Run, Rant, or Rebuild Our Communities
December 15, 2009
The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two choices: Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.” ~ Seth Godin
Earlier this year, I partook in the well-attended Cultural Economic Development (CED) workshop and forum hosted collectively by the Cities of Lansing and East Lansing, including MSU. A guest consultant, Tom Borrup of Community and Culture, highly-respected for his work in helping rebuild communities around the country, opened the workshop by sharing results of his preliminary interviews with Lansing’s civic and business leaders. He spoke of our community’s history, assets (yes, we have plenty!), policies, challenges, and other issues and factors.
As he spoke, I felt a wave of conflicting emotions, which may mirror some local community members and beyond. I felt fear, frustration, and ultimately relief. Yes, relief.
In this post, I hope to share how we can all embrace a sense of relief during a time when we – as a community – seem largely panic-stricken, unemployed, financially tapped, or worse.
The results of Borrup’s initial interviews in the Lansing/East Lansing community unveiled a reality that most of us rarely admit. Paraphrasing, Borrup said that in Austin, Texas entrepreneurs are viewed as stars. In Lansing, entrepreneurs are viewed as workers out of a job. This statement begged the questions, “Why?” and “What can we do to change this?”
So, with purpose and passion, I set out to find an answer. I polled as many people as I could - from various industries, holding a myriad of positions. After speaking with individuals in the automotive industry, education sector, healthcare, as well as various entrepreneurs, State and City Officials, Civic Leaders, students, and retirees, I recognized quite a few commonalities.
The Lansing/East Lansing community has always been known as cars, campus, and capitol, as Mayor, Virg Bernero often says. With a staggering number of people out of work, embracing change and a ‘new’ economy may seem an unwelcome change at best. New economy means entrepreneurship; new industry(ies), new people, new ways of doing things in a town that has strived and thrived in vastly the same old way for a very long time.
We all know it’s not working anymore. In fact, many of us aren’t working at all. The irony is the vast majority of us are not talking about the proverbial elephant in the room, which is the change we need to make to alter our current state of affairs. Sure, we’re all talking about what has happened, how sad and scary it all feels, but only a small group are talking about and taking initiative to detail and implement the necessary strategies, attitudes, and changes we need to turn it all around.
Some community members are leaving Lansing for apparent brighter opportunities. Many have already have relocated to more thriving cities. If we make the right choices and changes today, we can rebuild Mid-Michigan, and its surrounding regions, into a powerful machine, poised to sustain our future generation.
So, what are the right decisions and changes we can make? We need to work together as a team, get rid of our silos, and admonish redundancy. It may be referred to as “effective regionalization,” “partnering,” “strategic alliances,” or other catchy phrases. Each of these phrases means the same thing: Immediately cease focusing on our own personal – or otherwise self-serving, ego-driven agendas, and replace such thinking and behaviors with creative (new, innovative) solutions, embrace a collective goal, and ultimately move forward – as a cohesive unit – towards that goal.
At the CED Forum, over fifty people pooled their collective creativity to come up with positive views and initiatives to help grow this community – including Lansing, East Lansing, and surrounding towns – into a sustainable economic powerhouse. It was truly inspiring to watch the collaboration and feel the positive energy in the room. The bunch brained up fresh ideas and thoroughly embraced innovation and diversity.
We need to recognize that the union or government is not going to bail us out. The law-makers are not going to grossly alter our livelihoods in a way that will pull us out of debt or put us back to work. We must create and attract new businesses, which will attract and retain creative and intellectual capital. In short, we need to nurture entrepreneurship and diversity. We need to act this out, not just say we will. We need to embrace it, not fight it – or worse – despise it.
Mayor Bernero said it best, “Staying the same is no longer an option. We are being forced into entrepreneurship.” The way I see it, we have three choices: Run, rant, or rebuild this city and our surrounding communities.
Rantings can be good. After all, a lot of terrific ideas come out of frustrated ranting sessions. Run to another city if we must, and understandably some haven’t another choice. I implore each of us to embrace, believe in, and escort the necessary changes to fruition. We have the assets, the tools, the resources, the intellectual – and creative – capital, and the Capitol right here to help entrepreneurship lead the way to a new, vital, sustainable Greater Lansing. We need to embrace this movement. We need to ask ourselves, “What am I prepared to do to make this town sustainable for our next generation?”
If you are prepared to support this collective movement of rebuilding our region, consider tapping our resources. Contact leaders and entities who want to hear your voice and who can open doors, mentor, and inspire you to achieve your new passion.
A perfect example of inspirational mentors was witnessed by hundreds at last week’s Launched event. Launched, hosted by Live Concepts’ President, Jason Meyers (a tenant of East Lansing’s Technology Innovation Center) celebrated accomplishments of innovators and entrepreneurs in the community. Entrepreneurship evangelists paraded across its sparkling stage, each stopping to share their hopeful insight and strategy.
