This is a scary stage in your company that comes after Informed Pessimism, and can feel like you’re standing on the edge of a building needing to jump.  It will feel like all the odds are stacked against you and that everything is going wrong.  It will be hard to get out of bed in the morning.  Sleeping at night will be close to impossible due to worries and fear.  You’ll feel like you’re paralyzed and can do little more than perhaps clean your filing cabinet drawers successfully.

You definitely do NOT want to be talking to the media, potential employees or having team meetings when you’re feeling like this.

When you start feeling yourself sliding into this Crisis of Meaning stage, you really do have to reach out for help.   Don’t wait until you’re out on a ledge to call from your cell phone and say, “Hi, I’m getting ready to jump.  Can you help me?”  They won’t get to you in time!

We all need to really understand the feelings that we’re having as we move down the roller coaster. For women entrepreneurs, this can be a little easier since they know how to tap into that emotional intelligence and intuition from years of practice, and frankly, it’s more socially acceptable for them to do this. They’re also more likely to talk to others about their feelings, whereas we guys tend to think through stuff silently from our little caves. The bottom line? We all need to listen to our bodies and brains more because they actually send out these chemical responses within our body for a reason.

That anxious feeling in your gut is a chemical reaction that your brain is triggering. Realize that your body is saying, “Slow down.” This is the time to call on your friends, business advisers, banker, accountant, and call on people you went to school with –anyone who can lend an ear—and ask them for guidance. Call on organizations like EO or YPO, and say, “I’m feeling stressed, worried and nervous. I’m not sure what to do or where to turn next. Help!”

And don’t feel ashamed of it because every single business owner goes through this stuff.

When you’re at this stage you should do things like:

· Clean your filing cabinet drawers – seriously.  Doing a few little things can often perk people up.

· Reach out to your support groups like friends, family, your church, groups like the Entrepreneurs’ Organization or similar ones and ask them for help, advice or to just lend an ear.

· Try to set your TOP 5 daily and only work on the most important items each day.

· Write lists – lists about your strengths, lists about what you love – make lists that when you re-read them will help re-build your  confidence.

· Go to the movies. Just a complete distraction.  Two hours of escapism.

· Read an inspirational (NOT an instructional) book.

You should avoid doing things like:

· Don’t talk to people that are depressed or negative.

· Don’t turn to vices: porn, liquor and drugs will destroy you.

· Don’t think that you can “handle it” on your own.  You can’t.

Make sure you have the mental capacity, supportive people, time and resources to get you through rough patches.

And remember:  THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

This rings true even in recessions.  That’s where the old adage ‘cash is king’ in a recessionary market comes from.  Many companies saw the recession coming and moved into cash.  They were waiting for deals. They’ve been waiting for the market to turn. They’re also waiting to buy from you. Sell to them. They’ve got money – some of it could be yours.

So, how do you get some of that money? A story first…

Years ago, one of my sales teams was working with a large client called Public Storage.  We were doing about $180,000 a year in business with them.  When we asked them how much total spending they did with us and competitors of ours, they said they’d have to check.  The following week they came back and said overall, company wide, they spent about two million dollars.  Wow–and we were only getting nine percent of that! Imagine how the conversation changed at that point to, “How can we get more of your business? What do you need to see from us to spend fifty percent of that figure with us?” We knew they had the money because they told us they were spending it! Now we just needed to work closely with them to have them spend it with us instead of our competitors.

Figure out which of your clients or prospects are doing well. Do your research and really focus on them, and you’ll land them without any problem.  Ask your clients how much of their current business you are currently getting.  Spending time with your top clients to increase revenues is easier than finding new ones.  They’ve got money – some of it could be yours.

Any stories to share ?

Uranus

Give your meeting rooms names. Our offices at Ubarter.com had boardrooms named after the planets.

The boardroom furthest from the CEO’s office was called Pluto (the planet furthest from the sun).  Guests would always chuckle when they were told the meeting would be held in a room called “Neptune.”

If possible, engage all your employees in the naming process. Don’t just slap a name on a boardroom without any employee input. Culture should flow from the inside out, not the other way around. And yes, it always got a huge laugh when someone asked where the CEO Dwayne was, and the reply was ‘he’s in Uranus’.

And put up huge positive sayings in vinyl letters or on canvasses you design. Pick words or sayings that add value and mean something to your staff, not lame, obscure quotes that don’t have any relevance to your team. This might not be possible right away, but as you cultivate real work culture, it’ll be a lot easier to speak the language of your employees.

One example is have a ‘Can You Imagine?’ wall – where employees, customers and suppliers can put up great ideas.  Big, crazy, audacious ideas that provoke thinking. Make sure they align with company values, but be open to Also include goals and core values on the wall, that way no one will ever forget their purpose.

I’ve just wrapped up a 7 city speaking tour with EO & YPO in India.  Crazy schedule to hit this 7 cities between Jan 8-19th – but we pulled it off.

