Are you an Entrepreneur?

Accoring to dictionary.com the definition of an Entrepreneur is as follows:

en⋅tre⋅pre⋅neur

A person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

I bring this up because I have been thinking a lot about being an entrepreneur lately. Thinking so much in fact that I have been looking at ways to re-invent the whole idea of entrepreneurship and the best place to start, in my mind at least is with the definition.

So here is my work in progress and I would love to hear what your thought are on the matter.

en⋅tre⋅pre⋅neur 2010 version

Entrepreneurs are people who like to experiment and fix things. They make corporations nervous and don't always make the best employees. Entrepreneurs have minds of their own and a embarrassing wealth of ideas. Entrepreneurs have a habit of moving in on their superiors and whenever possible claiming power roles for themselves. Entrepreneurs are willing to take huge personal risks to reach their clearly defined goals and while they they don't always end up on the winning side of things they have the fire and passion to keep trying.

I truly believe Entrepreneurship is a frame of mind and you don't have to be the founder of something to be a brilliant Entrepreneur.

SO I ask you.....Are you an Entrepreneur?

I have a distinctive voice...come hear it!

I really need to spruce up my blog and make it more of an info portal instead of just blog posts. The reason I have been thinking about this is 'cause I am getting asked more and more to speak at conferences and infect young minds with my ideas and would love to have a place to tell you all about these appearances without writing a blog post about them.

But until I find some time to do that (or to breath) I am just going to have to fill you in here about my speaking stuff and hope you will come and support the fine folks who see me as a big shot.

So without any further buildup, here are the next 4 opportunities to come out and hear me speak, teach and try to get pretty girls phone numbers.

Canada Post - Think Inside The Box Conference

October 7th at the Toronto Board of Trade

I will be talking in front of Canada Post folks as well as invited guest and the general public about customer service, social media and why making out with your customers is something every company should make a goal in their outreach.

Impact National Conference

November 20-21st at the Westin Harbour Castle Hilton (Toronto)

I am super excited to speak at this conference as the majority of the attendees will be students either finishing up college/university or entering their last years. I will be speaking about Entrepreneurship and ask the students to look inside themselves and see if they have entrepreneurship characteristics in them and if they do I will advise them to drop out of school and start a company. Should be an interesting day!

Canadian Women in Communications

November 25th, 2009

Details on this are still being worked out as far as content of my talk but I said yes without hesitation because I thing this will be an interesting group of folks to pal around with.

Word of Mouth Supergenius Conference

December 16 - Chicago

I will be talking to a group of Supergenius' to be on how to create offline chatter and unlike many talks I give where I rely on my good looks and charm and speak about how wonderful I am and what I have done in the past I have been asked to speak here about the future and create a step by step formula that people will take away with them so there can be a "little Saul" in a whole new group of offices all over America.

Please come to any or all of these events if you can and it goes without saying that I am available to speak just about anywhere (including prisons, schools, conferences, weddings and funerals) on the topics of Social Media, Customer Service, Entrepreneurship, Office Culture, Dating and Community Building so please invite me places and I will preform feats of amazement for you and your crowd.

Zappos gave me an idea....

About a year ago I was honored with an invite to take the world famous "Zappos Headquarters" tour in Las Vegas. An avalanche of blog posts have been written about the tour from many different perspectives and I can confirm that the tour is a great experience and one that probably inspires people to try to copy something about the way Zappos and Tony Hsieh operate their company. I make this assumption because I know it did for me.

Many things stuck with me from the tour but the thing that stood out the most happens to be the first thing I noticed when I got there....you see right at the front door (yes, in the lobby) there was two pretty big book cases containing what you would expect to be on a bookcase...books. But unlike a usual bookcase, these ones had probably less then 15 titles in total with each title almost getting an entire shelve to its self and being the kind of person who loves to read I asked someone what the deal was with the books and was told that the books are hand picked by the Sr. Management as things worth reading and the books are provided free for the staff.

These are new books and this is not a lending library...these books are there to be taken and read but there is no mandate to do so...only a suggestion and an opportunity.

I love this so much that I decided today to try to work this into where I work and on this here blog I am going to share with you the first handful of books I would stuff my shelves with....so here goes (in no particular order):

A Sense of Urgency by John Kotter - Quite Possibly the most thoughtfully inspiring book I have read in the last little while and has changed the way I look towards business building an motivation.

Manging By Henry Mintzberg - I haven't read this book yet but Henry Mintzberg is one of my favorite disruptive authors and happen to love his book Managers not MBA's a great deal.

Managers not MBA's by Henry Mintzberg - This book formed by opinion on the difference between Entrepreneurs and MBA's and is something I read once a year.

Trust Agents By Chris Brogan and Julien Smith - Both Chris and Julien are people I consider friends and are super smart in the ways of connecting with people online and profiting from those connections. This book doesn't just talk about the ways but walks you through strategies to do on your own and is a valuable read.

Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel - Mitch, another friend is one of the true thought leaders in the digital space and while I admit I haven't read the book yet (it is on my nightstand) I know from reading everything else Mitch has released through his blog or podcasts that this is something that people in an organization can learn from.

and finally....Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk - Because Gary is Gary and everyone can use a little of Gary's hustle in them.

Keeping staff inspired can only benefit your work environment and while this isn't the only thing you should/could do it certainly wouldnt hurt to share a book every know and then..cause as I learned as kid, Reading is Fundamental!

The Five Questions you need to answer before starting a business.

So far in my not so short life I have started four companies on my own. Out of the four, two have been pretty successful (in a ridiculously low standards kinda way) and two were pretty forgettable...but having a .500 batting average is pretty good by any ones loose standards and while I don't have all the answers I have learned some things along the way, and I am going to share something with you now.

Coming up with business ideas is easy...I have 100 a day but I may only have 1 or 2 really good ones a week/month and the way you figure out the good from the bad is simple:

Run your idea thought the 5W's

Pretty Simple huh?

Well it is...all you have to do is ask yourself the following.

1. Who - is the product/service for and do they really need it?
2. What - is the product/service and will people pay for it?
3. Where - will people get it and can you scale this distribution channel?
4. When - can you get it to people and will there still be a market at that time?
5. Why - are you doing this? (passion, profit, does it solve a pain for people, ego)

If your idea still holds up after the 5W's then you might actually have something worth spending some time writing a business plan for, if it doesn't (like my idea for a mobile gentleman's club in the back of 18 wheeler trucks) then just move onto the next idea.

Cause ideas are easy, great business's are hard.

Everyone wants to save the Whales...I want to save the Blue Jays.

I have written close to 600 posts on this here blog (579 to be exact) and one of my favorites, and according to my blog stats it is one of the most popular, is my post on how I would save Playboy magazine.

I had fun with that post because I like coming up with ways to save things people like..or once liked. So in the spirit of my Playboy post I am back with another way to save something, and this time it is the Toronto Blue Jays.

Now before I go any further I MUST say that the company I work for is affiliated with the Blue Jays so MORE THAN EVER I have to stress that these ideas are my own and do not reflect those of my employers...and while I do not work for the Jays I think they should hire me to implement these ideas cause they are all gold.....GOLD I tell you.

The reason I think the Jays need saving is simple. People don't care and no one goes to the games. This is sad to me cause I have been a fan for a long time and have many great memories at the ballpark....so much so that I can prove that I was the inspiration for the original Blue Jays mascot (BJ Birdie...but that is a story for another post) and seeing the stadium 2/3 empty is disappointing.
Ok...enough lead up...the way I would save the Jays is simple...I would treat them like a Minor League Baseball team. Now to be clear this is not a comment on their performance but rather a promotions philosophy.

In the minors teams are a little hungrier to get people in the park and some teams take amazing steps to make the environment fun. My favorite minor league stunt is "Nobody Night" in Charleston, SC where for one night no one was let in to the park (even though they had tickets) so the official attendance would be zero and instead of letting folk in they set up the parking lot as a huge event party where people could watch the game and have a good time...and no one was upset because they were apart of something cool.

If the Jays took HUGE strides to make every night a surprise people would come no matter how the team was playing or who the visiting team was. The opportunities are endless but here is a starter list of cool stuff to do.

1. Replace the two worst sections in the bleachers (that no one sits in now anyway) with Hot Tubs and sell those sections at a premium.
2. Sign Jenny Finch (Olympic Woman Softball Pitcher) because she would attract a crowd and can actually pitch...maybe.
3. During Pride Week offer same sex marriages in the out field.
4. During the Toronto International Film Fest show movies on the Scoreboard with the sound on a local radio station and if the promotion is a hit you keep doing it and call it Drive In Movie Nights.
5. Mascot Nights where anyone can get in free if they are dressed in a real furry costume.
6. Allow a few fans per game to do their own play by play broadcast from a in house frequency and people in the stands get the choice to pick their favorite.
7. Turn the outfield bleachers into a soup kitchen a few games a month.
8. Make a few games a year an event that you cant even buy a ticket to and instead they have to do cool things to get them.
9. Every person who is sworn in as a new Canadian Citizen gets honored one game a year and the swearing in ceremony can be during the game.
10. Mass Weddings in the outfield.
11. Wacky Wonder Woman Wednesdays (People dressed as Wonder Woman get in free)
12. ...and finally Dating in the Dark (Speed dating in the stands)

The sky is the limit here and the general idea is make the stands so ridiculously fun that people will talk about them and more importantly return, and return with friends.

Also and this part is obvious. If that jays really want some attention they should not only take some of these ideas but also think of the PR possibilities in hiring me to execute them. It would be exactly like the time the Twins had that 14 year old manager in the movie Little Big League or when the Cubs signed that kid to pitch for them in the movie Rookie of the Year except I am not a kid, this isn't a movie and I always guarantee a happy ending.

Jays, Call me, you have my number :)