Among the enthusiastic speakers taking the dais were East Lansing Mayor, Victor Loomis and East Lansing City Manager, Ted Stanton. Amy Cosper, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur magazine, topped the event with dazzling keynote speech and champagne toast.
One guest speaker brought tears of recognition to my eyes, and I believe his words are worth sharing.
“Entrepreneurs are often referred to as ‘risk-takers,’” began Biggby’s CEO and Co-Founder, Bob Fish. “But it’s more about their courage; meaning doing something you’re afraid of – anyway. True entrepreneurs are not gamblers; they calculate their risk. The actual difference between an entrepreneur and everyone else is their ability to overcome their fears – and that takes courage.”
Fish’s view of successful entrepreneurship is widespread for those in the know; those in the trenches who eat, breathe, and sleep our passions; our business, and plow through fears on a daily basis. Entrepreneurs rarely succeed going it alone. Rather, we succeed by collaborating and inspiring a dedicated team to work in unison towards the company’s ultimate goal.
Inspiration, collaboration, and cohesive accountability play vital roles in achieving success. If we embrace and employ these fundamental principles, we will be well on our way to resurrecting our economy – far beyond the boundaries of Mid-Michigan.
Attending meetings and events such as Launched and The Inspiring Women Collaborative (IWC) can spawn cooperation rather than catastrophe.
The IWC is a forward-thinking, expansive, and open-minded group. Its sole purpose is to propel its attendees towards greatness in businesses and life. The IWC, facilitated and founded by Bernadette Johnson and Robin Cleveland, is open to all inspiring women. Men may be welcome at some point, but for now it’s women only. Sorry, men.
Mid-Michigan offers plenty of assets and resources to help us embrace change and implement strategies we need to transform our community into an attractive, economically healthy, sustainable community for our next generation.
A few that come to mind are:
1. Marchelle Smith, City of Lansing and Leslie Donaldson, East Lansing’s Cultural Economic Development Plan
2. Denise Peek, Entrepreneur Institute of Mid-Michigan
3. Carol Steffanni, Business One Stop
4. Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center
5. Jeff Cassidy, Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce and its DIBBS program
6. Technology Innovation Center
*The next meeting for the Cultural Economic Development Plan is Tuesday, January 12, 2010 and all community members interested in becoming actively involved with the CED Plan implementation may contact Leslie Donaldson to RSVP to this next event.
In closing, I believe this quote echoes the view we must embrace to flourish: “Optimists tend to see their successes as their own “fault” – they hold themselves accountable by the way of their own talents and effort, as well as their special brand of serendipitous good luck. They see each success as long-lasting and affecting everything in their lives.” ~ Jerry Porras
Tamera Nielsen is a writer and business development consultant (marketing strategist) specializing writing SEO and SEM blogs, web content, articles, press releases, and case studies. As a project partner, she helps you increase revenue, gain recognition, and ultimately achieve ongoing success through inViewLLC, an intuitive business development and professional writing services company.
Take the Entrepreneurial Challenge
December 1, 2009
One could argue we’re in a labor crisis in Michigan. Perhaps this is true. One could also argue that a lost job, or no job, is simply an opportunity to change course. Job security and a steady paycheck are becoming less of a possibility, particularly in today’s volatile economic climate. So how can you future-proof your livelihood? One solid choice that will stay with you despite economic factors, living locale, downsizing, outsourcing, cutbacks, layoffs, shutdowns, slowdowns, or meltdowns is to choose this: entrepreneurialize your talents.
I can see eyes rolling as I write this, but look at it this way: If you constantly strive to improve yourself, you reduce the likelihood of being replaced, reduced, or rebuffed. You create an inner strength and vision for yourself, your family, your life, and livelihood once you commit to yourself the following: No matter the form of the storm around you, you will find ways to make yourself invaluable to your boss, your company, and ultimately your own business.
Entrepreneurship is the only job security you will ever have. Once you declare for yourself that you are an entrepreneur you make a commitment to constantly reinvent yourself , your offerings, your capabilities, and your worth as an individual and a valuable player in resurrecting Michigan’s economy.
Regardless of the form your company takes, be it a brick-and-mortar locale, one-on-one meetings with clients or a remote business via the information superhighway, you will be in charge of your own personal sustainability. Know this: entrepreneurs aren’t born. Rather, they emerge from an inner sense of creativity. Sometimes that creativity is spawned by an urgent necessity like a sudden job loss, but creativity is the key.
So if you want to join the ranks of personal empowerment by way of entrepreneurship, then end the ride on the hamster wheel. Break out of the cage, shed the rat suit, cloak up in something fresh and hit the field, road, or keyboard!
