***Disclaimer: So, sometime on Tuesday afternoon, I forgot that I’d dropped an Aleve-D two hours prior and threw back two REAL Sudafed red devils. Having been plague-ridden for nearly a week, I just wanted the congestion to subside. What resulted, however, was a thorough understanding on why kids cook this shit down to create crystal meth and an evening filled with productivity on most offensive levels. And, this blog post.

The setting is Houston, Texas. The subject, a certain then-bleached-blonde adolescent girl with oversized glasses (complete with purple tint) and a penchant for social and political issues. For nearly five years, I immersed myself in political studies and competed in Lincoln-Douglas debate, extemporaneous speaking, Mock Congressional Hearing competitions, and every political science/history fair I could get my hands on. AP U.S. History and Political Studies classes meant that I was dropped into a sea of upperclassmen studying the same issues. They wouldn’t ask me to Homecoming, but they sure as shit would clammor to sit next to me on test day. And in those competitions? I won. My dream was to become an attorney and specialize in international law, and these were the stepping stones for an awkward, geeky girl to make her mark on the political systems she admired so very much.

Flash Forward to 2012

So, I ditched the purple-tinted glasses and never went to law school. I turned out to be a writer and an entrepreneur – which is precisely where I should have ended up. Hell, it only took me 17 years of living a life filled with Shouldas, Couldas, and Wouldas to get here. My passion for social and political issues has never waned, however – and I can definitively say that everything about this election year irritates me to no end. My country’s political system is in shambles – a complete joke to outside observers – and I have to listen to dribble on the State of the Union Address that spews useless statements like, “The American Dream is in peril.”

Really. Which one is the American Dream? The one where I’m dressed up like a cheerleader in front of the Senate building with a felt USA blazing across my breasts? I really like that dream…but I digress.

I would think that, as a country, we’ve gotten past the Hooverisms and dispelled the myth that there will be a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Who are we as people and a nation to believe that we are entitled to anything and that dreams are things achieved with anything other than ass-breaking work, blood, sweat, and tears? As an entrepreneur, I don’t get entitlement. I’ve lived paycheck to paycheck and had my 10-for-$1 Ramen days. I’ve failed miserably after a load of ass-breaking work. No one handed me anything and I wake up each day grateful for the people in my life and what I’ve earned.

Yeah. Earned. Earning things for myself – the goal-setting and subsequent accomplishments and failures – that’s my American Dream.

And given the work that I do every day with the startup community and other entrepreneurs, I’m overcome with one thought and one thought alone:

That my entrepreneur can kick your politician’s ass. Period.

And it got me thinking: what do entrepreneurs know better than politicians? Seems to me it’s most everything.

Integrity

I can’t log in to YouTube these days to watch a Van Halen video without some mudslinging GOP ad bogarting my bandwidth. You won’t find that in the startup community. Entrepreneurs who fuel successful startups understand integrity to the Nth degree and skip the dirty trash talking because they know what’s important: building a product for the people who will love what you’re building. Entrepreneurs don’t rise because they bash the competition with paid ad space. They rise because they’ve built a product that solves a pain point for a certain audience.

Let’s face it: we all have a one-night stand that we’d rather forget. A phrase we wish had never come out of our mouths. Pieces of our lives we’d rather keep private. Entrepreneurs put their companies and products first and themselves second – just ask any founder’s wife/husband/kids. Our political system wants to muckrake, dragging everyone’s personal lives out into the open and the politicians are the first ones to play the blame game. They’d do well by looking at what builds successful, industry-leading companies that are putting our country on the map as contenders in the global technology space – it’s a commitment to integrity and knowing that your product speaks for itself. For entrepreneurs, it’s not about pushing someone else down that brings success as it is with politicians. Great entrepreneurs believe that they can only succeed if the people surrounding them succeed, as you can’t build anything in a vacuum. And you can’t forget your audience.

Audience Rules

As I sit and watch the epic tardsparring that is the caucus and primary season this year, it’s evident that the GOP candidates aren’t interested in anything but their own individual agendas. For people who have committed to a life in public service, they seem to have forgotten the “public” part of that equation.

Plain and simple, entrepreneurs understand that their audience is the only reason they have a business to begin with, and that every business decision they make must be proven to add value to that demographic. Politicians? Be it a kind of shitty truth, but it is a rare politician who remembers that the people behind the votes are the reasons they get to serve in the first place.

Simplicity

When’s the last time you went to the website for an emerging startup – one getting noticed and building a buzz – and you had no bloody idea what the company did or why the hell you should care?

That’s because it doesn’t happen.

Entrepreneurs (and great PR professionals as well) understand that when you try to say 83 things, you say nothing at all. The startup world is based on solving complex problems in an elegant, seemingly simple fashion – even if there is a basement full of code monkeys hammering out Ruby-flavored splendor to make that simple solution appear simple 18 hours a day.

Politicians are adept at taking something simple and bastardizing it through riders, lobbying, and self-interest. The resulting product is never one that the American public can understand. And if you doubt me, why don’t you check out all of the Medicare updates? Seems that folks shouldn’t have to rifle through a Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D in order to figure out how and what is covered. If a startup did that with their product messaging and documentation, they’d fall flat before they ever had a chance to soar.

