1. How to put together a good staff: The staff is the engine that runs a business. Staff includes officers, managers, professionals, and support employees. Without a good staff, the company will not produce good work. In my case, I typically assemble my staff from the top down. I look for a leader who is self-motivating and who I can trust and delegate the day-to-day operations to. I learned this lesson from reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad; I did not get into entrepreneurship to work harder and longer than everyone else, that, I did as an employee for many years. I got involved in entrepreneurship to work smarter and build a business with a well-trained staff that can function smoothly and let them do their job. This frees me up from the day-to-day involvement, which in turn allows me to focus on other fruitful ventures. I train my staff leader and communicate constantly, but remotely, with them. I base my staff changes on accountability and production. I get involved mostly when I see a problem that needs correcting. A good leader who can manage their staff is essential for this type of arrangement. I am blessed to have found that combination a few times in my entrepreneurial venture. Once I find the right leader, I surround them with hard workers who are eager to learn and allow them input on staff decisions. A support staff should be versatile and work well together. I have let many staff members go due to lack of chemistry and effort. It is not easy to find the right mix, but whenever I do, and there has been much turnover, I make it a point to value them and reward them properly.

2. How to make the company run smooth: Management is the oil that keeps the engine running smooth. Company management includes managing office, cash flow, clients, projects, employees, payroll, contract workers, and profit. Without good management, the company will break down. In my case, I have a very relaxed management style that incorporates trust, but verify. I have broken down the areas of management into the preceding categories and, throughout the years, I have developed proprietary spreadsheets that allow me to analyze data regarding the company’s production based on extremely specific information. I use that data to make my management decisions. Information such as: how long does it take a project to complete from the date the initial contact is made to the day the project is delivered, and every step in between? This information can help you decide which projects are more profitable. How long does it take each client to pay an invoice? This information can help you manage cash flow. Which clients ask for tasks to be performed outside of the original scope? This information can help you price a project more precisely. As an example: I analyze employee production based on billable hours versus salary to gage employee efficiency. That helps me gage the efficiency and effectiveness of each employee. I analyze project profitability by looking at fee charged versus overhead to gage the multiplier. The multiplier is “the factor by which the return deriving from an expenditure exceeds the expenditure itself.” If I charge 1,500 U.S. dollars for a service and that service costs me 500 U.S. dollars in salary to perform, not including the general overhead, that equates to a multiplier of three. That multiplier is what you will use to pay for the cost of the general overhead. This is a simple method used to understand how much to charge for your services where you can control the profit depending on market conditions, including what people are willing to pay for that service. Your overhead are the expenses incurred in performing the service, and they incorporate more than just salary expense. If your income equals your expenses, you break even, and you have a multiplier of one. Managing a business properly requires information and how you process that information, and what you derive from that information is key to how you should manage your company.

3. How to network: Networking is the spark plug that ignites the fuel to get the engine running. Without networking, the company will run out of fuel. In my case, I never really learned to network until I started my own firm. Networking is all about doing your research on a target and having a plan. It does not mean having a drink with friends at a function or conversely approaching everyone you see and blurting out what you do and asking that person if they can use your services. It requires more subtlety. It is about building a rapport, finding something in common with someone, getting to know them, and then finding a way to have a mutually beneficial working relationship. Where you network is also important. Try to target areas that will include people that you already have something in common with.

4. How to originate business: Originating business is the fuel that feeds the engine. It involves finding new clients and projects. Without originating business, the company will stall. In my case, I find that there is no substitute for face-to-face meetings. I feel that I am the best at what I do and have been doing it for some time that there is no reason that I should not be able to close the deal. Especially, since like the Godfather, I make them an offer that they cannot refuse. I guarantee to save them money without loss of quality, and in fact, with improvement of quality of service. I ask in return, that they provide me with bulk work. I can guarantee to save them money because, I do this for only for my bread and butter work for which I can train and supervise interns to perform the work. I utilize the more experienced individuals for the more profitable projects. It is important to originate a good foundation of repeat and cookie cutter-type work to maintain a steady cash flow.

5. How to innovate: Innovation are the wheels that keep the company moving forward. Innovating means coming up with new ideas. Without innovation, the company will not move forward. In my case, I am constantly seeking to identify and implement new strategies. I am always looking to improve on existing methods or ideas. As a young engineer, I introduced computer-aided design and drafting to the firm I worked for, I updated their accounting software, streamlined their calculations and drawing templates, developed a more concise report outline, and improved communications. There is always room for improvement, you must think on it and find it.

