Want to really focus your team and get amazing results?

Set a really big goal and then form a Catalyzing Statement around this goal.

Catalyzing statements hook people emotionally and are the driver that propels individuals towards a challenging goal.

About a month ago I heard  Rick Sapio give several examples.   I would like to share his and then give a fun one that I ran across in Japan this week.

Fed Ex – When It Absolutely Positively Has To Be There Overnight —  If you want a GREAT laugh, watch this FedEx Commercial
Microsoft Bill Gates – I picture a world with a PC  on every desktop and in every home – 1975
President Kennedy – We will put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before the end of the century.

These catalyzing statements go FAR beyond placing a goal. They emotionally charge us and align us. They emotionally allow us to seek and believe and go forward.

A good example of this is Bill Gates. Prior to making the  unifying statement the goal was clearly set to have Microsoft be the largest software company in the world. Great goal, but where is the emotion and the emotional buy in.  It came when he stated  ” I picture a world with a PC on every desk and in every home.” That inspired us, we visualized this and indeed it enabled the goal.

This past week I have been in Asia. I was able to spend a bit of time in Japan and visited a company in Tokyo called Fujita. From the instant I entered this business I knew it was different. The tone, the conduct of the staff, and the presentation of the board room was simply different. They were focused and clearly were on a mission.  There was not the usual motion that I frequently experience in Japan.   Indeed the meeting I had was successful and at the end of the communication I could not help but poke a bit. I asked the individual I was meeting with to explain more about the company, the founder, and the history. His answer gave it all away. With out a second of hesitation here was his response:

“Fujita’s vision is to bring American culture to Japan”.

Wow, now that is powerful.  That is a hairy, big, audacious, and crazy goal.   “Bring American culture to Japan!”

You see they are not in the hamburger or movie business.  They are not selling clothing. They are not in the import / export business. Those things are simply vehicles.

They are going to change Japan from eating sushi to Big Macs, and guess what…they did.

What I did not tell you earlier is Fujita’s founder  Den Fujita is responsible for bringing McDonalds to Japan. He was also responsible for bringing Toys R Us and BlockBuster to Japan.

As I have considered this, I realized that this type of statement not only motivates us and inspires us, but also allows the company to change and extract us from the weeds when necessary.

Next time you set a big goal, create a catalyzing statement!   Hang on because it will rock your world with what happens if done properly.

In 1989 I helped make my first $2MM business mistake.  I keep this box on my life-trophy shelf to remind me never to make this mistake again.

So what was it we did?

Rich Christiansen $2MM Channel Lesson

We did what so many eager engineering types do–we built a way cool, exciting,  leading-edge technology (digital power line transmission) and then tried to sell it.

We just knew the customers would buy these by the bucket loads.  We would go to the trade shows and got mobbed, so certainly this was going to be a barn burner. Everyone told us we were so smart and this was the coooooolest technology ever.

NOT! Cool technology does not necessarily mean purchasing customers. In 1990 the company went belly up!

I would rather have purchasing customers and profit than some cool little box sitting on my shelf reminding me not to be stupid again.

Better to sell it first and build it second, than to build it first and then try to sell it.

Today I did a BootStrap Business lecture at an Entrepreneurial Launch Pad event.

I love meeting with eager individuals who are on those tender first steps of venturing out into the brave cold and exciting world of creating a business.   However, there is one thing that makes me want to scream every time I see it and indeed I saw it today.

Make sure someone is going to buy it before you build it.

Its All about the channel!

Build It and they will come…NOT!

Save yourself a couple of million $ and let my box be the reminder. Don’t build your own.

Do you have a fire in your belly and nerves of steel? Are you determined enough to take $5,000 and build it into a multimillion dollar business? Rich and I will be the first to tell you that without fire, nerves, and determination (some call this grit), you won’t weather the storms that inevitably accompany entrepreneurship. It is not enough to merely ask yourself tough questions; you must be willing to answer them honestly and act accordingly. Here are a few to start with.

How’s your appetite for entrepreneurship? In this chapter, Rich explains that entrepreneurship isn’t about having all the talents and skills yourself; it’s about how bad you want it. You simply need to assess the attitudes and aptitudes you have, and then either develop the ones you’re missing or partner with people who have them. This, in large part, is how Rich’s and my partnership came to be. We offer distinct but complementary skill sets and talents, but we are the same in one respect: we are hungry for success and we expect to see it.

Does the thought of bootstrapping a business strike fear into your heart and mind? If so, good! Fear can be an incredible motivator. A little terror never hurt an entrepreneur; you simply need to learn to turn terror into triumph.

What about your day job; should you stay or should you go? A lot of people are tethered to the corporate claim that life in the world of big business is more stable than their own venture. When the time comes, are you prepared to cut the lifeline?

How will you survive? The grim fact is 50 percent of new businesses don’t make it. And if yours goes down, it can take your personal life with it. It’s all about timing. Liberation from the corporate myth is exciting, but you don’t want to jump out of the airplane without your parachute on. In the early stages of bootstrapping a business, you might want to keep that day job around for a while. Managing all the demands on your time will take planning, but you can do it.

In our next section, Rich will walk through some questions to ask as you come to know yourself and your entrepreneurial appetite.  Until then!

Looking back over even the past few months, I can’t believe how far we’ve come – in the business and with the book. We already have five New York Times best-selling authors endorsing the book and word of what we are doing is spreading. CastleWave is continuing to grow and increase momentum as well.

After the merger with the New York office that officially changed the company name to CastleWave, everybody kept working hard to keep the customers happy. One fun example of this – once, one large client challenged Rich: “I bet you one bagel you can’t get these words for $.35” (referring to search engine optimization keywords). Rich proceeded to not only get the words, but earn first $100 then all the way up to $15,000 revenue/day for that client. Let’s hope that was one tasty bagel!

Such attention to clients is part of the principle of acting big and behaving small. You want to show that you are established, secure, and stable so that your customers trust you, but at the same time maintain a personal connection with customers and awareness of their needs that earns their repeated business. The rewards for doing business like that will be a lot greater than just one bagel!

Starting next week we’ll kick of blogging the sections of the book , so stay tuned for that!

During the time that I was in school and away from the office, Rich and Ron began writing a book documenting the precise process they follow to create a new business, something Rich has done about 27 times.  As they wrote, Ron challenged the principles in the book and insisted they start a business to prove it.  The resulting company, CastleWave, made over $1 million in its first year of business and is continuing to grow.  The book is recently completed and will soon be going to press.  Over the next few weeks until the book comes out, I’ll be blogging the story behind the book because it’s so fascinating and I think you’ll enjoy it.  If you’ve had a chance to watch the video that’s posted on the website, you know a little about the book and the basic story behind it.  If you haven’t, I would encourage you to watch it – it’s a captivating story!

 While my involvement in this story started three years ago, the roots of the venture go back much further than that.  Rich had strong entrepreneurial tendencies even in college but, as he puts it, didn’t think that he had the nerve, background, or funding to start his own company.  After getting an executive MBA, Rich discovered that he had an aptitude for business even though his background was in engineering.  Rich and Ron first became acquainted while they were both working for Novell and then solidified their relationship when they served together in ecclesiastical positions for their church.  They become such an effective team that they could basically read each other’s minds and finish each other’s thoughts.  Even while I was first working for Rich, he and Ron had a side-business going that they later sold for a modest profit.  Little did they imagine, I assume, the partnership that would evolve in the future…