Q: How many politicians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Politician’s Answer: It would appear as if the rider on this Lightbulbs bill supporting tax breaks for corporate environmental initiatives is prohibitive to the actual changing of the lightbulb due to some loophole about an endangered species that may or may not come into contact with said lightbulbs. Therefore, it seems the only logical move is to add an additional rider removing the three-toed sloth from the endangered species list, which will free up approximately $600,000 annually, thus making it possible to procure a lightbulb and send out RFPs for government-approved contractors to complete the work roughly 24-26 months following bipartisan acceptance of the legislation.

Entrepreneur’s Answer: Why the fuck are you still using lightbulbs? I know at least six companies with better products. Let me introduce you to them.

Killing Your Darlings

Out political system is brilliant at heaping shit upon shit when shit doesn’t work. Our public education system and social welfare programs are but two examples. Politicians keep applying laws and acts on top of laws and acts until the original legislation’s intent is lost in the noise. The process fixes nothing. It simply creates more problems. Which, of course, will be solved by layering more legislation on in search of a solution when the entrepreneurial community actually holds the answer.

Entrepreneurs understand the value in killing your darlings. Great entrepreneurs have failed – and miserably – on multiple occasions. With each failure, they learn to accelerate the failure process so they can get on with the business of things that actually work instead of being burdened by the things that don’t. You’ll never see a successful startup that’s a Joe’s Mortuary and Fine Sausage Emporium. You’ll see focus. Commitment. And if it doesn’t work, entrepreneurs are standing by with a bottle of kerosene and a BIC lighter to burn the motherfucker to the ground.

There’s much in this country on the political and legislative front that needs a good burning to the ground – and Washington needs a few more entrepreneurs to help them get over the fear and make the leap.

And So It Comes Down to Business

I don’t understand the vitriol directed at Mitt Romney (disclaimer: NOT a supporter) for his experience in the private equity sector. Well, I suppose I can if I figure in that the majority of the US population doesn’t understand what private equity firms actually do. Their goal, in many cases, is to take an ownership share in failing companies and turn them around so they’re profitable again. For the financial sector, they’re the ones that set containment fires. Some things in a PE-owned company burn to the ground so that others have a chance of succeeding. That means downsizing, or in unpretty terms, layoffs. JOB LOSS. While you might not like it, it’s good business. And it works. And yes, people make money from it. (Oh, the horror…)

Our government is bloated. Our nation’s legislative record is bloated. And we could do with an entrepreneurial infusion to lean-up our nation’s infrastructure. Great entrepreneurs know that good business can only be done when you put the foundations in place to support growth. And now, we’re a nation stymied by our political obesity – as we’ve overburdened the frame our Founding Fathers built.

And before you launch into something like “times are different in 2012 than they were in 1787″ – no shit, Sherlock. Really? But that doesn’t mean that our nation is even remotely prepared to do good business – the business it’s tasked with: Serving its citizens. Entrepreneurs know that lean companies are more nimble and successful in the long run – a lesson that our nation’s politicians are loath to understand. I think Eric Reis’ The Lean Startup should be mandatory reading for anyone elected to public office.

***

So that’s it. It’s all I’ve got. And perhaps the title of this blog wasn’t really accurate in retrospect. My entrepreneur won’t ever beat up your politician. They’ll just quietly create a better product based on solid business principles that will put you out of business.

Naturally, what that meant was:

• Let’s go back to the office and take a conference call.
• I can work until 7pm that evening.
• I can certainly take an on-site lunch meeting with a prospective new client on Thursday.

By late afternoon on Thursday, I’d given up. I needed to go see the doctor. I called Kaiser (shut it) to get an appointment and they gave me a 20-minute phone triage and said, yeah – it’s viral, honey. Nothing we can do. Drink fluids and rest. Muttering an inarguable “fuck you” to whomever would listen at that point, I drove my ass to the Walgreens and filled my basket with every possible homeopathic and OTC remedy known to mankind. If you can believe it, I walked out with over $30 in christ-I-hope-this-makes-me-feel-better concoctions and I-can’t-have-the-flu-because-I-got-a-flu-shot thoughts and positioned myself on the sofa.

Where I’ve been for 5 days now.

It got so bad on Saturday that I hauled myself to a doc-in-the-box where I was told, yeah – it’s the flu. BUT WAIT! For your faith in OTC remedies and all the rest you’ve given yourself, we have a special gift for you! An upper respiratory infection, complete with antibiotics that cost (gulp) a tidy sum of $100! (And yes, that WAS the generic version.)

So here I sit – humbled. Run down. I’ve dubbed this illness The Plague. Yesterday, I lost my voice. And truth be told, I feel like three-day-old pad thai that’s been left on the kitchen counter and licked by at least four cats. Today, my voice is coming back — I sound like a cross between Joan Rivers and Stevie Knicks with emphysema thrown in for flavor.

And this whole thing has taught me a little bit about business.

Everyone Knows Best

God bless the interwebz, I say. I’m as plugged in as plugged in can be and once I shared my battle with The Plague with friends and followers, the advice seemed to overpower the notes of sympathy. Not that I was looking for sympathy, but it reminded me that – good heavens – everyone knows best, don’t they? According to the interwebz, I should do everything from gargle with vinegar to steam baths and take Emergen-C. Even after I went to the doctor on Saturday, even a doctor wanted to share his long-distance opinion with me.

