

If you are not satisfied with your life, something is going terribly wrong!
Photo: barsik/ Resource: www.bigstock.com

Many people are not satisfied with their lives.

Their job is boring – but safe. They can live in reasonable comfort because of their monthly income. They think they need to go on with it. After all: The house, the car, the children and the pension need to be financed, right?

Their dreams are shelved. Dreams are too dangerous. No time for it. Yeah, maybe after retirement, then … But now they just have to “graft” for the next 20 years.

The American documentary “I’m fine, Thanks!” is about the moment when such people recognize that something needs to change in their lives.

The movie impressively describes what individuals decide to change in their lives. Watch the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNDZgvne_5k

Entrepreneurs with passion

The movie is mainly about employees who realize that they are trapped in a job that has become unpleasant with time. But I also know business owners who are in a similar situation.

These entrepreneurs have either enthusiastically started their own business or took it over from their father or mother. In the beginning they were passionate about it but over the years, the initial passion for running the business has slowly disappeared.

Actually, they don’t want to complain. After all, they seem to have a successful life and they earn good money. They live in a nice house, they drive a big car and they can afford to go on holiday in a 5 star hotel anywhere in the world … but something is missing.

Dissatisfaction

If you are in such a situation it is difficult. At the beginning you still can repress your own dissatisfaction quite well. But over the years you more and more feel that something is wrong. Your dissatisfaction increases.

Your own business is like a ball and chain. The only one who could change all that, is you, the entrepreneur – but you are afraid. You fear what others will say, you fear loss of reputation or financial loss: You are afraid of change.

Better to be dissatisfied, but live in (alleged) security. The risk of change and uncertainty seems to be too high. Be careful: This can be a dangerous miscalculation.

Ideas and solutions need passion

Success and security are deceptive. Your business can successfully operate for years and still can be severely disrupted suddenly. It is your role as entrepreneur to recognize the signs of the times correctly. You have to take appropriate counteract measures in good time and keep track and proactively think and act.

You can only do this if you have passion for your company and are enthusiastic about it. Then the chances are high that you recognize emerging problems at an early stage, think about new ideas and take timely countermeasures.

But if you lack passion, you work reluctantly. The danger is great, that you go for half-heartedly ideas and mediocre strategies and goals. You cannot expect to have great ideas if passion is missing.

Safety is an illusion

If you as an entrepreneur do not have passion for your business anymore, you need to change something – either in your life or/ and in your business.

Not to change anything, will be more expensive in the long term and more risky than trying something new.

Get out of your comfort zone!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vujraZVYrzU

The fear of change

At the end of the movie: “I’m fine, Thanks” Grant Peelle, the director says:

“If you ever find yourself
Toe to toe with fear,
when you are scared and your back’s against the wall
when you begin to believe you cannot pursue your dreams:
Take Action”

He’s right.
Take Action!
Get out of your comfort zone!
You only have one life!

You know it. I know it:
Many meetings are just a waste of time. They are boring, they don’t serve a purpose. They just suck!

Let’s get rid of these boring mind sucking meetings. If you want an effective meeting you need to answer 5 crucial questions before you hold the meeting.

Watch this video to understand the 5 crucial questions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVLDx-VBI4Y

1. Do you really need a meeting?

Before holding a meeting, ask yourself: Do we really need that meeting? Is it possible to achieve the same result with an e-mail or a short telephone call? If yes, don’t call for the meeting.

I can get mad on people who think:

“I don’t really feel like doing any work today, let’s call a meeting!”

If there is nothing to discuss: Don’t have a meeting!

2. What is the purpose?

Be specific and write it down. What do you want to achieve with the meeting? Is the purpose only to provide information? Are you planning to discuss certain topics and to develop ideas?

What decisions should be taken in the meeting? A meeting has always to be result oriented. Be crystal clear about the desired outcome!

