NOTE: formatting in this blog entry thing still sucks, so advance apologies if portions get hard to read

After having a great experience at the INC500 conference in Chicago last year, I was excited again for the annual gathering of the INC5000 in Washington, DC.  Last year, due to the fact that it was in Chicago, I don’t believe that I got the “full experience” due to the fact that the “lure” of the office kept me away from many of the after-hours / social events.  This time, several states away, I wouldn’t have the excuse of “work” to keep me from attending events and networking with other entrepreneurs.

Pre-Conference Day 1: Golf Tournament

I am not much of a golf player.  However, the opportunity to network with 3 other INC5000 CEOs outweighed my distaste (and lack of ability) for gold.  So, on ~4 hours of sleep (due to a luggage handling issue, I get into my hotel room until about 2 AM EST), I was up bright and early to play golf.

There were a total of 4 people in my golf group.  Andy Chiranjeevi, President of KBTS Technologies, an IT consulting company, had just begun golfing 2 weeks ago, so he and I were in the same boat.  Rory Wilfong, Co-Founder of ProspectMX, an online Internet Marketing company for Real-Estate professionals, and another fellow (who’s name I can’t remember), were both experienced golfers, so our team would be depending on the two of them to shoot a decent game.

There’s not much to say about golf, other than the fact that the conditions weren’t very good due to golf-course construction and weather, but the point of the event was to golf, but rather to network and meet other fellow Entrepreneurs.

Rory, my cart-mate, was a real-estate broker whom, in the bubble of the past few years, had worked with a few partners to create a marketing web engine to develop real-estate leads.  What ultimately happened was that they had more leads than they could handle, so they started sharing / selling them to other real-estate agents, and a business was born.  Today, they have boot-strapped a $5 million business with ~50 employees.  As someone who’s also built a business from the ground-up with no outside investment, I can emphasize and relate.  Personally, I have more respect for people like Rory who have started from nothing and gotten to $5 million than someone who’s raised $50 million in Venture Capital to start a business.

After golf, I had to decide whether or not to head immediately back (to the conference for Michael Gerber’s afternoon session) or to stay to network with other INC5000 golfers and lunch.  I chose the latter, and I wasn’t disappointed.  At lunch, I met a father-son team who ran a business performing warranty work and fulfillment for camera manufacturers and retailers.  He (who I’m going to call baldy because I never got his card and I only remember the fact that he had a shaved head – that said, it’s also worth noting that he’s probably old enough to be my father), was an extremely friend, interesting and fun guy.  Before getting into this business, he had taken a run at becoming a rock-and-roll artist.  He, like me, had also been to Chicago and was at the conference to network with fellow INC5000 entrepreneurs.  He told me that he had actually found his current IT vendor at the last INC conference in Chicago.  When he introduced Suresh Thankavel, the President of Wisdom, we found out that we had also met at the previous INC conference in Chicago…small world.  Hrm, that also got the entrepreneur in me thinking about whether I should keep my eyes open to find business opportunities =)

On the way back to the hotel, I sat across from an older gentleman fellow from West Virginia who had a company that built and repaired transformers for utility distribution companies.   There’s not much to say from that conversation, other than the fact that I’m glad that I don’t live in West Virginia.

 Michael Gerber – The Dreaming Room

I was able to catch the last hour of Michael Gerber’s session, and I’m happy that I chose to golf instead.  Personally, I thought I was a fan of Gerber, as I have read the E-Myth and E-Myth Revisited books and subscribe to the mantra of “work on the business, not in your business.”  That said, I just thought he was “way out there” for the session, talking about some “zone” or “dream” that went way over my head.   He was literally ranting on stage like some crazy preacher (flashback to an image of an early 1800s Calvinist minister ranting about how everyone is predestined to go to Hell).  Or better yet, the speech reminded me of late-night conversations back in college when we would sit in a circle in a cloud of reefer jabbering about meaningless nonsense while trying to stretch our minds and imagination (and telling ourselves that this was the pinnacle of liberal arts education, analysis and thinking). 

Keep in mind, I did not inhale.