Something to remember: People are generally altruistic. They want to help. We all have experiences to share. And y’know, there are the jackwads who just feel like they know best (and there’s no shutting those up). When you decide to head down this entrepreneurial path, you have to prepare yourself for unsolicited input. Everyone – other than you – will know what’s best for you. It’s not unlike unraveling our lives and going back to the days where mom and dad said, “Because I said so!” or “You’ll go blind if you keep touching it!” Later in life, we realize that both are bollocks, and even though I wear glasses, whatever damage I incurred from “touching it” I’m happy to chalk up to genetics (my whole family is myopic to some degree) instead of behavior. You can’t stop the advice for pouring in, and that’s good because…

Great Ideas Can Come From Anywhere

For all the unsolicited advice, there will be a piece or two that catches your eye, ear, and mind. Like the person who recommended pineapple juice for my lost voice. I had to get dressed after 4 days (yes, FOUR days) and go to the bank, and Whole Foods was right across the street. I needed probiotics and, well, I saw a bottle of organic pineapple juice. So I grabbed it. Drank it on the way home. Not only did it taste sublime, especially when you consider that the only thing I’ve been drinking for days is coconut water and TheraFlu, I had a phone call come in and – wouldn’t you know it? I could croak out a “hello.” Maybe it’s timing, but I’m going to chalk it up to pineapple juice.

Something to remember: While all of that unsolicited advice (most notably, the person who recommended that I go for a 40-minute jog to ignite my immune system when it’s nearly impossible for me to even laugh with launching a coughing fit) is rolling in, you just might find some gems. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and think that we’re the only ones with ideas worth acting upon. But in the end, some of the best ideas – even ones that don’t include pineapple juice – come from outside our protective bubble. And that’s okay – the worst thing we do to ourselves as business owners is feel like we have to do everything. Which means…

We Don’t Rest Enough

Christ on an iPad – we sure as hell don’t. Lemme tell you what being relegated to the sofa for 5 days feels like: ass. Pure, unadulterated ass. I haven’t been to the gym. I haven’t left the house except to go to the doctor. I’ve fallen a bit behind on business (since it’s hard to have phone calls when you can’t talk). But you know what? I have rested. My body has crashed for nearly 9 hours straight each night since The Plague set in, and that’s not including the pass-out-on-the-sofa mid-day nap times I’ve had. I’ve watched stupid movies, seen the entire first season of Downton Abbey (OMFGAWESOMEBBQsauce), and even rearranged my office on Saturday afternoon in a fit of decongestant-fueled purpose.

We don’t take care of ourselves. We think that going to the gym and a Naked juice smoothie fixes the fact that we work 16 hours a day, six days a week. I need to unplug more and do things for myself. I need to stop answering business emails at 8pm. I need to take weekends. In short, I need to do a better job at having a life. Just because I can plug into anything via my iPhone doesn’t mean I should and it certainly doesn’t mean I should all the time. Life got along just fine these past 5 days when I needed to take care of myself.

I have a feeling it will continue to do so in the future.

The Net-Net

I might have a fever. I’m out of TheraFlu. But I feel decent enough today to spend at least half a day working and the other half taking care of myself. I’m also back to laughing at juvenile jokes that include the word “balls.” I’m grateful for all of the unsolicited advice, as in it I found something that worked. And it’s funny business, these bodies of ours. They’re the best barometer and thermometer we have for gauging what’s real and what’s not.

• Sweating is different than being on fire
• The gut offers brilliant, no-hold-barred unsolicited advice 24/7
• If we don’t learn to take a break every now and then, our bodies will, without fail, make us take one.

image via Creative Commons

Having read more rah-rah posts at both the close and beginning of the year than my red head can handle, today’s missive will be devoid of a few things. Here’s what you won’t find in today’s post (with a h/t to Amber Naslund for her thoughts on “shipping”):

• Requests to get on board
• Directions leading to the outside of the box
• Instructions or demands to ship anything (especially “it”)
• Buzzwords used in context
• Links to a Huffington Post article
• Pictures of penguins
• Lies other than the one included in the above bulletpoint
• The use of the word “passion.”

What you might find, however, is that it’s filled with bullshit. Which is surprising, considering how much I loathe it.

I’m not good at bullshit. I suck at small talk. I’d rather sit in the passenger seat of a car and stare with wonder at the world around me than ask how my date feels about his mother. And while every conversation does not need to be of earth-shattering import, I believe that there’s entirely too much bullshit floating around in the ether.

The Taste and Smell

Yeah. You know it. Stringing people along. Avoiding difficult but definitive conversations. Things that should end, others that should begin. The time wasters. The jackwads. The shit you put up with, refuse to address, and then bitch about to your friends. Your money woes, your relationship turmoils, the dog crap you haven’t cleaned up in the backyard.

You can smell it from sixty-three paces. Sometimes we wake up with the taste of it in our mouths. We have sandwiches made of it for lunch.

You know what it smells and tastes like.

So you have a few choices.