3. Who should attend the meeting?

The meeting should hold value for anyone invited to it. Time is money. If you invite people to the meeting who don’t deliver value or don’t get value out of the meeting: Don’t invite them!

4. Do you have an invitation and agenda?

Clearly outline what the objectives are and how you expect participants to prepare. For each topic plan a separate agenda item with a description of the objective and schedule the time for it. Don’t overestimate what you can do in the meeting.

5. How long will the meeting last?

Be precise with your timing and planning. When will the meeting start and when will it end? As a rule of thumb: For most of the meetings: Don’t go for more than 1 hour.

Set times for each topic and during the meeting stick to the time table! Most important: Start and end on time! Always!!!

Being consistent is not an easy job!
Photo: Lichtmeister/ Resource: www.bigstock.com

The manager is annoyed: The business goals are not reached, decisions are not implemented and deadlines with customers are not met. It’s enough.

“We need to implement what we have agreed. We need to be more consistent in what we do. As a boss I must and will be more consistent! From now on I will consistently check results and take action if needed!”

Employees hear it and they understand the reaction of the manager. Inconsistency is a waste of time and money. A company can’t afford it long term.

Everyone agrees – but after a while everything is as it was before. The manager has failed to act and stay consistent. The question is why?

Why is it so hard to be consistent as a boss? What can you do as a boss in order to be consistent in your daily activities?

Punctuality

The Managing Director called his 8 department heads for a meeting for 10 am. Now it is 10:15. Everyone is there – only he is missing. Suddenly the door of the meeting room opens. The Managing Director enters the room and apologizes briefly:

“Sorry for the delay, but I had to talk to John about the production figures for tomorrow.”

What goes through your head when you read that? You might think:

“I understand that. As a boss, I have so much work to do. My employees sometimes also have to wait for a few minutes.”

This short wait can be quite expensive. In the above example, each of the 8 department has 15 minutes to wait idly. At an assumed hourly rate of $ 150 for each head

$ 150 x 15/60 x 8 = $ 300 !

are wasted in this 15 minutes!

Perhaps you’re thinking now:

“$ 300 is not that much. That can happen even once. The meeting with John regarding production numbers was surely important! “

The point is: It is not about the $ 300 loss. It is crucial that the manager acts a role model. If you demand punctuality of your employees – and you should – then you need to be on time as well – always. No excuses.

If you want to act consistently, the first thing is to be consistent with yourself. Walk the talk! The fish always stinks from the head!

Act consistently!

As an executive you have to act consistently. What does it mean? You must define the goals properly, agree measures and actions with your staff and check the outcome, control the results.

If you do not control results regularly, you are not consistent. You give a wrong impression. It looks like you do not care about the results. It look like that the work of your employees doesn’t really matter to you. That’s fatal!

How can you avoid being inconsistent in your day to day work?

7 Tips to be consistent!

1. Your commitments are a word of honor!

Your deeds must follow your words. Little things count.

Keep your commitments – always – no matter whom you gave it, and no matter how seemingly unimportant it may seem to you. You gave the commitment voluntarily. No one put the gun to your head, right?

If you tell one of your employees, you send him the e-mail on Wednesday, your employee should not receive the e-mail on Thursday!

Take any of your commitments seriously – as serious as a word of honor.

2. Focus! Ask only what is truly important!

If the boss wants to become consistent, he wants this change immediately. He changes his behavior and wants his employees to change immediately as well.

But change is mostly not working that quickly. It takes time to get all on board. The new rules must not only be heard but also understood and accepted. Your employees need time to realize that your behavior change is serious and will stay long term.

So do not change everything at once, but go to the things that are really important. Name the important things by name and be there consistently. But do not get bogged down with consistency in unimportant trifles.

3. Keep a written record of agreements!

If you make arrangements or give a commitment, write it down. No need for a comprehensive protocol. A short e-mail just mentioning the results is fine.

4. Define objectives and actions verifiable and transparent!

Qualitative goals can become a great danger. Pseudo Goals such as:

“We will improve our communication!”

