The Archangel PR [business] Blog

Whether we like it or not, we are all moving forward into the future. Some of us cling to old memories and stories of days long gone. We hold on to pictures of ourselves when we were young and compare them to recent pictures where we are decidedly less than young.

Last night I cleaned out the filing cabinets that hold my entire collective entrepreneur and business history. While I was looking through the invoices, the receipts, and the e-mails, I began to separate the papers into the ventures I considered successful (the ones that made me money) and the ones that I thought were epic bombs (the ones that lost me money).

I wasn’t stunned by what I saw.

The “failure” pile was immensely bigger than the “success” pile. I’ll tell you in all honesty, I was a bit crushed. The first decade of my business existence looked like a history lesson in “What Not To Do: 101.” In all, my failures should serve as a warning to others. Better yet, these failures should serve as a lesson for myself.

Both my success and my failure have brought me to the place I currently reside.

My success provides money and livelihood. It sustains me and allows me to purchase goods and even provides a shot of confidence. But my failures allow me something just as valuable: experience.

I value experience as much as I value education and/or money.

Everyone is different, but I hope that if you are ever at a point where you can stop and examine the last few years of your business or personal life, that you’ll count it all joy. These things are making you the person you are. The trials and tribulations of this (business) life will make you stronger if you allow it to.

If you learn a lesson from each failure, as well as each success, you’ll be that much stronger in the end.

It’s late, or maybe it’s early. Either way, you’re tired.

Don’t worry. If you can make it to 5:30pm on Friday you’ll be sitting pretty looking forward to another weekend. If you’re like most folks those nice, fuzzy “weekend feelings” usually end Sunday evening when you realize that Monday morning is a few hours away. So you start preparing for the week however you can. You lay out an outfit for Monday, maybe prepare your lunch since you’re brown bagging it lately “due to the economy” (and not so much due to your ever expanding spare tire). You lay your head down at a reasonable hour and you may sleep, but you never rest. Your mind is too busy looking at the week ahead.

Then before you know it, your alarm is screaming. Time to get a move on! But you honestly don’t want to. You’d rather lay in your bed and not wake up for another few hours, but you do so begrudgingly because those damn bills have to be paid. Maybe you work out, maybe you don’t, but then you grab a shower, grab a bite, and head out the door to another week of unsatisfying work.

If this is your life, do it full blast. Enjoy those paychecks! Enjoy that restless sleep! Work yourself to death! Just think, if you push yourself and push yourself, you’ll complete a few more assignments, move a little ink, and maybe one day your boss will notice and pay you what you’re worth.

Don’t worry, you’ve only got thirty more years until you retire. That’s only 1,500 more weeks or so of this and BOOOOOOM! The sweet, sweet embrace of death will be here to take you to the other side (or if you’re atheist, nowhere).

One question though: ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?!?

This is how you want to spend your life? Working your ass off day in and day out, only to be “rewarded” with two or three weeks of vacation a year?? You gladly trade time away from your family, friends, and the things that matter most to you for a chance to upgrade your 2006 Honda Civic to a 2010 Honda Accord? You’re giving up your life to trade in your 1,200 square foot house for a 2,250 square foot house?

**Don’t get me wrong, material things are great. If someone wants to give me $100 million dollars, then I will gladly accept it and promptly move to a small island somewhere never to be seen or heard from again.**

The most precious commodity you have is time. We freely give our time away; time we can never recover. Even as I type this and you read it (and hopefully share it with friends), we are giving are time up.

This will always happen, but I hope you more closely examine the things you give your time to. For me, giving an extra few hours on any project that ultimately doesn’t make me happy or help me spend more time with my family is without a doubt, a complete WASTE.

Decide today what kind of life you want to lead, because you ultimately get one time to do it.

Get busy… times a wastin’!

It happens without fail.

You’ve got a great business idea. You have a business plan (or at least one in your head). You actually found funding! You begin to assemble a team of trusted individuals and brilliant business minds to launch this idea into the stratosphere.

But…

You begin to hear rumblings around the office. The tight circle of trusted minds and joyful outlook have turned to anger, resentment, and jealousy. The future suddenly isn’t sunny and the gray clouds have gathered above your heads.

You have a bad apple (or two) within your walls. What’s worse, it’s now affecting your mood and your productivity.

How do you cut ties with the bad apples in your group? It may be easier said than done, especially if the person in question is a business partner or friend.

Best Case Scenario: You pull the person(s) aside, tell them how their gossip and back-biting is affecting the workplace and the productivity; they quickly see the err of their ways, apologize, and the world is right again.

Worst Case Scenario: It gets worse. Now, they’ve put YOU directly in their cross hairs for even calling them out (in a professional way).

How are you suppose to handle this situation?

When it comes to business, it’s best to handle each and every decision in terms of what is truly best for your business. If you hire an outside marketing team, and sales fall flat, you cut that team and hire a new one. If the PR team isn’t generating headlines and buzz for your product, you cut ties, and go a different direction. It’s the same situation.