Step Over It OR Step In It

I love shoes. Consequently, there is nothing more demoralizing than finding that I have inadvertently placed one in a position where it is adorned with a turd. And even though it’s recently come to light that I have a habit of leaving shoes neatly arranged next to the toilet, your shoes really don’t belong anywhere close to bullshit. Or the toilet. But at least mine are neatly arranged. I digress. We come to our choices:

Stepping in it: Is there a single one of you who can tell me that, faced with a steaming pile of bullshit that you’re going to deliberately make the move to submerse your shoes in it? Doubtful. Yet it’s something you do all the time. You piss and moan and then walk foot-first right into the motherfucker and then have the audacity to piss and moan about having stepped in it. THIS IS BULLSHIT. It is also bullshit on top of bullshit. Entirely too much bullshit.

Stepping over it: Ah, the logical choice, right? Yet one we seem to refuse to make more times than not. Stepping over the bullshit involves a few things. First, acknowledgement. This involves us being honest with ourselves, and frequently, with others. It’s not about hurting other people’s feelings or being an asshole. It’s about refusing to submerse one’s self in a pile that sits before us. But first, we have to acknowledge the pile instead of bitching about it and then acting all surprised when someone points it out to us (and most of the time, after it’s already all over our shoes). Secondly, it involves growing a pair. Stepping over the bullshit involves refusing to engage in situations that don’t serve us and waste our time. Your relationship, business, financial, and other woes? Bullshit. Stepping over it involves addressing the situation’s existence and then resolving it or refusing to engage, period.

Bullshit Controls Power

Bullshit is a quirky yet powerful little sonofabitch. It has the ability to rob you of power if you allow it, making you (or making yourself) feel helpless and fall victim to less-than-OMFGCrackalacka life experiences (thanks to @Merredith for the gift of the phrase “crackalacka”). On the other hand, bullshit has a sneaky little ability to empower you. There’s a metric ass ton of power derived from acknowledging, processing, and then dealing with the bullshit in your life. When you’re the one in control of your feet and stepping over and around the steaming piles the universe places in front of us during our time on this big blue bouncy ball, just think of what you can accomplish. And with that power comes a greater level of honesty.

Honesty with yourself. Your colleagues. Friends. Lovers. Partners. Hot baristas.

All those things we’re not supposed to say – we usually never do. And they’re the things that need to be said most. Why? Because they dispense with the bullshit. Not saying them? Well, that’s bullshit, too. The greatest gift I’ve given myself over the past 13 months is saying what I feel. Acknowledging and then stepping over the bullshit. And being even more honest with myself and using the presence of bullshit in my life for good instead of allowing it to capitalize on its inherently evil nature like that “friend” who always has a left-handed compliment that you seem to keep around for…no reason whatsoever.

So today, give it up for bullshit. A round of applause, if you will, to begin the New Year. We’ve shipped nothing, and that box? Fuck the box. I’ve never seen the box and really have no use for one that doesn’t contain a new pair of ski boots or faboo pair of pumps. And if you’ve gotten this far in the post, you’ve done something appreciable:

You’ve acknowledged the bullshit that fills this post. And you’re probably ready to do something about it.

Here we are, one day before Chanukah and six before Christmas. I’m not even bringing up the inevitable fuck me that tax time is approaching one again. Oh wait.

But I got to thinking over the weekend about whether my business sucks. And like everyone else’s businesses, some parts of it do.

So what the hell am I going to do about it?

Owning a business that sucks is like masturbating while wearing ugly shoes — while it might get the job done, you don’t want anyone to see what you’re doing or what you look like when you’re doing it. Isn’t it time to dispense with the ugly shoes? God knows, I’m not going to tell anyone to stop masturbating and I’m a big fan of shoes worth masturbating in.

Life’s too short to wear ugly shoes, especially when you’re getting down to business.

So we have two choices:

Keep diddling your business in shoes that don’t fit, feel uncomfortable, give your blisters and make your business experience less ossum (which again, is like a possum but better)

or

Get some new fuckin’ shoes.

And Then I Got Excited. But Not Like That…

Because it’s not enough for me to have sat down and realized that there are certain parts of my business that suck. I had to admit it. Out loud.

And then I had to ask for help. And boy, oh boy. If there’s one thing that I suck at it’s asking for help.

But I did.

This weekend, I sat down and reached out to people who make me feel okay about asking for help. And I got responses.

Then, the most kickassapotamus thing happened: I got excited. Because I was out from under the burden of diddling around with my business while wearing ugly shoes.

Isn’t It Time You Got Some New Shoes?

Maybe you didn’t expect to get a blog in your inbox today that equated things that suck about your business to the relationship you have with Rosie Palm and her five sisters. Do I care? Notsomuch. But what I do know is this:

If those shoes you’re wearing hurt, take them the fuck off and get some new ones. It’s time you started feeling good about the

• business you do
• how you do it
• and how you feel when doing it.

And it doesn’t hurt to look good when you’re doing it, too, because no one wants to do business with a hot tranny mess.

So maybe this holiday season, you want to dispense with the kumbayahs and bullshit advice about those “shoes” you’re wearing looking good when they hurt more than an April 16th phone call from your CPA that starts with, “Oh, hey…that decimal was in the wrong place.” Are you going to change where you go? Are you going to change how you get there? ARE YOU GOING TO CHANGE YOUR SHOES?

No matter who you are and what you do, there’s some part of your business that sucks. It’s just up to you whether you’re going to keep up with the ugly footwear or slip into something that looks good, feels great, and kinda makes you want to take some pictures of your alone time with your business…

because we all know that diddling feels better when we’re especially fond of how we look and feel when it’s happening.

