NZ Entrepreneur – Issue 37

NEW ZEALAND’S E-MAG FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND BUSINESS OWNERS

December 2015

The

ART of

FLOW

10

with

Richard Liew

QUESTIONS

Founder of Espire Media & NZ Entrepreneur

Start As You Mean To Go On

Getting More Visibility Doesn’t Have To Cost The Earth Market Matters Most - How To Size Up Yours www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

ABOUT / Short and sharp, New Zealand Entrepreneur is a free e-magazine delivering thought

CONTENTS

provoking and enlightening articles, industry news and information to forward-thinking entrepreneurs.

EDITOR / Jennifer Liew ART DIRECTOR / Jodi Olsson

4

From the Editor

GROUP EDITOR / Colin Kennedy

6

Start as you mean to go on

CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER /

12

The Art of Flow: 10 Questions with Richard Liew

CONTENT ENQUIRIES /

22

More Visibility, More Business Doesn’t Need to Cost the Earth

24

Time to Take Advantage Entrepreneurial Spirit in the Primary Industries

28

3 Sales Follow Up Strategies To Replace ‘Touching Base’

30

Entrepreneurial Intelligence

32

Market Matters Most

36

Three Highlights From Live the Dream’s First Two Weeks

2 • www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz

Alastair Noble

Phone Jennifer on 0274 398 100 or email jennifer@nzentrepreneur.co.nz ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES / Phone Kristin Harper on 021 905 830 or email kristinh@espiremedia.com WEBSITE / nzentrepreneur.co.nz

ISSN 2253-5683 NZ Entrepreneur is a GREEN MAG created and distributed without the use of paper so it’s environmentally friendly.

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EDITORIAL

THERE’S A REAL variety of good stuff to wrap up 2015 in this issue. At this stage of the year we’re all well and truly ready to celebrate the holiday season and put our feet up for a bit. If there’s one message I’d like to share before the year is out, it would be to make sure you make the most of some real R&R, make it your number one priority.

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Pretty hard to start off the New Year with a bang when you’re exhausted and haven’t recovered from the last.

A big thanks to all our wonderful contributors and followers for your support in 2015. Have a wonderful Christmas everyone and enjoy the holiday season!

Jennifer Liew

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www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 5

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON...

Having the right mindset and building a solid foundation is critical for your business to grow.

Jo Hutchison from Great Spirit shares her insights with us as well as a great example of entrepreneurs walking the talk.

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REGARDLESS OF WHAT your big dream is, there is one thing that you will need to do and do well to achieve it. Engage people. No dream is achieved on our own – there are always others that we need in order to realise it - be it staff, investors, customers, people with specialist knowledge or our very own family and friends.

There are different stages of growth that our businesses undergo. In the beginning, we have an idea, a purpose or passion that inspires us to

take action. We may begin on our own as a solopreneur or we may find others who join us in our quest, who are in alignment with our shared purpose or ideal.

In those early days, we often end up doing everything ourselves as we usually don’t have all the resources we need so the spare room, the garage and attic are often our humble beginnings. As we grow, we discover growing pains and new challenges.

Trying to do everything ourselves becomes much

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harder and more stressful.

It’s about here that things can get unstuck. We need different foundations in place to support the business growth, and we are sometimes made painfully aware of our shortcomings be it the way we think, lead or engage others.

I believe the most important thing is to have a growth mindset that contains

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a healthy dose of selfawareness, resilience and being open to the change that growth brings.

EcoZip is one entrepreneurial story that is inspiring and a great example of these qualities in action. They started by building a solid foundation that has then allowed them to learn, grow and evolve quickly into a premier zip-

lining experience and visitor destination on Waiheke Island. They first opened their doors just three years ago, and now over 32,000 people have zip-lined through their spectacular landscape. An incredible achievement!

I was lucky enough to meet their Managing Director Gavin Oliver at a tourism forum a year ago and have since been intrigued not only by their rapid growth but also their approach.

Started by three friends, they have played to their strengths and built a highly

skilled team that lives and breathes the passion and vision of the founders. They are a tight-knit team where diversity is embraced.

Their relationships are founded on a deep binding trust in each other, openness to giving and receiving feedback and a commitment to continuous improvement.

No stone is left unturned, and they continue to go from strength to strength.

They embody and embrace the entrepreneurial mindset of growth through selfawareness, resilience and evolution.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 9

Here are my top three tips:

1 Start as you mean to go on Put the right foundations in place as early on as you can. It will save you time in the long run so things like getting the right people on board, being clear about your values, the way you operate your business and standardising processes around key customer touch-points.

