A chance meeting with an old mentor and a timely highlight in a vendor's monthly newsletter remind me that not all lessons about securing value directly relate to security.
I met with a business mentor of mine that just recently I reminisced about when I was interviewed for a spotlight article for a vendor's newsletter. The key takeaway from the reminisced war story was that we didn't need investment money to build value in our business, just a plan and execution. Had he taken some ownership to bring us along, our execution wouldn't have been as strong and we would have lost value.
Here is a direct lift from a spotlight on my company, Jacadis, in Beanstalk CFO monthly newsletter "Beans Talk":
Beans Talk: Best Advice
We asked Doug Davidson, President/CEO of Jacadis, a strategic IT security solutions provider, and 6 year Beanstalk CFO client, to answer a few questions on the best advice he ever got. Here’s what he had to say.
What’s the best business advice you ever got?
When we first were thinking about starting Jacadis we thought we needed money. I asked a prior boss if he would be interested in funding us, angel investor style. He didn’t say yes or no, but invited me to put together a plan with my business partner and come to his house to present it over dinner. Several slices of pizza and a thick slide deck later he said “Looks like a good plan. Why do you need money? Why don’t you just go do it?” We needed a plan, not money.
What’s the best move you made in your business over the last 3 years?
In October, 2008 with all the campaign rhetoric and negative economic news, we gathered the team and declared that we would not be participating in a downturn. While the economy might mean we’d have to work harder we were not going to use the downturn as an excuse for failure. We committed that the team would remain intact regardless of the company’s situation, that every single person was important and no one, as long as they did their jobs, would be let go as a way to reduce costs. And we meant it. The entire team worked hard, closing 2008 as a record year and closing 2009 even bigger.
What’s the best business book you’ve read in the past 3 years?
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm by Verne Harnish is that book. It taught me that growth cycles in emerging businesses are very rapid. To support them, planning and goal setting needs to be focused on a 3-month horizon, NOT the traditional annual planning period. I apply this lesson in my business when our management team sets quarterly goals for sales, service delivery, innovation, training, financials, etc. We pick a top 5 as well as a top 1 of 5 (the KEY goal) and then share the goals with the all the employees in a quarterly all hands meeting. We openly share successes and failures against previous quarters’ goals. We make those goals a part of company culture, and everyone works together to meet them.
Is there anything else you feel should be passed on to fellow entrepreneurs?
I work with executives who are nervous that their company's critical data might be exposed and are scared they are not compliant with government rules and regulations. I find most don’t understand the criticality of information security. Most agree that customer trust and financial integrity are critical to their business. All agree that the office or store doors and cash box need to be under lock and key. Few argue that the lights, phones and computers need to come on when work starts each day. But many think information security, which is protecting the confidentiality, integrity and availability of their critical information while also addressing government, and sometimes customer obligations, is a distraction, bother or obstacle. That is until they have an information loss. Entrepreneurs need to identify the value of the information within their business, understand the risks to that information and understand that securing it is not just a computer problem. I blog on this topic at www.secure-value.com.
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