And that? Yeah. That just happened.

I’m really fortunate that the folks at Entrepreneur Magazine give me a lot of leeway with what I cover in my column each month and how. So, in the October issue, I decided to go and have a look at hyperlocal businesses that have achieved success through social marketing. Sure, you have to have a kickass product to back up the online hype, but I found two businesses on opposite sides of the country – a vet practice in Southern Florida and a food truck in Seattle – that each took VERY different approaches to social marketing and each found tremendous success.

Stop by the column: How Two Small Companies Are Driving Revenue Using Social Media (in your print editions as Virtual People, Real Dollars).

I know a fair share of my readers operate and consult with hyperlocal and local businesses. I’d love to hear your thoughts about these two companies and other ideas that are bouncing around in your head. Local businesses are the backbone of any community and it just tickles me like Elmo to have had the opportunity to meet these folks and hear how they’re hitting it out of the park with a combination of keystrokes and kickass product and service.

PS: I know full well that a food truck and a vet practice can’t actually walk into a bar. But it would be fun to watch!

Right now, I’m thinking about volume and how we carry ourselves as people in business.

As I believe that there’s a fundamental difference in volume and projection as well as being a business owner and being an entrepreneur.

This week brought me to Miami for the Entrepreneur Magazine Winning Strategies conference. Aside from the fact that it was undoubtedly the most well produced event I’d ever been a part of in any way, shape or form (and, uh, FREE for the attendees – shit howdy), I got to spend my day in jam-packed sessions filled with people. These were people who were energetic. Hungry. Craving information and ready with some of the best questions I’ve ever had the good fortune of being asked to answer in my career thus far. As a side note, it still astonishes me that people want to sit in a room and listen to anything I have to say as I don’t consider myself an expert on anything except screwing up royally and learning from my mistakes. So yeah, I’m lucky – and when I’m lucky enough to be invited to participate in opportunities like these, meeting and then exceeding expectations? Yeah – that’s my Ford, my Job #1.  Let’s talk about how these 500 people got me thinking about the life I live, the career I love and maybe you’ll find something here to chew on along with your starbuckalottamochachino on a Friday morning.

The Business Owner vs. The Entrepreneur

There’s someone reading this who’s chomping at the bit to call me out and take me down a notch for making a differentiation between business owners and entrepreneurs. To you (or y’all, as the case might be), ease back in your seat. Since you’re not going to change my mind on this one, give me the opportunity to change yours.

Whether at present you are a business owner or an entrepreneur, one isn’t better than the other. They’re just different. It’s like saying a doctor is better than an attorney – they’ve both got their roles and responsibilities, but just like any other role, it comes down to how we perceive responsibilities. Having a kid doesn’t make you a mother or father – it’s the role you play in your child’s life that makes the differentiation between biological parent and mother or father.

I’ve been a serial entrepreneur since before I realized that’s what I was – opening a new business in each location that life took me and finding years of disgruntlement when asked to build someone else’s business by their rules when I opted for the Corporate America route*.

*Note: I am not the ideal W2 employee. I also just turned around and asked Middle Seat to dial it back a notch because the iPod is on full volume with noise-canceling headphones and I could have perfectly transcribed her conversation. She explained that she’s a teacher and her voice carries. Yes, got that detail already. Go me.

When it comes to responsibilities, in both my personal and professional lives (which are for all intents and purposes, a glorious collage), there are four things that I consider my obligation not only to my clients but myself each day:

Disrupt: If I don’t scare the living shit out of myself at least once on a daily basis, I’m failing. Whether I bring that fear along with new ideas or situations or it comes to me from external challenges doesn’t matter. My job is to welcome challenges, face them head-on and deal with them – for better or for worse.

Embrace Now: If I spent all of my time pissing and moaning about how I wished my now were different, I’d be the only contestant in an ass-kicking contest. By embracing now, I let myself shake my world up and deal with the outcomes as they come. Now is a great place to be in – and it’s my responsibility to use it shape what might come.

Remove ‘Status Quo’ From My Vocabulary: Things can always be different. Better is always possible. If the time comes when I realize that I haven’t burnt the mediocre things that always seem to linger down to the ground, everyone suffers. These two words have no place in my vernacular – maybe you’ll kick them out of yours.

Making Sure That I Don’t Confuse Content With Complacent: Content comes along when you look at things and can appreciate (sometimes even love) what surrounds you…what you’ve built. Complacency creeps in when we begin to take advantage of those things and accept them as givens. Clients on retainer, colleague relationships, friendships, romantic pairings – complacency is a pox on them all. Being content allows me the opportunity to see more opportunities and continue conversations and sharing. Complacency just pushes people away because we have the audacity to think we’ve locked that shit down and it requires no more attention.

When I think of people who are content with simply being business owners, I don’t sense movement. I sense a shitload of status quo and complacency. And if you want to make the shift (and honestly, not everyone is meant to – and that’s okay as well), there are a few things you need to own.

On Becoming an Entrepreneur

To make it simple, here’s my list of things you need to own in order to embrace a life path of entrepreneurship. Because it is more than a career or a job. It’s who you are and like anyone who creates, you can’t NOT be an entrepreneur.