“We will increase our supply rate!”

do nothing if they are not quantified or if at least measures and actions with deadlines and responsible are derived.

General calls for greater customer focus and for increase of competitiveness will not do any good. These calls are getting lost in the daily operating business. The manager has to make sure goals and actions are clearly defined: Who is doing what until when? Only then he can control the results later on.

5. Plan the dates for reviews well in advance!

As a manager you should regularly check milestones. Have the objectives been achieved? It is helpful to develop your own appropriate control structures to remove your own inconsistency and inefficiency.

One problem is often that managers understand that the regular control is important, but they do not classify them as a matter of urgency.

A customer call or a problem in the production is urgent. It appears suddenly. Are these things strongly important? Mostly not. In contrast, regularly checking results is crucial important, but has mostly no urgency. Therefore it often falls by the wayside.

You can change this. Just make important things urgent! How? Assign dates for important things – do it months in advance!

For example: Fix a date once a month for a review meeting. In that meeting your employees report on the progress of their projects and you review the departmental goals regularly.

With the start of the year fix all these monthly meetings for the next 12 months in advance. Instruct your secretary that these dates are important and should not be canceled or postponed.

In this way these review meetings will become a habit for you. Believe me you will make a big step towards consistent leadership if you do this.

6. Put sanctions for seemingly mundane missed deadlines!

A Meeting must start on time. You need to make that a habit. To force all participants – including yourself – to be on time you can do the following:

Have a piggy bank in the meeting room. Anyone who is late must interject $ 1 per minute he is late. You as the executive have to throw in $ 5 per minute!

If the piggy bank is full, donate all the money to a charitable organization.

You will be surprised how quickly you and your employees get used to be on time.

7. Celebrating Success!

If your team and you have achieved important goals, celebrate. This doesn’t need to be expensive. It can be a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant or just a chocolate cake that you bring to the meeting.

The celebration of success will not only strengthen the team spirit. Rather, it also means that you and your employees connect positive experiences with the consistent checking of results – and that helps to be more consistent.

Why are your employees not working efficiently?
Photo: Yuri__Arcurs/ Resource: www.bigstock.com

Some business owners are unhappy with the performance of their employees:

“My employees often do not focus on the right things and they simply do not work efficiently!”

Many think that this can be changed just with proper training of the staff. Well, it’s mostly not that simple. It is rarely purely the fault of your employees.

To be efficient and to be effective!

It is crucial to distinguish between effectiveness and efficiency. If you are effective you are doing the right things. If you are efficient you are doing the things right.

In other words, effectiveness is the goal and efficiency addresses the way!

Effectiveness asks the “what” and efficiency asks the ‘how’.

Why is this distinction important?

First things first: First think about being effective and then being efficient. First ask what needs to be done and then how.

Let me give you an example:

You want to cut down a tree in the garden. Then it is not effective starting to cut off the branches or to mow the lawn around the tree. It helps you not eventually come closer to your goal – namely to cut the tree.

However, it is effective to cut the tree with a blunt axe. This may take some time, but eventually you will cut down the tree. Surely it makes more sense to use a sharp axe or even better to use a chainsaw.

All three methods are effective because they serve the purpose. The methods differ, however, in terms of efficiency.

What does that have to do with my employees?

If your employees are often working on the wrong things, they do not work effectively. If this is the case, usually the objectives are not clear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yryBntHQcOg

Whose job is it in a company to have the vision and to set the objectives? Exactly: That’s your job as an entrepreneur and executive.

If you complain, that your employees are doing the wrong things, make sure that the vision and the objectives of your company are clearly communicated and understood by all your staff. Otherwise they don’t know how to prioritize their work.

But I cannot specify everything…

You don’t need to specify everything. But you need to set the direction. You need to say what is important.

Do your employees really know your company’s vision and the business objectives? Don’t answer with “Yes, of course” so easily.

