Over the last 20 years, one observation I have gained from working with startup companies, or any company, is the failure of management to assign the right talent for the right roles. A serial entrepreneur told me once, “You can take my ideas, money, computers, equipment, buildings and people and if you only let me have one back, I’ll take my people. I will then restart my business and make better and stronger. You can have the rest.”

So, it cannot be emphasized too strongly the purpose of a business plan is to first and foremost demonstrate you and your management team, Board of Directors and Advisors have the skills, experience and capabilities to start, launch and grow your company.

Through your Business Plan, you demonstrate your business has:

• A robust management team.
• Sufficient demand for our product.
• Sustainable competitive advantage.
• Realistic goals & objectives.
• Well thought out financials.
• The Business Plan also shows investors it has:
• Focus. Too many Business Plans promise too much, too soon.
• A well thought out roadmap to an exit strategy.
• Realistic financial forecasts that show acceptable return to your investors.
• Funding needs that support the forecast.

Some resources:

• Angel Investor Network www.angel-investor-network.com
• Capital Vector (Venture Capital directory) www.capitalvector.com
• Keiretsu Forum SoCal www.keiretsusocal.com
• Los Angeles Venture Association www.lava.org
• Maverick Angels www.maverickangels.com
• Pasadena Angels www.pasadenaangels.com
• Tech Coast Angels www.techcoastangels.com

Mike spent fourteen years in corporate America with Bendix and Allied Signal corporations. Positions he held included divisional chief marketing officer, new product development manager, marketing channel manager, national sales manager, marketing communications manager and acquisition manager, . Since 1989, he has been in the consulting industry. Of Mike’s current clients, three are start up firms. He holds a B.S., Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA), and a M.B.A. from Loyola Marymount University, (Los Angeles, CA), and is certified by the Center for Creative Leadership (Greensboro, North Carolina) to conduct 360º leader assessment and development programs.

It was an exciting night for the Symbiocracy team. We showcased our company and celebrated the launch of our brand new website to over 300 startups and investors. The team had a great time “Schmoozing” with the guests and met a lot of great people.

Here are some photos from the event:

The Symbiocracy cell phone holders were released, and will be coming soon to a desk near you!

Joseph Sarmiento, Alex Scoble and Moriah Harris-Rodger

Symbiocracy and LAVA: Moriah Harris-Rodger, Michael Miller, John Dmohoswki and Alex Scoble

Symbiocracy with the guy who created the school search tool on MySpace (Moriah expressed her gratitude) and MySpace's technical relationship manager at Schmoozd Event

Symbiocracy.com and its Symbiotic Relationships: Jennifer Oki and Mike Miller

Crowd at the Schmoozd Event at Wokcano

Just recently, I, along with some really good people, have started to push Symbiocracy forward to a new level, beyond my consulting, workshops and blog. I am really excited that I will now be able to help clients to get further along in their whole internet strategy. An integral component will be a partnership with a well-known and respected technology team, who can deliver the products that businesses need to compete with the global marketplace.

One of the first steps is an updated site that speaks more to our business direction and  capabilities. As a preview of things to come, once the partnerships are finalized our services will include all of the following:

• Strategic social enterprise business plans
• Website branding
• Website architecture
• Website user interface
• Website monetization strategies
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Basic and high-level website creation
• Social media strategy and development
• Social media application creation
• Social media implementation coaching
• Email marketing strategy, development and deployment
• Logos and corporate identity
• Display advertisement design
• Contextual advertisement strategy
• iPhone and iPad applications
• Cause marketing strategy
• Brainstorming

I recently invited Rod Skidmore, VP of US Bank and member of the Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise, to speak at one of my Rotaract meetings on the topic of effective professional communication. Not only was he a dynamic and passionate speaker, his advice showcases what it truly means to be a Rotarian. As follows is my summary of his presentation:

• Tell the truth. Be an honest person. Don’t lie, even when you are told to.
• Look things up when you aren’t sure. Be resourceful.
• Share your happiness with others. Smile when you speak on the phone.
• Ask questions and be generally inquisitive. Don’t think you know everything.
• Admit your mistakes and be humble.
• Consider where other people are coming from. Don’t make assumptions.
• Listen to others, both their verbal and non-verbal communication.
• Admit when you don’t know the answer and be open to feedback.
• Be genuinely appreciative of anyone and everyone who does something for you. Don’t make people regret being nice to you.
• Move things forward. Ask for the sale/next meeting/etc. Be interested in and focused on the task at hand.
• Do the right thing.
• Be someone people like and check to make sure it’s working.
• It’s not about you. It’s about everyone else around you.

The points Rod made aren’t about just being an effective communicator in business or life. This is about who to BE, and the internal conversations you have with yourself. Once you ARE the person who is honest, grateful and has compassion, others will respond well to you.

The Three Signs of a Miserable Job

I recently encountered the book The Three Signs of a Miserable Job by Patrick Lencioni, and I was pleasantly surprised by his insight. He points out the three things managers can do so that their employees are fulfilled at work.

According to Lencioni, the three signs are anonymity, irrelevance and immeasurement. So, in order to do your part in keeping your employees happy, these should be your three goals:

1. Care about who your employees are personally and act in a way that acknowledges it. Talk to them about who they are as people. Also, encourage your employees to get to know each other.

People need to feel known. If they don’t feel like anybody even knows their name, then they won’t think anybody will notice if they don’t show up the next day.

2. Show your employees that what they do matters to others, that they impact their communities and/or the company’s customers.

There is no point spending 40 hours of a week doing something if it doesn’t affect anyone. Each employee of a company should have a reason to be there, but that reason may have been forgotten along the way. Remind yourself why each person is there and then remind each person how important they are to the system. And, if an employee deals with the public, remind them how much they affect those people, companies or communities. Make their contributions worth it to them.

3. Give your employees ways of measuring their own success.

Your employees success should not be dependent on your objective opinion. Give them a way to independently measure their job so that they would be able to see on their own if their performance is acceptable. And, when choosing the criteria for this assessment, really put thought into it. Just because there is an easy thing for that employee to measure, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that item is correlated to their success.

In all honesty, I haven’t done this for all of my employees. Until this book, I don’t know if I would have considered the importance of these three items. However, I can vividly remember the unhappiness of the employees who did experience anonymity, irrelevance and/or immeasurement. I knew at the time that something wasn’t quite right, but couldn’t put my finger on it.

Now that I have this tool, it will be much easier to not only keep employees happy, but to keep them excited about their jobs. They deserve to want to come to work everyday, and I deserve employees who are in a position that they will do their best.

Who benefits?

The company – the company will have a lower turnover rate and will employees who are more dedicated to the company.

The employees – the employees will enjoy their jobs.

Customers – happy employees will provide better customer service.