It’s not personal. It’s business.

You need problem solvers, not problem creators. You need sales to go up, not gossipy in-fighting that’s tearing the team down.

It may be a tough to deal with when contracts and feelings are involved. But, in the end, you know what needs to be done.

You’ve made it this far. Don’t let the bad apples ruin the rest of your harvest! Stay strong!

I didn’t plan on adding a sequel to my rant from yesterday, but I had the opportunity to talk with a few people yesterday whose opinions and reflections I both trust and respect.

These three gentlemen helped guide me through the murky waters I was facing. Like any entrepreneur, I face epic highs and incredible lows. The last few weeks have been an incredible low. This valley has reminded me that I have amazing friends and mentors. If nothing else I’ve surrounded myself with folks who calm me down and help clarify my situations with wisdom.

I was gently reminded why I began to work for myself in the first place and what I started out with. I began with nothing. No one is going to hand me anything at any level of the game. Business is now and forever will be a “what have you done for me lately” industry.

I was reminded again that I am only 5 years in to a lifelong pursuit. I am still a baby in this game. I’m still laying the foundation for future success and endeavors.

It’s still frustrating. And it always will be. What I haven’t read in all of these books is how it’s “so easy now” no matter what level you’re at.

I am, like many of you, impatient when it comes to success. Our definition of success may differ, but we want it NOW. We want to be doctors… we want to scale Everest… we want these admirable things without putting in all of the work. I guess it gets even more frustrating when you can see the finish (start?) line and you feel you’re getting bogged down with frivolous time-wasters.

I didn’t go to sleep happy last night, but with these and other words of wisdom floating through my sub-conscious as I slumbered, I woke up re-freshed and re-newed.

I was starting to put my dreams in the palms of other peoples hands, whether real or imagined. Our fight-or-flight reflex is like a scale and from time to time it was lean overwhelmingly in favor of one direction. My scales were tipped for flight. I’ve noticed with every step forward, I seemingly had one foot out of the door, always ready to run if the situation didn’t work out in my favor.

This severely dampened my ability to perform my duties, my work, at a high level.

My mentors reminded me that my dreams and hopes are not foolish pursuits. They make me happy. They are significant. But I must be willing to give 100% of myself for them to succeed on a larger scale.

I know 2 things about who I am:

1.) I am not special or exceptionally talented in any way.
2.) I absolutely hate a mundane existence.

For the past 3 years or so, I have been swept up in a burning desire to see my life count for something more than a 9-to-5 desk job at XYZ Corporation. I’m not alone in my feelings nor am I a trailblazer in this particular manner of thinking.

I do not want riches. Let me clarify: I want to live well, and have a high quality of life, but I’m not looking to buy a Rolls Royce or a Summer home in the Hamptons. I could care less about these things.

It means much more to me to be able to take my children to school in the morning and pick them up every afternoon. It means much more to me to not dread Mondays or hate the fact that my life is passing away with every tick of the clock.

This thought led me to desire change. Real change. A “You-wont-recognize-me-tomorrow” kind of change.

I picked up every book I could find on the subject. Really. I’ve read most of them. These books are filled with stories on how a middle-America housewife needed to supplement her family’s income because her husband’s hours got cut at work. So she started a blog about her ordeal and three best-selling books later she’s telling other middle-American housewives how they too can break free from the cycle and once again own their destinies.

I’ve also encountered books where the authors “know” how scary it is to walk away from high paying jobs to start that ice cream shop in the middle of the Bronx only to see it crash and burn horribly. Yet, through an off-chance meeting with a corporate CEO over chocolate pistachio dreamy double fudge ice cream, they now sit on a cushy corporate consulting job, working 4 hours a month, raking in a six-figure income.

It’s hard to convey in the harsh world of black, Times New Roman 12 point text on a webpage, but I’m really happy that people make it to these astounding heights. If you were to check my Google history, you’ll see link after link about “rags to riches” and “entrepreneurs who have made it” in the search bar.

The only problem I’ve encountered is the biggest problem I’ve encountered: how do I get this to work for me?

I’m not highly educated. I never attended Harvard, Yale, John Hopkins, MIT, Stanford, Brown, Colgate, William & Mary, Cambridge, Florida, Baylor, or the University of Texas. I attended Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. At least for a few years. And I didn’t make exceptional grades either. I left there for a career in broadcast media.

The career in media led me to be a part-time small business owner of a boutique (i.e. small) PR company.

I have never made six-figures for anything. I may owe six-figures in debt. I doubt it, but I may. Who knows.

I don’t have any high ranking contacts or connections that I know of. I once spoke on the phone with Sarah Jessica Parker… does that count? Probably not.

So the question remains: how do I make this work for me?

How do I get to a point that I don’t need a 9-to-5 to live well, pay my bills, and still see my family and friends and do what I want to do, whenever I want to do it?