General Session

Due to a conference call (yeah, can’t completely escape work), I was about 45 minutes late to the general session and missed Rod Beckstrom’s presentation about decentralization. 

Growing Benefits Fuel Growing Companies: While I understand that the Principle Financial Group is a large sponsor of INC magazine and probably contributed significant dollars to the conference to help make things happen, I felt strongly that most of their presentations about the necessity of benefits were redundant and quite annoying.  I find their pitches to be akin to the people who try to pitch me ROI on office furniture…

Welcome to the Idea Factory: Google – This session really didn’t do much for me

Breakthrough Performance: Even though I had already read Keith McFarland’s book, I found his presentation interesting and extremely relevant to my business.  Our business is at a point where we’ve been holding off on growth the past 2 years in order to (1) generate cash and strengthen our balance sheet (2) build the organizational structure and (3) change our culture from one of “individuals” to one of a corporate identity, as we prepare to go from being a $20 million organization to $100 million over the next 3 years.  His talk on “break-through” was especially relevant and I immediately circled his follow-up break-through session to attend the next day.  More on this in my write-up about his break-out session: The Three Levers of Leadership.

On the way down to the Welcome Reception, I met a fellow called Isaac Davenport, Ph.D (I highlight the Ph.D because my mother still looks down on me because I never got any advanced degrees) who runs a product development company in Denver.  We had a fun introductory conversation (the usual, where are you from, how are you, how is your company, etc) which really wasn’t any different than probably the other 100+ introductory conversations I’d have over the weekend.  The one thing worth noting here is that, unbeknownst to me at the time, Isaac would turn out to be a party animal over the course of the weekend.

Welcome Reception & Marketplace:  At the welcome reception, I had an opportunity to meet and speak with Jim Melloan, the project manager for the INC 5000 project.  We had a very interesting discussion about the INC 500 / INC 5000 and the rankings in general.  Obviously, I gave him my 2 cents and plenty of criticism in how one could argue that the rankings are unfair, not good, etc, but in all in all, when I look back at it, INC has done a pretty good job given their limited resources at highlighting the “premier” private companies in the United States.  My one comment to INC (as I know this write-up will probably make it back to INC in some manner) is that you need to raise the bar for minimum 1st year revenue from $200k to $2 million and last year revenue from $2 million to $5 million…my personal opinion, it’s not until a business hits 30+ employees / $5 million in revenue that it actually becomes a business (prior to that, it’s basically a sole proprietorship).

I didn’t really take the time this year to look at the exhibits this time, which much to my chagrin, would end in me missing out on an afterhours Career Builder party later that evening.

Afterhours

Still wired on 4 hours of sleep from the night before, I ended up going up to my room and going to bed.

Day 2: Friday September 19, 2008Breakfast

As a young entrepreneur, one would think that I wouldn’t have a bias towards other young people…however, as weird as it sounds, I always seem to make assumptions that young people are just “there for the ride” – even taking into account the fact that I’m just another “young guy.”

Last year, it was Jared Isaacman from United Bank Card.  This year, it was Kevin Sproles from Volusion.  While we were eating breakfast with two ladies who were telling us about their business, a Dental Office Corporate play, two people sat down and joined our table.  One was an older fellow from Louisiana who ran a home-care nursing /staffing company.  The other was Kevin Sproles…however, because they sat down together, and due to the fact that the older fellow did most of the talking (even though they were completely unrelated), I naturally assumed that they were together (perhaps Kevin was the older guy’s protégé / intern, kinda like how I had Jeff Ehman with me).  After breakfast, as we are walking out, Kevin introduces himself to me and we do the usual meet and greet.  Seemed like a smart guy.  It isn’t until another person who I met later in the conference started talking about Kevin did I put two and two together…go figure.

Speaking at breakfast was Bill George, a Harvard Business School professor who was the former CEO of Medtronics.  Unfortunately, due to echoing and noise issues, I really couldn’t hear what he was saying well, so missed what seemed to have been a pretty good talk.

General Session: Building Great Companies with Jim Collins

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, gave the morning Keynote for the conference.  Having read Good to Great multiple times over the years, it was still amazing to hear the actual author talk.  The scary thing though, was in listening to his talk, everything that he had said was a “no no” were things that my company had done / was doing…eek.