This exercise might help you on the path to prosperity on every level, rather than wallowing in emotional and financial poverty. Ask yourself these questions and make the time to write three answers. Once you start writing, you may be surprised to see 10 more answers appear as you begin to free your mind. Open up your thinking! The key here is to not restrain your thinking, rather to dream big dreams. Dreaming is a great place to breed creativity. Bringing it down to reality is the next step. First step is to think with abandon!
While I was writing this blog, I received a quote in my e-mail inbox, from Chris Widener, which was indeed timely because it underscores my point. Kudos to Chris for saying it better, “You were made for success––created for unique and magnificent destiny! Dream the extraordinary! Pursue your passion with faith and tenacity and you will bring that destiny into reality.”
Take the entrepreneurial challenge:
1. What motivates and impassions me?
2. If I could choose any type of business and not have a single worry about financial or time constraints, what type of business would I choose? (These are your ideals.)
3. Given my current life commitments, what are my non-negotiables (must-haves) for a career?
4. What professional endeavors (business) can I embark upon that meet my non-negotiables?
5. What professional endeavors (business) can I embark upon that have the greatest potential of meeting my ideals (listed in answer two above) and my non-negotiables?
The first time you look at these questions, it may feel daunting, but I encourage you to take as many tries as it takes for you to empower yourself and dream of the entrepreneur you want to become.
A few ideas that might stimulate your thinking process are:
1. Change your environment
I often find myself at the bookstore browsing and flipping through magazines and books to help spur my creativity. Sometimes just the energy of the bookstore or a café gives me an idea. While driving to an appointment several weeks back, I came up with three viable business ideas. I wish I had the time to run with all the business I dream up in a day’s time.
For example, maybe you would enjoy running a mobile auto detail business. Or maybe you could operate a valet service for shopping centers like Sam’s. Perhaps you would find pleasure in providing nonmedical caregiving services to the elderly. How about managing a top-notch, affordable residential cleaning service for the busy, dual-income households?
2. Go on a (traditional) news fast
Certainly this is not the first time you have heard of this concept, but have you ever tried it? Garbage-in-garbage-out applies here. I implore you to digest this concept. How purposeful is the doom-and-gloom attitude that permeates our news pipelines and seeps into our psyche? Think about it for a moment; it’s all around us. Our coworkers, community members, neighbors, clerks, friends, family, the radio and TV inundate us with traditional, unhealthy news. I bet no one reading this can make it through an entire day without hearing (or delivering) a comment about awful, challenging, or depressing news.
Here’s my not-so-subtle, highly optimistic suggestion: Replace the traditional news pipeline with the nontraditional news pipeline, just for one week––and see how you feel.
3. Bury yourself in a new news/good news break
I challenge you to try it for one week. Feed your mind with uplifting information and inspirational stories from sources that interest you. Ingest only good, awe-inspiring, creativity-building, self-empowering, and dream-spawning input – for one full week. You may be amazed at what your mind creates after just one day.
A sample list includes:
• Business Solutions brought to you by BizJournals
• Entrepreneur Magazine
• Christine Comaford’s Mighty Minute
• Anything by Issue Media Group
• Michael Gerber’s E-Myth and website
• Hal Becker from BizJournals Solutions
Subscribe to e-zines with good news that fits you, your interests, your hobbies, and your inner passions. Keep the good news coming! Once you feed yourself new input, make time to do a little inner searching of what makes you excited, impassioned, and completely fired up! Then you will be well on your way to finding your entrepreneurial core and living the life you dream – true job security is there for the finding. It’s your job to find it.
No matter what type of entrepreneur you become, you will be in charge of your personal sustainability – no longer a victim to this economic climate or the boss who keeps you down. You will lead your own life into the dream you envision. Remember, there is no perfect next step, only a next step. Make it a leap!
We can view our state as one suffering from a labor crisis, or we can take advantage of the rich entrepreneurial infrastructure right here at home, dream up a little creativity, capitalize on needs and wants of our customers-in-waiting, and bust out of the rat trap!
Tamera Nielsen is a writer and business development consultant (marketing strategist) specializing writing SEO and SEM blogs, web content, articles, press releases, and case studies. As a project partner, she helps you increase revenue, gain recognition, and ultimately achieve ongoing success through intuitive business development and professional writing services.
Entrepreneurship – Michigan’s New Game
November 22, 2009
Entrepreneurship is the number one catalyst for turning around Michigan’s economy. It’s the perfect time for our budding entrepreneurs to start pumping new life into this country’s most sluggish state.
Michigan communities are rich with the entrepreneurial infrastructure to support your business. You can create job security that stays with you, despite the challenging and unpredictable economy. If you continue to read these posts, you will find viable business ideas, resources to get going and stay on top, practical tips to help you find your entrepreneurial core, and how to reignite your creativity and boost your bottom line.