1. Shit blows up. Fail fast and move on to the next thing.
2. If you’ve never failed, you’re definitely not an entrepreneur.
3. If you’re afraid of failure, this ain’t the droid you’re looking for.
4. Money is merely one way of getting things done. You value relationships over cash and understand that investment surpasses the confines of a check written out to your company or latest endeavor.
5. You know what you’re good at and you find people to deal with the things you suck at.
6. On the same token, you value your team above anything else and understand you’re not an island. You also understand that voting people off the island is occasionally necessary and you’re able to do this without being a stark raving fuckwad. The entrepreneurial world is small – reputations travel. Be great to work with and for – it pays huge dividends.
7. When you feel something needs to be done, you value actions over meetings. If it doesn’t work, you blow it up, say good on ya and get on with the next thing. Blowing it up over a beer is always great fun, too.
8. You acknowledge that you are an expert on nothing except learning from your mistakes and value your gut over nodding heads in either direction.
9. You know that the onus for due diligence is on YOU. Great ideas are only great if they go above and beyond someone else’s or explore new territory – you owe it to yourself to not waste your time (or anyone else’s) by doing your research, staying in tune with your industry’s pulse and asking questions. ASK, dammit! (To not ask is soooo arrogant.)
10. There will people who don’t understand the risks you take, the hours you keep or why it is you wake up every day jazzed to do it all over again. And that’s okay – you don’t have to explain. We don’t get why they do what they do, either. It goes both ways.
11. Understand the difference between confidence and arrogance. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Humility fuels successful entrepreneurs, whether we see it or not. So how do you get out there and be heard without being the hyena behind me on the plane?

Volume vs. Projection

I’m loud – personality, presence, and vernacular – and I own that fact 24/7. But I’m not a yeller. For every yelp, I seek a solution. And there are ways to be heard and be loud without making people turn away.

Great entrepreneurs understand projection. It comes from building networks of relationships – people who will carry what you have to say onward to help you fulfill and spread your vision. It has nothing to do with turning up the volume. The woman behind me on the plane would have been just as effective in sharing her yoga and dieting tips with her seat mates if she’d been half as fucking loud. Instead, she lacked self-awareness and annoyed everyone in a two-row radius.

Don’t be that lady.

Build your network – that’s how you project. You can turn up the volume on your microphone or bullhorn as loud as you’d like, but unless there’s a network (and one comprised of the right people) waiting to hear what you have to say, volume ain’t gonna do you any good.

It’s Time to Own It

What’s your role and what will you do with it today? Are you an entrepreneur or a business owner? Are you a business owner who wants to shake things up and add some entrepreneurial flavor into the mix? How loud are you and do you have the network established to carry forth what needs to be heard?

Successful companies and brands not only embrace who they are and have confidence in what they have to offer – their leaders own their roles in the process. Sit down. Speak up. Own your role. No one else is going to fulfill that role for you or get done what needs gettin’ done unless you have a team built who can establish direction. How we carry ourselves in business dictates what we can get done and who wants to be along with us on that wild ass ride.

In closing, I’d like to report that the woman behind me STFU for the remainder of the flight. Sometimes people aren’t aware. If you build a great team, they’ll help you make sure that you never become That Lady. Or That Guy. And I know it’s Friday, but it’s a fine-as-frog’s-ass-hair day to get out there and build something. Get started – you’re only waiting on you

the Bacon Bloody Mary.

Fine. Don’t believe me. I’m not lying. Every Bloody Mary should have bacon in it or mixed into the salt on the rim. Talk to your local bartender. INSIST that your favorite brunch destination upgrade their hair-of-the-dog offerings. You will thank me.

It’s a week where I’m wrapping up Book #1 (The Insider’s Guide to Egg Donation) with my writing partner out of California so I can get back to Book #2 (The Power of Unpopular), so I’ve got some shit to keep y’all busy while I meet a publishing deadline:

Item A for Your Consideration: Imagine an 80 Foot Tall Redhead in Times Square

Yeah, you read that right. Me. 80 feet tall*. In Time Square. You see, About.me is having this RUHdonk contest where you can go vote for my profile and if I make it to the top 20 profiles with the most votes by September 23, I get sent to The Judges. The Judges at About.me will then pick (dramatic inhale) three winners and those willers will, for a fleeting moment, have their About.Me profiles broadcast on the jumbotron billboards in Time Square in New York City.

Is it silly? Oh, yes.

Is it necessary? Most certainly not.

Should you vote? Fuck yes, you should vote!

Here’s how to help me out:

1. Visit my About.me profile EVERY GODDAMN DAY until 9/23. That’s 11 more days of vote whoring.
2. On the right side, you’ll see a VOTE thingamajiggie. Click it.
3. Pass my profile around to all of your friends and family like a bong around a campfire and have them vote for me as well. (Every. Day.)
4. Vote early, vote often. Think Tammany Hall, but without Daniel Day Lewis playing the oddly erotic and charismatic Butcher in Gangs of New York.

I thank you for your support. The picture in that profile is from my last photo shoot with Darren. He’s incredibly talented and I’d love to see his work where it belongs – larger than life!

Item B for Your Consideration: OMFG – Tell Me How Much You Hate Buzzspeak!