Well, they say that the first step towards recovery is admitting that there’s a problem…

Here are my notes from his talk.

KEY POINT: If you allow growth to outpace your stable of key people, you will surely fail

 “WHO” comes before the “WHAT”

Businesses need to focus on the WHO

THE BRUTAL FACTS:

1.       Need the Discipline to confront the brutal facts of business

2.       Disciplined action BEGINS with what we decide to STOP DOING

WHEN PUTTING TOGETHER A “STOP DOING” list

1.       Need a debit / credit ratio of To Dos vs. Stop Doings

How to access “Good-to-Great”

1.       Figure out how many key seats are on the bus

2.       Figure out what percent of these key seats are filled

3.       Figure out a plan to fill these seats

Characteristics of the “Right People” on the Bus

1.       Fit with the core values of the company coming in the door

2.       Do not need to be managed

3.       Understand that they don’t have a job – they have responsibilities

4.       Do what they say they will

5.       Take personal responsibility for their actions / mistakes

6.       Passionate

Over-Reaching

1.       If you can’t keep a percentage of good people, you WILL over-reach

2.       If it goes wrong, you can’t recover

3.       Set a performance standard that you need to hit on a consistent manner

Reminders: ToDo after the Show

1.       Go to Jim Collin’s Web site (www.jimcollins.com) and download diagnostic tool

2.       Start tracking number of key seats and whether or not they’re filled

3.       Aggressively seek out generation Y

4.       Build a Personal Board of Directors

a.       Council <- Build council and use it Socratically

b.      Try to double your questions to statements ratio

5.       Take time to think -> Whitespace days

6.       Start a Stop-Doing List

7.       Figure out “core-values” of the organization

8.       Set a 15-25 year BHAG

9.       Prepare the company to be “great” without oneself

Ultimately, GREATNESS is the intersection of DISCIPLINE & CONSCIOUS CHOICE

Wow, that session made the entire conference worth-while – hope I take what I learned and actually remember to go back to the office and focus on what I have to do and to NOT do.

General Session: Inside the Entrepreneurial Mind

Last year, American Express gave everyone in the conference a free Apple iPhone.  While I knew it was highly unlikely, I couldn’t help but hope that we might all get an encore to last year and get another round of free iPhones…it didn’t happen.

The panel of Seth Godin and Tom Peters, moderated by Susan Sobbott, president of American Express OPEN, was, in my opinion, much more interesting than the “spiel” Susan gave last year introducing the Plum Card.  Seeing the banter between Susan, Seth and Tom was highly entertaining and engaging.  Unfortunately, all I can remember from that session was that it was fun and a good time, but I don’t think I got anything from that.

Lunch Break: IncBizNet Leadership Meet Up

For lunch, there was an IncBizNet Leadership Meet Up where the topic was Hiring and Keeping Top Talent.  In these situations, it’s the selection of your seat (which is completely random) and the people you sit with will make or break the lunch.  In this case, I wasn’t very lucky, as on one side of me was an INC Reporter and on the other side was someone who worked for The CEO Project, one of those Executive forum groups that acts as a defacto Board of Directors for hire.  Now, both people were extremely nice, and we had conversations, but there’s a marked difference between talking to people who are “in the trenches” vs. talking to people “on the outside looking in.”

On a brighter note, sitting in the next table was Joy Gendusa and Sarah Payson from Postcard Mania.  They were a postcard design and mailing company that I had used when I first started my business in 2001, and I was happy to introduce myself to them as a happy customer of theirs.  Although we really don’t have business overlap, both Joy and Sarah are awesome and fun, and I’m glad to say I met them (and in a conference dominated by middle aged males, it’s always more fun to talk to cute women and say that it’s business =).  Come to think of it, they’re female, they’re cute and they own a $20 million computer…hrm…

Jokes aside, it’s fun to put a face to a company name.

The Three Levers of Leadership: Building Breakthrough Capabilities: Keith McFarland

Here are my notes from this session…obviously, you can tell that I was “rapt” with attention here.