1. Their future: Most entrepreneurs do not take their future for granted nor do they let outside influences dictate their future. They do not go with the flow and let life take them wherever it wants. To the contrary, they fight against external forces that lead them in a direction not conducive to success. They take control of their own future. They do this through resilience to setbacks, by understanding what is required to succeed based on examples in history, by setting goals, and planning and preparing to attain them. They think about their future, lay it out in front of them, and plan it out. They ask themselves: What do I want to do with my life? How long do I want to do it for? Where do I want to be in 5, 10, or 15 years? In my case, I must break it down into before entrepreneurship and after entrepreneurship. I started my firm in 2009. Prior to that, I had not thought much about my future. Once I opened my own firm and learned what it takes to be successful, I started to take back control from the external forces that were steering my life. I created a plan, wrote it down, checked it often to gage my progress, and charged ahead. There were setbacks along the way, but I improvised, adapted, and overcame all the hurdles that threatened to derail my future goals.

2. Their family and loved ones: Embarking in entrepreneurship is not a one-person show. The decisions that you make will affect your family and those you love. Entrepreneurs must take that into account when making life-altering decisions and taking risks. Entrepreneurs include their families and loved ones in their decision-making process or at the very least keep them well informed and prepare them for the potential hurdles that may pop up along the way. Entrepreneurs also think of how to manage their time between work and spending quality time with their loved ones. Entrepreneurship is not a 9 to 5 job where you can clock out and forget about work, free to focus on other things. It is 24/7. Entrepreneurs think about creating a good balance between work life and family life. Part of an entrepreneur’s goal with respect to their family is to ensure financial security and the time commitment involved is the price they must pay. In my case, when I became an entrepreneur, I got a lot of support from my wife. It was she who nudged me into entrepreneurship. She was by my side figuratively and financially, through the good and bad times, and there were more bad times than good at the beginning. There was financial hardship, arguments about time commitments, quarrels over consequences of my decisions that affected her, and so on. She understood that the sacrifices I was making and the decisions I was taking were taken with the best intentions regardless of the outcome. Despite the numerous quarrels, I credit her faith in me for the success that we were able to achieve. I was even able to impart some of my entrepreneurial concepts to her, for use in her career, a successful lawyer, such as networking effectively, involvement with the community, job origination, effective communications, and so forth. She is my inspiration for success and the glue that holds my goals together.

3. How and what to invest in: Entrepreneurs do not like to part with their money, unless it will result in making them more money. Therefore, they are constantly thinking about money. They think about how and what to invest in to help them reach their goals and attain success. Entrepreneurs focus on opportunities and how to use other people’s money to make more money for themselves. They take advantage of loans, market trends, tax deferred investments, real estate, small side business ventures, and so on. Perhaps, more importantly, entrepreneurs think about how to invest in themselves through education, their associations, their credentials, and their name. A more in-depth explanation will be provided in Chapter 6 (Focus on Investing, Not on Consuming). I keep hearing the saying that money cannot buy happiness. That is true. However, that is based on your definition of happiness. If happiness for you is living off the land, being off grid, getting by with the bare minimum, more power to you. You do not need money. Even for most of us, those who have a different definition of happiness, money still cannot buy happiness. However, our aim is not money, rather the opportunities that it can afford and the doors it can open that can lead us to our unique definition of happiness, and, most importantly, it can provide access to entrepreneurship, which can afford us the freedom to live life under our terms and not those set by other people. If you have money and are not happy, then perhaps your definition of happiness is not the right one for you. Life is full of successful yet unhappy people. In my opinion, it is not the money that made them so, it is their definition of success and their definition of happiness that has influenced their state of mind. In my case, I have invested heavily in myself by creating a name in my profession and building a brand as an expert in the hurricane mitigation field. I have done this by constantly raising awareness of my profession by active participation in technical committees, writing articles in trade publications, presenting webinars, writing, and presenting technical papers, appearing on television news stories, podcasts, and so forth. Those efforts extend beyond my profession into the entrepreneurship realm by becoming an author on the topic who tirelessly promotes entrepreneurship and constantly is mentoring young students and professionals, presenting to student and professional organizations, judging business plan pitches, and so forth. All the aforementioned is an investment in myself and my brand. They all require time and effort. None of which, except for a few of the webinars and royalties from book sales, have I ever been compensated for. I have also invested in myself by creating credentials, based on the aforementioned efforts, that include business owner, author, expert witness, public speaker, and mentor. Aside from the self-investments aforementioned, my other investment choices have included investing in my business, my, and my wife’s, 401K, and real estate. Almost all the investments involved utilizing, at least in part, other peoples’ money in the forms of conventional loans, hard money loans, and credit. I always took care and analyzed to make sure the cost of the credit or loan did not outweigh the potential gains.

