In 2010, at the height of a recession, I embarked on a growth pilgrimage into the association market and created The Moery Company (actually, Mark French of Leading Authorities and I launched the first version MoeryLAI in that year. I’m thankful for his partnership). I leaned twenty years in an industry meant zilch when building a new endeavor from scratch. For any of you burgeoning entrepreneurs out there – I share a few surprising observations (at least to me) from my experiences:
- Selling for the company is the CEO’s #1 job initially. You better get an appetite for it.
- You’re more likely to fail because you didn’t charge enough for services; rather than the lack of clients.
- Social media is the world’s most powerful tool to generate awareness about your firm.
- It’s all about talent. Hiring the very best person is an exponential (not incremental) advantage to the company.
- Set expectations for your people and then get the heck out of the way.
- Chronic late payers will drive you nuts and kill a start-up.
- Fire a client early. It’s going to happen at some time, so think through a good professional process.
- Regulatory paperwork is a huge time suck, and saps energy at small businesses.
- That being said, Obamacare didn’t kill my business.
- Let someone else have a recession. You can succeed regardless of the business trends.
One final note, if you want to start a business. Go for it, and burn the boats behind you. I think you will be much more successful if you have no other options. That’s motivation!