3 LEVERS OF LEADERSHIP

1.       Strategy: a collection of ideas of how we’re going to win – management’s job is to make sure one collects ideas faster than the competition

2.       People:

3.       Execution

NOTE: Companies need to constantly reinvent themselves every 3-5 years

4 STAGES OF AN ORGANIZATION

1.       One-man Band (startup & crisis)

2.       Tribal Clan

3.       Village Eldership

4.       Sovereign Organization

STRATEGY GIVES YOU THE ROUTINES YOU NEED TO SUCCEED

3 IDEAS ON STRATEGY

1.       Most companies think of strategies TOO SELDOM – need to talk about it more (at least once a quarter) – Questions to ask

a.       What are the three most important strategic accomplishments done in the last 90 days

                                                               i.      NOTE: a strategic accomplishment is some element in how we’ve changed the field of play

b.      What are the three most important ways we fell short of our strategic potential?

c.       What are the three most important things we’ve learned about our strategy

2.       Most companies look at strategy TOO EXCLUSIVELY – need to involve more people in the strategic process

a.       The more minds you have working on the problem, the better chance of success as long as the process is correct.

3.       Most companies looks at strategy from a TOO CEO-CENTRIC perspective – need “Insultants” to make things happen

PEOPLE

PROBLEM
SOLUTION

“Great People” Myth (Good to Great)

No “Right” Person

Heroes vs. Bricklayers

People are “made right” by the organization

Lack of Systematic Thinking

Executive Development Milestones

Regarding direct reports

-          Write about the skills/attitudes/etc that the person will need when sales have doubled/tripled

NOTE: Loyalty to a PERSON is a LIABILITY in a breakthrough company (to breakthrough, one has to be loyal to the ideals and needs of the collective organization)

Be a DETERMINED developer of people

EXECUTION

PROBLEM
SOLUTION

Loose link between strategy and execution

Quarterly action plans

90 day resets

NOTE:

-          Execution is squeezing the 20% of the stuff that gives 80% of the results

No “after-action” discipline

1.       What went right

2.       What went wrong

3.       What will we learn from this

 Marketplace Break: 45 Minutes of Networking

I had the pleasure of meeting Ryan Buchanan during this break (well, it’s hard to say if it’s a pleasure, but since Ryan devoted a paragraph of his blog to me, I felt obligated to at least reciprocate something back).

In all honesty, Ryan’s a fun guy and someone who I’d definitely want to keep in touch with.

Breakout Session II: The Knack…and How to Get It: Norm Brodsky

What can I say, Norm Brodsky always puts on a good and entertaining session...given that I have no managerial, functional, technical or business skills, if I didn’t have “the knack”, then I would be truly worthless and probably wouldn’t be in the conference…so even though I didn’t get much out of it, it was an extremely enjoyable session…and I ended up buying Norm’s book.

Ditching Class (or the General Session)

What can I say, this Ryan guy and I have started hitting it off, and after Norm’s session (of which we both attended) we spent the next 30 minutes outside just talking about business, growth, companies, etc…all the usually schoolyard chit-chat topics that occur between two entrepreneurs on the playground.

That said, we ended up going to the General Session, listening to another horrendously boring Principle Financial Group spiel (seriously…their “case-study spokesperson” sounded like he had just had the speech beaten into him for an hour beforehand).  Then, it was politics, and while I admire the Carl Schramm, the Kaufman Foundation, and everything it stands for, I “cut class” with Ryan.

Dinner at the Smithsonian

Free food, drinks, lots of people, fun, dancing…how can anyone complain?

Well, if I was one to accept the status quo, I would probably be some faceless cog working in a massive corporate machine, but instead, here I am…

Personally, while the party was nice, I’m a big fan of energy (maybe it’s because I’m young) – and a big believer that parties need to packed with energy….the museum was too large, people got spread out, and I am not a big fan of art…I much preferred the packed environment of the House of Blues last year, where people got down, dirty and sweaty…personally, I think it makes for a better party.

Day 3: Saturday September 19, 2008

Slept through breakfast – probably shouldn’t have done it…oh well

General Session: AE Hotchner

A.E. Hotchner and the mission of his business is something to be admired.  Even though I still fall into the category of greedy capitalist pig at this stage of my life, I can still admire people who are better than me.