Ask your employees. You will probably be amazed how little the answers coincide with your vision and your goals.

Prioritize only works if you know the goals!

If you want your employees to act in your best interests, business vision and goals must be clear. If your employees have to work on multiple tasks, they need to prioritize. But that is only possible if they know what the purpose of their work is, what is most important for the company.

As an entrepreneur and executive it is your task to define the business vision and goals and constantly talking about it.

But my employees know their goals …

OK, Now if vision and goals are clear and understood – but you still have the problem that your staff does not provide the expected output. What can be the reason?

In most cases the reason is not laziness of the employees. Think about the following three situations employees may have to cope with:

1. The desire to be efficient

Sometimes, an employee strives to be particularly efficient. Therefore he thinks he needs to work very quickly. This can be the case if the boss repeatedly stresses that the team needs to be more efficient. The result is that the employee starts to work in haste without first to clarify the goal.

An example:

The employee gets a new project. He just skims the description for the new project briefly. He successfully worked on similar projects for several other customers. In order not to waste time, he starts immediately.

It is just a pity that this project differs from the older projects slightly in a few points. Unfortunately he overlooked this. In the following days, he works very efficiently on the project. But the result is unfortunately not what the customer ordered.

His desire to be particularly efficient made him doing the wrong things. When he realizes that after a few days, he needs to put a lot of effort, time and money into correcting and reworking. Finally he is successful with the project – but was he efficient? Not at all!

2. Missing helicopter view

Many people find it difficult to cope with frequently changing requirements. If a new project gets on their desk, it is important that they do not ignore it and work on with their existing projects. They need to step back, get an overview about their new situation and clarify what is now important:

• Does the project they are working on is still No1 priority or does it need to be postponed?

• Having a new responsibility for the new project will they still be able to meet all the deadlines they committed to?

• If not, do they raise their hand and tell their managers about it?

Often employees don’t change from their detailed work view into the helicopter view. They are bogged in details and try to work harder and quicker. They want to improve their situation by working more efficiently. But it would be necessary to firstly think about effectiveness.

Getting into helicopter view and thinking about effectiveness can be difficult – especially if you’re pressed for time and lost in details. But everyone can learn to regularly take the helicopter view.

As a Manager you can coach your employees to get into helicopter view. But take care that you don’t just tell them what they should do, but let them suggest their priorities. Discuss it with them. In that way you really coach them and they will improve their effectiveness over time.

3. Wrong priorities

Sometimes people just work based on wrong priorities. You may know it from yourself – at least I do. Instead of starting with the most important task, I often prefer to work on the ones, which are most fun or give instant rewards. Reading my emails seems to be more fun and joy than working on my tax declaration.

Acting like this is obviously not effective. Again, it helps to regularly take the helicopter view and to question actions and priorities regularly.

Do your employees know exactly your business vision and the business goals?
Do you and your emplyoees regularly get into helicopter view?

Serial Entrepreneur Chris Ducker

Two weeks ago I attended the New Media Expo in Las Vegas. It was amazing and I learned a lot about online marketing and content creation (More info on my blog post here).

But even more important for me was to meet lots of great people there. I had the chance to interview serial entrepreneur Chris Ducker.

He runs four companies with more than 300 employees. In 2010 he started his project to become a “Virtual CEO”: During 12 months he developed from a 14 h/day workaholic CEO into a full time virtual CEO working only a few hours per week on his companies.

You don’t want to miss my interview with him. Watch it below. He talks in detail about his fascinating journey to become a virtual CEO.

Serial entrepreneur Chris Ducker

Born and raised in the UK Chris moved to the Philippines 12 years ago. There he started his first business on telemarketing. Today he is known as the guy to go to if it comes to outsourcing to the Philippines.

With his company Group Live2Sell Chris offers quality inbound call center services and Telemarketing services for B2B and B2C.