Too many business lessons to cover in just one post, however, one that jumped out at me in every city was that Indian entrepreneurs focus differently.  They almost never own or run just one company, they all seemed to run between 4-7 companies each.

They see running multiple companies as diversifying, and hedging their risk.  They don’t build companies for the purpose of selling them, they build them to give themselves cash flow for better lives, and to re-invest in other business ventures.

Prior to coming to India, I’d have pushed entrepreneurs hard to only run one company at a time.  Now, I truly see the value in running multiple companies at once.  However, to do it right, Indian entrepreneurs put solid CEOs or Presidents in place to run each of their companies.  They don’t micro manage them.  And they don’t stay overly involved in each of them.  They build them up, one at a time, then like children they set them free a little bit at a time, allowing each company to grow up and spin off it’s own rewards.

Focus on growing your leadership teams, and you could own multiple companies at once too…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the CEOs I interact with in my speaking, coaching and mentoring roles.  Most of them are awesome.  In fact, all of them are awesome at times, but like me, they miss on occasion too and have areas to improve on.  There are a few areas I’d like each of them to work on during 2012.

However, instead of worrying about where I’d like them to improve, I thought I’d focus on my areas to work on instead.

Here are the TOP 5 areas I’ll work on in 2012:

1) I will not get as defensive when I hear things about me or my business.

2) I will focus more intently during my coaching and mentoring calls.

3) I will take better notes during coaching calls, so I can follow up tighter and hold the CEOs more accountable to do what they said they’d do.

4) I’m going to tell my coaching clients exactly what I think they should do.  And I’m going to keep pushing them to make the hard decisions they need to make.

5) I’m going to laugh more and have more fun.  And I’m going to take more time off too.

Hope about you ?  Where are you going to improve business wise during 2012 ?

If you are building an entrepreneurial company, you need to build an entrepreneurial culture to go with it.

One way to create a culture of entrepreneurship is to treat all the employees as co-owners.  Let them learn all the parts of a company and how it really runs.  Share some of the profits of the company with all employees. Give them the same level or responsibility and accountability that the owner has, too. Everyone will begin to be excited about growth.  Everyone will start to treat the company like they own it.

In 1986, when I was running one of my first companies, I came home from work one day and started to get upset, and my dad said, “What’s wrong?”  And I said, “All of my employees (who were also my friends) are starting to hate me.”  And he said, “Why are they hating you?”  And I said, “Well, they think I’m making too much profit.”  And he said, “Why do they think that?”  And I said, “Well we have these sales targets every month and we go chasing after these revenue goals, and I think they feel that that’s how much money I’m putting in my pocket.”  And he said, “Well don’t you show them your expenses?”  And I said, “No. If I showed them my expenses they’d know how much profit I’m making!”  He said, “Well they think you’re making more than you are.  So show them your expenses as well. Besides you aren’t making any profit yet so what can it hurt?”

I listened to my dad.

Right away, my employees started to see the business differently.  They no longer felt like I was taking advantage of them.  In fact, they were rather nervous that they might be out of jobs if the company didn’t start making more money fast. That impacted profitability and was tied to that cultural aspect of being an entrepreneurial company.

This is the third year where I’m selling 5 advertising spots on my laptop to 5 great brands (3 are already taken, only 2 left).

The 1st brand to grab a spot was Marquis Wine Cellars they have an awesome online ordering area, and free deliver for Vancouver customers too.  No more dreaded trips to the faceless liquor stores, endless isles of wine, mediocre service and never ending shelf tags claiming to profess the fountain of youth and 92 points for $20.00.  Marquis has AWESOME wines from around the world – I know – I drink a lot of them, and I get all my wine from Marquis as well.

The 2nd brand to grab a spot is CPUsage.  CPUsage harnesses the unused processing power of idle computers, using them to deliver an Infrastructure-as-a-Service for high throughput and high performance computing.  CPUsage compensates computer owners for their unused processing power through a point based reward system. Points can be redeemed for gift cards and other items in an online store.  Their customers use CPUsage for tasks such as web crawling, video transcoding, scientific analysis, or other transient workloads.

The 3rd is Nita Lake Lodge, advertising for a second year in a row, Whistler’s most exclusive luxury boutique hotel has perhaps the most privileged location of all Whistler luxury accommodations. Overlooking Nita Lake just steps from the base of Whistler Mountain, and with incredible food, luxury comes naturally at the Nita Lake Lodge.

***

If you want your company name & logo in front of thousands of entrepreneurs and business people throughout North America and occasionally globally along with these two early adopters this year, you gotta move fast.

Only 2 spots left.

I’ll be speaking at dozens of conferences again, flying business class on flights, and spending time in airport business lounges.  My MacBook Pro is with me and pretty much always out and being used.  I take it out in all my meetings regardless of who I’m working with.

And I’m also planning to post about it the companies sponsoring my laptop on my Blog, Twitter, FaceBook & LinkedIn.

If you sponsor my Laptop for 2012, your logo will be seen by tens of thousands of influential business people & CEOs.