Marilyn Carlson Nelson, an extremely impressive woman, had a tough act to follow.  While I admire her accomplishments with her business and admit that she is probably 10x more capable then me as a business person, somehow, her topic just reminded me of my Grandfather whining / lecturing to me about something that I can’t remember anymore…

After Marilyn, there was an interview with Elon Musk…you can tell that he’s an incredibly smart person, but for some reason, I walked away not too impressed with him and basically just felt like he got extremely lucky…maybe I’m just jealous.

Breakout Session III: Hope, Fear and Mojo: Where Do We Go From Here?

Even though Doug Tatum’s concept of “No Man’s Land” was probably the most relevant issue that my business currently faces and learning about this is top three on my “to-do” list (see, I’m listening to Jim Collins =), he (Bo and Doug) spent most of the time trying to convince everyone to become a “Small Giants.”  I can see where this might be useful for someone who was relatively unsure of what they were doing with their business, but for me, I should’ve attended a different session and just bought the book (which I incidentally did after the session and read it the next day) and attended a different session.   Then again, if I didn’t attend the session, I may not have bought and read the book

Here a brief summary of what Tatum’s book “No Man’s Land” covers:

No Man’s Land explores the reality of business growth by focusing on a pivotal stage in a business’s life cycle, the adolescent stage in which a rapidly growing firm is too big to be small, but too small to be big.  During this phase – growth confronts entrepreneurs with new challenges for which they are not readily equipped.  No Man’s Land is about comprehending the realities of this unique transition that businesses will face so that the entrepreneur can make solid, informed decision about how, and in some cases whether, to grow the business.

If you’re at the stage in business where this may affect you, I would highly recommend that you purchase a copy of this book.

That said, I can’t say everything was lost, because after the session, I ran into husband and wife team Genevieve Thiers Dan Ratner from Sittercity.   Now, I’ve heard of Genevieve (even though she’s never heard of me), and what’s interesting is that we both have musical backgrounds…well, Genevieve still sings Opera and I haven’t touched a piano in almost 10 years, but it is worth noting that we both shared a common understanding of the classical music industry (in a previous life, I had contemplated attending Juilliard for piano).    We had so much fun talking and learning about each other’s business that we missed the first part of the General Session.

General Session: Optimism is the New Cynicism

Um, that presentation was a bit too granola for me

Lunch and Marketplace Break

Have you ever sat down in a table where you make an introduction and start a conversation between people sitting on both sides of you, but soon it becomes apparent that they are EXTREMELY interested in talking to each other but NOT AT ALL interested in talking to you (and probably in the back of their mind, hoping that you would just disappear)?

After lunch, I was wandering the exhibit hall and had a chance to meet Dave Dreiling from GTM Sportswear (they had an exhibit booth).  As the owner of a 600 person company, Dave has plenty of people manning the booth for him, but he took the time to sit and chat with me (or maybe I just kept talking and he was just being polite).  Anyways, it was a fun conversation and that’s someone whom I’d like to keep up with in the future.

Champagne Reception – Black-Tie Dinner and Awards Ceremony

I had gone for a work-out right before the Champagne Reception, so when a group of girls started staring and pointing at me, I was feeling pretty good about myself…that was until my wife mentioned that they were pointed to the large spider that was crawling up my back…

About the Awards Ceremony…I think this suffered from the same issue as the previous night’s museum party.  Everything was too spread out (as compared to last year when the ballroom was completely packed) and I didn’t like the energy…in fact, I got so depressed (and bored) during dinner that I convinced Isaac Davenport to go up front with me where we would streak.  However, right before I was going to take my shirt off, Norm Brodsky came on stage and started the awards ceremony.  So, the question of whether I have the guts to streak at the INC 5000 will have to wait until next year.

After Party

No B52s…<cry>  My wife, who doesn’t like to dance, excused herself and told me to grab my 2 year-old daughter.  My daughter loves to party, so we went back downstairs and danced the night away…We had a blast…and so concluded the INC5000 conference.