Came across this excerpt from a book that I’m reading. The comment was in reference to some of the decisions and the decision making process that high growth CEOs face.
“CEOs should not play the odds.
When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it.
You just have to find it.
It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.”
It couldn’t be more true.
For those of you that don’t know, I’m involved in a number of different associations and one of the perks of generally being an engaged member is that I get to meet some really interesting and fascinating people. One of these organisations is called Entrepreneurs Organisation (EO) where I sit on the board and am responsible for the Marketing & Communications portfolio.
One of the EO products that I organize is called “In the Boardroom”. It’s an event whereby I invite a successful entrepreneur to an exclusive experience sharing session with EO members.
The last “In the Boardroom” event was with South Africa’s top family and celebrity lawyer Billy Gundelfinger.
As part of the event organising process, I always go to the invited entrepreneurs office for a one on one briefing session before the event. Sitting with Billy and talking about his life, he told me a story about his father Max and ended the story with a little gem that I thought is well worth sharing. Billy explained that his father used to say with reference to a persons character: “Show me who your friends, colleagues and business associates are; and I’ll show you who you are”.
The words hit me like a ton of bricks. Immediately I started to evaluate my own life based on the company I keep.
I think its important to acknowledge that as you go through life – I would say +- 10 years after school is the turning point – you start to shed the people in your life who you lack commonality with. You tend to be friendly, network and build business relationships with people who you share common values and ethics with.
I think Max Gundelfinger’s wise words are a good litmus test for yourself, every couple of years.
I love learning from other entrepreneurs. The other day, I learned a lesson from an entrepreneur that I have massive respect for.
First, some context.
Demographica and his company are in the early stages of doing some work together. We have a new product that he likes and he has a hugely successful business with some clients that our new product would connect to perfectly.
Like all shrewd businessmen, he wanted to do his research as well as totally understand the structure and various applications of the new product – in order to do this, he needed conversation time with me. Over a period of 3 days, he called me 6 times, sent me 5 sms’s and we exchanged about 4 emails – that’s a total of 15 conversations in 3 days.
Not for one second did I feel ‘hounded’ or ‘pestered’ by him – in fact, he made me feel that he genuinely wanted something to happen with this new product of ours and his authenticity and tenacity was something that I admired. Bottom line – he made me want to do business with him – because I felt that he genuinely believed in what Demographica and his company could do together.
A few days later I asked him about his deal making style, and he introduced me to a concept that his company uses internally – it’s called ‘Dogfuck’.
I googled ‘Dogfuck’ and you can imagine what it showed me.
He explained to me that when a dog wants to mate, there is nothing that will stop that dog from mating. You can hold the dog back, you can push the dog away, but at the end of the day – the dog will mate!
When they interview potential employees, there is a rating on the HR form whereby the interviewer rates the interviewee on a scale of 1-10 on his/her level of ‘Dogfuck’.
The lesson here is clear – potential customers will knock you down, reject you and give you a million reasons why they wont meet you or buy your product or service – but the deal makers with a high rating on the ‘Dogfuck’ scale will eventually close the deal.
I often get asked my opinion on what books to read by people who are either starting or building a business. The truth is that there are a plethora of amazing books that are available, the difficulty is finding the ones that offer a solution to your problems. The even bigger challenge is actually knowing what your business or personal problems are.
Here are some recommendations that have truly helped and inspired me:
Enjoy and good luck.