As you already know, getting a business off the ground, much less running smoothly, is no easy task. It’s helpful to get as much information as you can from insiders — those who’ve been successful in their business ventures — and learn from their experiences as you build your own business.
For this Antiphony Insights, we spoke with Dr. Michael Zisman, an entrepreneur and accomplished business leader, for his insights on being a successful entrepreneur.
We hope you find this information valuable. Please feel free to contact us with any of your own thoughts or suggestions at insights@antiphony.com.
The Eight Cs and Four Ms of Doing Business
Dr. Michael Zisman has held a number of leading positions in the high-tech sector, including VP of Emerging Development at IBM, CEO of Lotus Development Corp., and Founder and CEO of Soft-Switch, Inc. Today, Mike is a Vice President of Corporate Stategy for IBM. He also serves as a trustee for both the University of Pennsylvania and Lehigh University, as well as an overseer of the Penn Engineering School. He serves as director on a number of public and private boards, including the Internet Capital Group (NASDAQ:ICGE); 4R Systems and Kamoon, Inc.
In my estimation, an entrepreneur is someone who stakes out a market before it exists and manages to survive until it exists. Once you’re established, your challenge is to become and remain successful. As an entrepreneur myself, I’ve learned these lessons, which I’ll dub the “Eight Cs and Four Ms of Building an Entrepreneurial Company”:
The Eight Cs:
- Capital: In addition to financial capital, you need strong intellectual capital. You need the savvy to keep the competition out and create barriers to their entry into your market.
- Control: Simply put, control comes from having cash. If you can manage your business to positive cash flow, you’ll have control.
- Comfort: Regardless of your industry, you’re in the business of selling comfort and trust. Your investors, customers, and employees need to feel comfort that you will be there, you’ll have longevity as a company, and you’ll be stable in providing jobs and products.
- Confidence: In the early stages of building a company, you need confidence to be successful. But there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. The difference is listening. When you stop listening, you become arrogant. And arrogance follows success like night follows day. As you grow and become successful, stay confident, but listen to your customers.
- Communication: A mediocre idea well articulated is better than a great idea poorly articulated. The ability to communicate your idea succinctly is critical. You must be able to get your ideas across in a structured way.
- Competition: If you don’t have the stomach for competition, don’t get into business. Business is war, and your goal should be to put every competitor out of business.
- Certainty: The fundamental job of the CEO is to filter out uncertainty for the rest of the company. You need to get comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty and despite it, set the direction and focus.
- Complete product: Your product is the totality of what the customer buys – the product, its complements, services – everything that contributes to the customer experience and enables them to realize value. Most new companies fail to appreciate the cost of creating a complete product.
And the Four Ms:
- Management team: Successful CEOs determine what they do best and surround themselves with others who have complementary skills. No one can go it alone; you need an interdependent management team.
- Momentum: You’ll recall the simple formula Momentum= Mass x Velocity. You can’t gain momentum with one or the other; you must have both. You must have critical mass in terms of size of the company, market, and opportunity. And you must have the appropriate speed in addressing all three.
- Messages: Keep your messages simple and reinforce a common view. Many companies focus on brand. A brand is your enduring promise of value –what distinguishes you from the competition. Brand gives you permission to do and not do things.
- Mental Model: Have a clear picture of what’s going on in the market so you can change when the market changes. The key to sales is knocking on the right doors at the right time and knowing when it’s time to try other doors.
Stakeholder Surveys
Jeffrey Babin, Antiphony
jbabin@antiphony.com
Effective strategic planning requires input from a variety of sources (primary and secondary research) and synthesizing that input into an actionable plan.
A critical component of Antiphony’s Relaunch® Methodology is Stakeholder Surveys, focused interviews with key constituents, including:
- Leadership team and key employees
- Board Members and Investors
- Current, Lost and Prospective Customers
- Distribution Partners and other Business Partners
- Industry analysts and thought leaders
These interviews provide a comprehensive view of your opportunities and challenges, as well as the assets and liabilities of the organization. Stakeholder Surveys allow you to gain insight into market perceptions of your offerings and programs.
This data, together with focused secondary research and a detailed review of the company’s operations, provides a rich context and validation for your strategy.
To learn more about how Stakeholder Surveys can contribute to your planning, contact Antiphony at insights@antiphony.com.
Recommended Reading
Marketing High Technology: An Insider’s View
William H. Davidow (ISBN: 002907990X)
This book is a classic. It provides insightful advice on marketing strategy, timing, and critical focus areas, with a primary focus on high technology products and services.