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.

For more information on this topic, check out: Building a World Class Culture.

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.

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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…

For information on this topic, check out: Leadership at 100MPH.

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.