His company Virtual Staff Finder is a Virtual Assistant (VA) match-making company. His team helps entrepreneurs and business owners to find the best Filipino VA’s in the country. If you are looking for a part-time or full-time English speaking virtual assistant solution, this is where you need to go.

Chris also helps small business owners and entrepreneurs to start, run and grow their business in the 21st century. He strongly focuses on applying smart social media strategies and creating an online personal brand. Check out his website and blog: chrisducker.com.

My interview with Chris on leadership and more…

In the interview I pick his brain on leadership, entrepreneurship and personal branding. He shares his experience on how to become a virtual CEO and how he successfully manages 300+ employees – without being a great manager.

Without further due watch this short 2 min “teaser” video about Chris Ducker on leadership.

2 min Teaser Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZhGtOPo8gs

27 min full Video Interview

If you want to watch the full 25 min interview just click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk70Q4sgzl8

In this video you’ll find out what Chris thinks on:

0:26 min
What has changed in the last years regarding the new 21 century? What is it entrepreneurs and leaders have to think about in the new economy?

2:00 min
Shift in marketing: It is not important if it is B2b or B2C. P2P is what you need to think of: People to people business!

4:00 min
“Your business is not sexy? You think Social Media does not work for you? Nonsense! It works in any industry!”

6:00 min
Chris talks on building a personal brand!

6:55 min
What does leadership mean to Chris Ducker?

8:40 min
“Honestly: I am not the best manager, but…”

9:45 min
Chris gives a great example on leadership: Basketball Magic Johnson!

10:40 min
Vision of Chris Ducker with his companies

13:15 min
Why and how Chris focuses very hard on his management team!

14:15 min
Why do people work for Chris?

15:35 min
One thing Chris will never do…

17:30 min
The 3 mistakes Chris made in his business in the last 3 years…

20:00 min
Chris talking on importance of podcasting in his business …

21:15 min
Chris talking on importance of videos in online marketing…

22:20 min
No.1 tip on how to stay focused: It is not coffee…

24:00 min
How did Chris manage to become the virtual CEO?

24:30 min
First step: Getting out of email-hell…

26:15
“It really comes down to goals!”

26:45
“You can even be in the exactly same industry. But because you are an individual, the way in which you market and grow your business is totally different. And that’s why some companies are more successful than others!”

What are your thoughts on leadership?

Disagreement!
Photo: Yuri_Arcurs/ Resource: www.bigstock.com

It is quite natural: If you have a great idea, it feels good when others telling you:

“Waoh, That’s a fantastic idea.”

It is so good for your ego, isn’t it?

But be careful: If your employees tell you always how great you and your ideas are, something is going terribly wrong.

 Avoid the Yes-Man-Mentality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgNHt4PS8Hc

Managers often tend to surround themselves with people who agree with them and who think like them – or at least always saying “Yes” to all what the boss presents.

That is dangerous. You need people in your team who are not like you. You need people who challenge your ideas, who think differently and who may suggest even the opposite way of your presented direction.

Do you really need redundancy?

Gen George Marshall said once:

“If you and I agree all the time, one of us is redundant!”

Good disagreement is central to progress. If you don’t allow dissent, you produce a company culture of stagnation, fear and frustration. The result: Employees with good ideas leave your company or they mentally resign. They sit back and protect their jobs by agreeing with everything you suggest.

If that’s the case you have surrounded yourself only with “Yes–Men!” That’s not what you and your company need. Avoid it by all means.

You need controversial discussions!

Ideas need to be discussed – controversially. You need to encourage your people to challenge you and your ideas. Encourage disagreement and use it to empower collaboration and decision making.

Disagreement vs Disrespect

There is a difference between disagreement and disrespect! Don’t confuse the two.

As the manager or as the subordinate: Be honest and tell what you think, but do it politely. Disagreements should not become personal.

However, if the decision is made after discussions and balancing pros and cons, dissent must stop. Once the decision has been made, the employees need to understand that they have an obligation to support the decision – even if they disagree with the decision.