Getting back to the fundamentals of the game
With the onslaught of technology and assault of information, it seems many business leaders have lost sight of the simple rules of smart business practices. In essence, business owners are over-engineering and under-delivering the basic fundamentals of good, solid business values. These fundamentals are critical to your success as an entrepreneur, and more importantly, they are essential to turning around Michigan’s economy. If they seem like basic common sense rules, it is because they are. It seems far too many businesses have lost sight of these basic fundamentals.
1. Cherish your customers
Ultimately, you are in the business of satisfying your customer. They indirectly sign your paycheck. If you don’t know what satisfies your customer, you cannot possibly deliver it; therefore, you will not succeed. Do whatever it takes to know exactly what your customers want and need. Survey them. Ask them. Ask your staff. Find out what you need to turn them into a loyal support system, and then do it! If you don’t, someone else will.
Countless stories demonstrate how local area companies have lost business because they were set on doing things the old way instead of providing what the customer needed. You don’t want to be that entrepreneur.
2. Follow up and follow through
Respond to each and every correspondence. This may seem daunting, but with a little help and prioritizing, it can be done. One summer, I contacted a dozen different contractors to perform various upgrades and renovations to my home. My realtor introduced me to their ‘preferred vendors’ list and only two actually followed through on providing me with a proposal. If you don’t follow up and follow through, someone else will and they’ll win.
3. Hire people better than you
It is difficult to comprehend the logic of the ego-driven method of 10s hiring 9s and 9s hiring 8s. Some of the smartest and most successful entrepreneurs and business leaders hire people they know will out-perform them. There is no room for growth and succession in business if the person at the top is taking up all the space with an overinflated sense of self-worth and a self-sabotaging agenda.
If you are sick, want to take a vacation, or choose to retire, you need to confidently turn your business (and your cherished customer base) over to someone who’s as good as, if not better than, you.
4. Treat everyone with respect
Your employees, vendors, colleagues, even your landlord directly or indirectly keep your customers satisfied. If your team doesn’t feel respected by you, they won’t perform well. They won’t take care of your customers, and your customers will find someone else who will. Remember your customers add the zeros to your profit; they keep you in business and help your business grow. This basic concept needs to be at the forefront of every one of your team members’ minds and executed at every turn.
5. Deliver consistency to your customers
Have you ever gone into your favorite restaurant and ordered your favorite dish only to have it different from the way you remember it? Of course you have and it’s disappointing. Don’t be that entrepreneur. Deliver consistency every time – no matter what your product or service. Offer your customers change but don’t surprise them with it.
6. Mentor – network – embrace every chance you get
Mentoring is not just about helping others realize their dreams or coaching them through a winning game. It is about embracing others without expectation of reward or return on your investment. Helping others, promoting other people and other businesses just for the sake of promoting them, is what mentoring is all about. Mentoring and networking mean staying in touch and helping others, free of an agenda to get business or further your personal, financial or professional gain.
7. Conduct yourself with unwavering personal integrity
Don’t just say it, do it. J.C. Watts said, “Character is doing the right thing when nobody is looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.”
8. Focus on the goal
Obviously human nature is to be recognized and appreciated, but when that agenda gets in the way of the goal, the goal will never be reached. It’s been observed that more and more people are vying for recognition, awards or accolades, rather than focusing on the collective goal of the team. Here’s an archaic, yet highly effective, approach: rather than trying to be the star, play your part on the team and the goal will be realized.
9. Love what you do for a living
If you don’t love what you’re doing now, then change it. You have all the tools and resources you need to change your life and your career. The real question is: Do you have the courage to change? If you love what you do, you will have a hard time separating work and play because your work will become play.
10. Commit
Commit yourself to your business, your family, your employees, your vendors, your plan and most of all your customers. Stay aware and flexible enough to know when and how to alter your plan and your business, and make a commitment that is as deep as the commitment you would make (or have made) to a child. It’s the same for the University of Michigan Wolverines or the Michigan State University Spartans. Those players make a commitment to the season, the team, each game, and every play. Your business, your livelihood is not any different.
Hit the field
Michigan is fertile ground for entrepreneurs. We already have the customers. We already have the support, the resources and the entrepreneurial infrastructure. We need people who believe in their abilities and are committed to their passion, their business, their customers, and this state.
We need our budding entrepreneurs to get off the bleachers and onto the playing field – as a team!
Tamera Nielsen is a writer and business development consultant (marketing strategist) specializing writing SEO and SEM blogs, web content, articles, press releases, and case studies. As a project partner, she helps you increase revenue, gain recognition, and ultimately achieve ongoing success through intuitive business development and professional writing services.