4. How to build and nurture relationships: Entrepreneurs understand that business is about building relationships and relationship are about creating bonds. Those bonds are what will develop trust between you and your clients and is what will ultimately fuel your company’s growth. In most relationships, there are benefactors and beneficiaries. The benefactors provide the value and the beneficiaries derive the benefits. The best relationships, the ones that build the more solid bonds, are the mutually beneficial relationships. Ones where both sides share in the benefits. The one-sided relationships are not built on solid ground and are the ones most at risk to break down. If only one party derives benefit from their relationship with another, it will not be long until the party that does not derive the benefits seeks out a better arrangement. Entrepreneurs tend to focus on the mutually beneficial types of relationships and they make sure there is value that goes both ways. I have often heard the saying that “it’s not personal, it’s business.” I disagree with that assertion. I think business is personal. A client’s contracts are valuable to them, they are their assets. You must build trust with your clients for them to give you their contracts. What is more personal than being entrusted with someone else’s valuable assets? What I do agree with is that you must temper your emotions when doing business and never let them control your business decisions. Strong emotions, good or bad, can cloud judgment and get in the way of making smart choices. Another aspect about building relationships that entrepreneurs understand is to value all members of their client’s team, not only the principals. They focus on the entire team and treat them with equal attention and respect. They understand that the associates, in time, will be the people calling the shots either at their current firm, with another firm or their own firm. Entrepreneurs understand that they will be measured by how they treat everyone, not just how they treat the principals. It is those interpersonal relationships with everyone, on the other side, that could make the difference in securing new work from individuals they dealt with in the past. Entrepreneurs also understand that building lasting relationships is heavily dependent on their level of honesty and dependability. You can be the best technical option for the job, but if you are not dependable and use whatever means is necessary to land that first job with a client and then cannot back it up, that will be the last job you get with them. Therefore, entrepreneurs think about how to best manage their relationships with their clients to develop trust and dependability, even if it means having to say no on occasion if they feel they cannot meet the clients’ demands or time frames. Getting that project by whatever means necessary is good, unless you fail to deliver on your promises and then it only serves to injure your reputation. That is why, entrepreneurs think about building and nurturing their relationships with their clients. Emotional intelligence and self-awareness are extremely important in building relations and achieving success. (Read Emotional Intelligence: Why it Could Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman.) In my case, even when I was an employee, I always made it a point to get to know everyone on a project or on a site. I did not clock out at 5 p.m., even though I could without repercussions, when I knew that a client was depending on me to meet a certain deadline. I was always honest, when asked about deadlines and most of the times I under promised and tried to over deliver. On the flip side, there have been instances where, as a consultant, I must make recommendations on which vendors to use, and even though I knew who the best vendor, technically, was, I did not recommend them because of their lack of dependability. Building and nurturing relationships is a big reason I am successful in my field today. I understood that business is personal. Two very influential books that I highly recommend you read that have inspired me in my way of thinking are: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. I cannot tell you how to think about all the aforementioned, that is for you to decide. I can only tell you that you must think about it and provide you with examples of how and what I thought about as an entrepreneur, in the hopes that you can derive some small measure of beneficial advice from my examples.

5. How to build their brand: Entrepreneurs understand that they are the brand. They think about how to promote themselves and make a name for themselves to be considered an expert in their field. Becoming known as an expert and creating credentials is key to building a good brand. One of the best ways to go about building your brand is by giving back. If you take the time to demonstrate your expertise by giving back to the community and your profession and you consider it as an investment in yourself versus seeking to be compensated for it, it will pay off in the long run. It is important to choose the right forums in which to give back. A more in-depth explanation will be provided in Chapter 12 (Create and Cultivate Your Brand) and Chapter 11 (Giving Back). In my case, I have accomplished this mostly by giving back, as mentioned in the preceding section three where I discussed self-investment.