You also get to write a guest blog post that highlights your company’s services.

The price for a spot is $2,500. That comes out to about $200 a month, or $50 a week. Your company logo will stay on my laptop all year, and you’ll “own” that piece of real estate on my laptop case.

If anyone asks about your sticker, I’ll send him or her to whatever website/email address you want. Want in? Email me – Cameron at BackPocketCOO dot com

There has been lots of talk over the last ten years about Gen Y in the workplace.  Lots of complaints etc., but Gen Y sure seems to be coming up to stride now…

I’m curious though, what do you think about Baby Boomers.  How are they doing at work ?  Love your thoughts on how they are doing, and where they need to improve…

Last week I did a Webinar for Vistage with approximately 500 CEOs…  At the end of the call, we had tons of unanswered questions.  So I asked them to email them to me, and I’d answer ten of the best for them…  Here they are…

1. Q: What metrics can you show your leadership team to help them understand how important culture is to attracting the right talent?
   A: I think it’s less about metrics, and more about the buzz and energy you’ll feel when you do have a everyone buzzing the same way.  Read all the press about the top companies to work for in your city and region, and you’ll see what I mean.  They just have that ’special something’ and they get extra special results.
2. Q: What impact does having policies against personal calls, emails, texts and social media have on company culture?
   A: Worrying about these areas will not drive results.  Hire A level players.  Set clear roles, goals, and KPIs for each of them.  Support them in their roles.  And DON’T care about how or when they do their work.  So long as they get the results, let them do it in their own way, in their own time.
3. Q: Is it better to recruit or to develop internal candidates?
   A: Neither.  It’s better to have A level players in all roles.  When you have people on your team, do EVERYTHING to help build their skills along they way.  But never compromise where they come from, for the results you need.
4. Q: How to revive the morale within a company that is just tired from all the struggles in this economy.
   A: Ask them.  Seriously.  Ask your team, what they want you to do that will make this the best company to work for.  Then do it.
5. Q: How to keep great employees in small business while they get bigger offers from big companies ?
   A: Make your company the BEST one to work for.  And they’ll never leave.  Seriously.
6. Q: How do you reflect the company culture in through the hiring and interviewing process?
   A: Show videos.  Show photos.  Ensure your office and people rock.  And have your best culture people doing the interviews.
7. Q: How do I hire the best people?
   A: Decide what you need the new hire to do over the next two years.  And ONLY hire people who are the best cultural fit, who’ve also DONE what you need them to do.  Theory is bullshit worthless.  Hire experience.
8. Q: Once you have communicated your vision in detail to the team…who owns continue to communicate it and how often?
   A: The CEO owns culture.  Read chapter one of Double Double.
9. Q: How do you convince your leadership that the Short Term pain of terminating a toxic employee will yield significant benefits in the longer term?
   A: The statistics say that the cost of keeping the wrong employee is 15x their annual salary.  You can’t afford to keep the wrong people working with you, not for a single day more.
10. Q: How do you balance telling the staff what the picture will look like and information leaking out to your competition?
    A: Sharing the vision of the company, is not the same as giving them the plans you’ll use to make it happen.  Share your Painted Picture with the world.  They’ll help you make it come true.

Laptop at TEDx

In 2010 & 2011, I sold 5 spots for great B2B companies to advertise on my laptop. We had a waiting list within days.

Now, for 2012, there are five spaces available. The 6th space as always is donated to Kiva.org, the charity that helps entrepreneurs from around the world.

Only 5 spots left.

If you want your company name & logo in front of thousands of entrepreneurs and business people throughout North America and occasionally globally this year. Try it.

I’ll be speaking at more EO & YPO chapters than ever before. I’ll be speaking at dozens of conferences, flying business class, and as usual spending time in airport business lounges.

My MacBook Pro is with me and pretty much always out and being used. I take it out in all my meetings regardless of who I’m working with.

I will also post about the advertising companies on my Blog and regularly all year on Twitter, FaceBook & LinkedIn.

Why sponsor my Laptop for all of 2012? This will get your logo seen by tens of thousands of influential business people this year.

It’s pretty widely known that my nickname is ‘Connector’ so you know I’ll be telling everyone that your company is sponsoring my laptop too.

Ya – and it’s capped at 5 placements…

First come first serve (but I have to like the brands)… i.e. the only chair company I could rave about is Herman Miller with their Aeron, and my favorite headsets are from Headsets.com etc. I have to be able to say no if the brand doesn’t fit.

I’m auctioning off five sticker spaces on my MacBook Pro cover for $2,500 a piece. That comes out to about $200 a month, or $50 a week.

They will stay on my laptop all year, and you’ll “own” that piece of real estate on my laptop case. If anyone asks about your sticker, I’ll send him or her to whatever website/email address you want.

Want in? Email me – Cameron@BackPocketCOO.com

p.s. You also get to write a guest blog post for my blog that will highlight your company to thousands of entrepreneurs…