My latest column in Entrepreneur Magazine is live on their website as of today. And given that many of you are out there dealing with (gasp) real people like I am every day, we all know that buzzspeak is bullshit. Stop by and have a gander at How to Break Out of the Business Buzzword Bubble and let me and the other folks already adding to this lively discussion your pet peeves, your pisses-me-offs and take on the direction of the article. Mad props to Entrepreneur Magazine for having me and thanks to all of you for your subscriptions and for reading each month!

***

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to bathe and meet a client. Then, it’s the gym and back to the office for another marathon session to finish out Book #1. And remember: if you can’t fix it, bacon can.

Today, money’s role in my life is more akin to cherry blossoms – a lovely product of the business I’ve built, and there will no doubt be more if I continue to feed and nurture said business. It gives me the means to take care of Me, take care of the people I love and share it with those who need it more than I ever will…and occasionally just blow it on something ridiculously fun that leaves a smile on my face for days*.

* not hookers

On any given day, we are both the consumer and purchaser – there’s no way around it. While money’s the accepted currency for payment, there’s a role we don’t ordinarily talk about: being a vendor. I’m a vendor, you’re a vendor, he’s a vendor, she’s a vendor – wouldn’t you like to be a vendor, too? (and dammit, I love me some Diet Dr. Pepper) Accepting our roles as vendors, I think, is a higher level of responsibility for a business owner than just being someone who expects to get paid. So today, I thought I’d run down some things that can help business people to become better vendors and elevate their business practices to ones that operate with unquestionable integrity.

Deal with your HR and administrative shit

Do you have a W9 on file for every contractor and employee? Are you set up to pay your quarterly taxes? Do you have all of the required business licenses to operate in your county, city and state? Are you filings up to date with the Secretary of State’s office? When you let these things slide, it snowballs. Any prospective client should be able to look up your business entity and verify its validity and skipping out on your taxes is not only a total asshat move, it puts undue financial burden on your company. As someone who recently had a vendor share cash flow woes they blamed on a shitty CPA, which were apparently affecting their ability to pay my invoices on time, this is bullshit. Deal, because poor planning on your part doesn’t constitute an emergency on anyone else’s.

Get an invoicing program (I personally use GetHarvest, but Freshbooks is also a raging favorite with other small businesses), track your expenses and receipts MONTHLY and not in some hurried panic at year-end where you’re crapping kittens at the eleventh hour on April 14th and start acting like you own the legit business you claim to operate. Deal with your admin shit.

Don’t go down-periscope

We can all get better at this. Here’s the poop: we are all busy. But as a business owner, you are never too busy to respond to someone who has reached out to you. This goes for new business inquiries, simple client relations moves and (inhales deeply) all financial matters. Nothing pisses me off more than when an invoice sits hanging in the ether with a symphony of crickets attempting to lull me to sleep.

If you go down-periscope on me, I will hunt you down. It is a total dick move to enter into an agreement and have someone perform the work you requested and then not see fit to respond to emails or offer lame excuses when you can get around to them. It’s also a dick move to delay a project because you don’t have your shit together. I would rather hear that you own it – you totally dropped the ball or your cash flow is hosed or your pet hamster gnawed your goddamn checkbook to shreds – I don’t care. The moral is, I want to hear it from you and in a timely fashion.

Make the move to communicate and for all that is holy, do NOT fuck with other people’s money. It is inordinately rude and disrespectful to think that I – or the person that you’ve hired to do a job – does not have bills to pay and mouths to feed just like you. And know that this is coming from someone today who realized over the weekend that she had not paid her attorney’s bill for her latest contract revisions (yeah, the ones that help me get paid and legally protected). He will receive an email today, including a check number that’s in the mail, with the explanation that I’m an idiot and spaced it.

Ask for help

I think that we all have the tendency to operate in Can’t You Read My Mind? land all too often. We assume that our clients work the same way we do and their terms are the same as ours. Ask your clients and your vendors for help.

Some questions and things to ask of and share with new vendors:

• Is there anything you need from me administratively prior to commencing work? Vendor agreements, W9s, NDAs or the like?
• My billing/payment terms are _______. Do you agree to those terms?
• I have a standard contract for services. We can’t commence until that’s mutually signed and on file.
  • If you don’t have one of these, please refer to this video. Jesus.
• Do you have any questions about the contract?
• How do you prefer communications: phone or email?

Stop thinking that the people with whom you do business can read your mind. Because they can’t. Nor will they ever be able.

Communicate

This goes back to the whole down-periscope pet peeve, but one thing I’m proud of with my business is the openness of my dealings between contractors and clients. They are bcc’d on billing inquiries when that inquiry affects their cash flow. They are asked how they prefer to be paid. I explain what’s going on with every account and they are brought to meetings as required. I give them a lot of leeway to accomplish their tasks and in return, I ask for work that is the same quality I myself would produce.

On the other side of the equation, I never glaze over a client’s question. If they become excessive outside a scope of work, I explain that we’re entering Consultingville and we should schedule a session as 73 two-line emails isn’t a way around paying for an hour of my time. I reach out when there is no reason other than to say hello or pass on a cool article and I make sure that their life events, such as a new baby, marriage, loss, business expansion and the like never go unnoticed.

Communication isn’t about what you say. Rather, it’s about what you don’t. Silence is telling and we can all tell the difference between radio silence (bad) and I’m here if you need me – hope all is well.