The best thought I can come up with: I’m not sure. I guess I need a “foot in the door”, only I’m not sure what amazing skill I may possess that I could place in front of said door without it slamming shut in my face.

All of these things sound like excuses to the masses and in a lot of ways they are. I’m a realistic optimist. I believe these great things can happen, but how can I get to my nice office where I set my own rules and rates, when I don’t have a car because it was repossessed by the bank for missing payments.

How can I tuck my kids into beds that don’t exist because my house is no longer my house.

My mortgage company doesn’t care about my hopes and dreams.

So the real question isn’t “how does this work for me”, the real question is how do I turn these “hopes and dreams” into cold, hard cash?

Great articles posted by a few incredible thought leaders… check them out if you have time (and if you’re reading this, you have time):

Ronn Torossian – CEO of 5WPR in NYC

**Check out his archive. Very useful information to be had there.**

Jonathan Fields – Author of ‘Career Renegade’ and ‘Awake @ the Wheel’ blogger.

**Check his archive out also. Also you can find his podcasts on iTunes… I highly recommend them.**

Julio Varela – Founder of v5, LLC.

**Julio (better known as Twitter’s @Julito77) is a major force in the world of PR, etc. in the Latino community. His brother is a pretty incredible singer too!**

check them out! Now!

Great post by Ray Silverstein.

Silverstein, a recognized small business expert, is president and founder of PRO: President’s Resource Organization, a network of advisory boards for small business owners.

Silverstein founded PRO in 1993, after selling his multi-million dollar tool and hardware manufacturing company. Today, he facilitates PRO groups throughout the Chicago area and in Phoenix. He has facilitated over 1,000 such meetings to date, making him one of the leading authorities on business peer groups.

I’ve copied the story below but click here if you want the original post on Entrepreneur.com.

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What does it take to be a compelling business leader? We hear all this talk about leadership styles but, really, is any one style preferable to the others? In my observation, there is no single, universally superior leadership style.

That being said, there are some universal qualities that successful leaders share, including the ability to inspire trust, the vision to move a company forward, and the foresight to provide the training employees will need to realize that vision.

Inspiring trust is critical. People are not willing to recognize someone as their leader unless they trust them, not just intellectually, but ethically and morally as well. Likewise, people won’t follow someone unless they’re convinced that person knows where they’re going.

When ask to define their leadership style, entrepreneurs often reply, “I lead by example.” What they mean is, “I work long, hard hours and will take on any task.” Leading by example is terrific, but it’s not the be all and end all. Employees aren’t dumb. They can recognize effective activity versus meaningless busyness. That’s why one of my favorite pieces of leadership advice is “don’t do well what you shouldn’t do at all.”

I suspect that leading by example may sometimes mask a fear of letting go. A true leader doesn’t just inspire trust, he or she returns the favor, trusting those who follow. To lead effectively, you must overcome your fear of losing control and allow others to step in. When an employee sees the boss has confidence in him, he becomes more willing to accept responsibility, therefore making a greater contribution to the organization.

Ironically enough, true leaders understand that their business requires more than one leader; someone other than themselves. They know that, ideally, every employee within an organization should take the lead in some situations. And–here’s the kicker–true leaders assume responsibility for training and guiding their followers into leadership roles.

I have a friend, a business consultant, who likes to talks about “the three Ps”: program, process and people. The program is your vision, your plan. To achieve it, you need to develop a process that allows to you achieve the desired results consistently. To see the process through, you need the right people, people who trust your leadership.

In other words, real leadership is not necessarily doing (i.e. leading by example) but creating a process where average people can consistently achieve better-than-average results.

One of the toughest tests of leadership is the ability to make personnel changes. Rather than do so, too many entrepreneurs will accept mediocre performance. True leaders are willing to make sure they have the “right people on the bus,” even if it means ushering some people off. If you are willing to tolerate mediocrity, what does that say about your leadership style?

Over the years, I’ve encountered many leadership styles with interesting labels: The Benevolent Dictator, Rah-Rah Type, Open Book Manager, Theory X, Theory Y, Autocrat, and Team Builder, for example. They all offer certain pros and cons, which I’ll be discussing in more detail in future columns.

More importantly, regardless of what your leadership style is, it can work, providing you employ people who are comfortable with it. And, of course, who trust you.

I love listening to a good podcast series on my iPod, especially in the morning.

While I’m working out or while I’m driving to the office I can get a “mental stretching” by devouring a quick podcast and get the mental brainstorm churning.

What do I listen to? Jonathan Fields has an incredible series called “Behind the Leader” (formerly ‘Career Renegade’) that I would recommend to anyone. The man speaks honestly from his passion to be a better father and husband and how it translates into business success. On iTunes or on his website (www.jonathanfields.com) you can look him up and he usually has a great interview with some of the best thought leaders of this generation.

What else is on there? A little Jay-Z in the morning never hurt anything.

Keep perfecting your craft.

~j.