***

So that’s my list on how to be a better vendor. I’d love to hear what you have to add, as most of these ideas came from the comments on 19 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started My Business. Now go forth, leave the asshat business behavior behind and do good business. There’s no better compliment to receive than, “I really appreciate working with you, because you make doing business a pleasure.”

Maybe you know the feeling. Or perhaps it’s just me.

I’m an admitted workaholic, recovering helium hand and professed potty mouth. I own all three like brilliant footwear or a slinky, strapless chartreuse cocktail dress. Your choice. And on a completely unrelated note, Ash Ambirge just sent me an email that’s forever plastered banana hammocks into my brain. THANK YOU.

Yeah – so, scatterbrained yet focused, those are my days. And so we come to a conversation on getting shit done and other things that I feel bear convershizzle. (Note: that might be my made-up word of the month, and you were here for it. Bravo.)

My first thoughts are on building your business. Diana Adams of BitRebels shared this infographic yesterday that put out some astounding numbers. 40% of “freelancers” report they have trouble getting paid. Another 48% report that the pay is lower than they expected. As someone who required a bitch slap from none other than Shelly Kramer to get my pricing model in line with my skills, experience and track record, I get this and have some rather biased thoughts on it.

• On getting paid: If you’re having trouble getting paid, it’s a client selection problem. You also probably have a shitty work agreement/contract. Fix that shit.
  • Start requiring a commencement deposit. Client won’t pay? Fuck ‘em. Move on.
  • Get a contract for all that is holy. If you missed Mike Monteiro’s Fuck You, Pay Me – watch it now.
  • Still having trouble getting paid? It’s a YOU problem. Learn to invoice, get someone to invoice for you and stop feeling bad about asking to be paid for the work you’ve performed.
• On how much you’re getting paid: If you didn’t do yourself the favor of performing due diligence prior to launching your “freelance” business, it’s quite possible you’re working for third world wages. How do you fix it?
  • If you say that your local market will only bear a certain price threshold, stop limiting yourself to your present geography. Expand. Build your footprint. Find a new fucking market.
  • If going rates in your area don’t permit you to live above poverty level as a freelancer, maybe you’re better off going back to the corporate gig with all those fancy things like health insurance, withheld taxes and retirement plans.
  • Maybe your problem is that you’re calling yourself a freelancer. I hate that word more than I hate the person standing in line in front of me in the grocery who wants to write a check with nine people stacked up behind her. Who writes checks anymore? Anywhoo, you should be running a business and treat yourself like you run a business. Mental acuity prepares you for having better business acumen. Look – two A-words and neither were naughty!
  • CHARGE MORE. If you’re worth it. If you’re not, figure out how to MAKE yourself worth more.

And with that business out of the way, we come to getting shit done. I have two book projects in progress with rapidly approaching deadlines along with multiple client projects and the need to live life away from my MacBook on occasion. SO how do we go about getting shit done? We just do it. No one’s going to do it for us and procrastination is crap. Cowboy-up and step to the plate. My means for achievement? Lists. I make a list and don’t go to bed until I’ve knocked it out. Late nights? Yes. Satisfaction? Yes. Panic-free sleep? Awwwyeah. Time to screw around on Facebook in the morning since I’m not bogged down with shit I didn’t get done the night before? W00t.

So we treat our businesses with respect. We get it done. We dream of banana hammocks (we just do – stop asking questions). Go forth and stop writing checks your ass can’t cash, especially in the grocery store when there are nine people behind you. And feel free to tell me I’m an asshole for my biased views on “freelancing” (kill me now) and straight talk about owning your business practices. If it ain’t a client problem, it’s a you problem. And if it’s not a client OR a you problem, it’s a perception of reality problem. And that STILL makes it…you guessed it…

a YOU problem.

There are an inordinate number of conversations we have, in both business and life, that are designed to conjure-up ideas. We sit around and birth ideas like rodents, crapping out concept spawn like it’s a numbers game. If only half survive, HEYO! It’s a win.

But there’s value in destruction as well. Merciless killing. Murder.

In the process of putting together the first half of my book – yeah, that one I’m being paid to write – I sat and looked at over 10,000 words and…killed them. A big ass highlight-and-delete action. And nothing had ever felt so good. We focus so much on quantity, word count, deadlines – that we forget the inherent value in ruthlessly murdering something we’ve created (and on occasion, in cold blood).

There’s more than 10,000 words in my life that need some killing off, mostly to make room for things that are worthwhile. My business is the same way. Now, to figure out the means. Hachet, .45 caliber, Chinese throwing stars, quarterstaff or dagger – they need to go and it won’t be pretty. But here’s the deciding factor: I can see everything I want and need standing right there behind all of these things that need to go. The problem is that all these shitty, obstructive and demanding things are keeping me from getting a clear line of sight the the things I hold most dear. And that’s gotta stop.

I can see them through the sea of quantity (not quality), excuses, delays, Pick Mes, Hey Yous and I Hate These, so I think it’s best to mow them own like something out of a Michael Bay flick and get on with the business of life and business the way I’d rather have them…instead of the way I’ve let them become. And if I spent more time on killing things off actively then letting them die on the vine, well, that’s energy well-spent.

Kill, kill, kill.

(coffee’s ready)