2 Know thyself Your strengths and weaknesses.

Not everyone is cut out for everything so build a team that complements your strengths. Get help from a coach or mentor to help you as a leader and grow your people as you grow your business.

3 Be relentless in trying new things out Listen to your customers but also learn from other industries or companies that you admire. Your business is as unique as you are and there is no one way. ■

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Jo Hutchinson is passionate about helping people ‘flourish’ as leaders in their life, work and business. To flourish is to grow, evolve and prosper and she provides Coaching, Mentoring and Facilitation services to entrepreneurs and small businesses.

See more at www.greatspirit.co.nz

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Check out our blog for content marketing advice, tips and ideas, plus a free copy of our content marketing guide The Content Creation Cookbook!

INTERVIEW

The

ART of

FLOW

10

QUESTIONS

with Richard Liew

To round off the year, we spoke to Richard Liew, founder of NZ Entrepreneur and NZ Sales Manager magazines and founder and CEO of digital media company Espire Media. Espire Media is a specialist digital publishing and content marketing company that serves businesses in New Zealand and overseas.

You’ve started four businesses over the last 15 years. Can you tell us a bit about how your entrepreneurial career started?

I have always wanted to live life on my terms and of all the ways to earn time and money freedom, building businesses has

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always appealed the most.

But it was actually out of desperation that my first entrepreneurial venture was started back in 2000. As they say, “Necessity is the mother of invention!”. Long story short, I did a finance degree but after three years

working as an accountant, I realised I was hating it.

I was 23 at the time and thought that learning how to sell would probably be a good idea if I wanted to be in business. For six months I applied for every B2B sales job I could find and got rejected every time because I was an accountant with no sales experience.

One day I bought an awesome book called “Money, Success and You”

by John Kehoe and after a month studying it and examining some of my beliefs, I realised the best way for me to get some sales experience was to just build something and sell it.

So I handed in my notice at my accounting job, built a package of spreadsheets for small business owners, and my first business Spreadsheet Solutions was born. I cold called and sold it to business owners and real estate agents, and it made enough to pay the rent for a year. Not only did it give me a year’s worth of sales experience to put on my CV but it was also my first taste

of being fully responsible for my own income. If I didn’t sell, I didn’t eat!

I then spent the next few years in ICT sales and what I learnt opened the doorway to my second business, a specialist sales training and recruitment firm. We had no recruitment or sales training experience other than as salespeople ourselves, but we soon had some of New Zealand’s biggest companies as clients.

We ran this for five years and then the GFC hit, at which time we took stock, assessed the lessons we had learnt and made the decision to exit the recruitment industry and instead looked at building a membership-based learning and development organisation for salespeople.

Our small team was too under-resourced and pulled the plug after two years. By this time I had launched NZ Sales Manager mag to help inspire and nurture New Zealand’s sales people and that then led to creating Espire Media, which we have been building since.

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What’s the hardest or most painful lesson/s you have had to learn so far.

That’s going to be hard because there’s been so many!

What was the reason and vision behind starting NZ Entrepreneur?

I believe that success in any area of life starts with selfdevelopment. So just like I did for the sales profession with NZ Sales Manager, I wanted New Zealand’s aspiring entrepreneurs to have some sort of publication that they knew was there to help inspire, encourage and educate them on their journey. It has become clear to me that in order for New Zealand to build bigger and better businesses, we must first build bigger and better entrepreneurs. So I guess NZ Entrepreneur is my little contribution towards helping this happen.

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Worst experience: Having to sit two senior employees down on payday and tell them that we could not meet payroll for the month.

I was 29 at the time, and these ladies were mid-40’s and mid-50’s respectively.

While it was bad debts from a couple of big clients that led to the problem with cashflow, I felt like a complete loser for not having a plan in place for these situations. One of the ladies had a family, and I got justifiably angry calls from her husband over the next couple of days. The other was on her own with no other support and was in tears. That experience really gave me a wake-up call.

Lesson learnt: People are relying on you so if you are unwilling to accept the responsibility you need to get out before you cause too much damage.

What do you think it takes to be a successful entrepreneur?

Ha! Maybe ask me in a few more years? No, from my personal experiences, and what I have observed, a business is only as good as the entrepreneurs behind it and there are three fundamental personal qualities that are essential.

1. Courage. The courage to believe that you deserve and can achieve the life you dream of. The courage to take the actions you will need to make it happen. The courage to stand up to the bullies, sharks and detractors you will meet along the way.

Why courage? Because entrepreneurship requires you to constantly take actions and make decisions that are outside of your comfort zone, experience or knowledge. Most of the time you will not have all the info you need to make a risk-free decision, and most people can’t handle this. In order to expand your reality, you need to keep pushing through the limits

of your current reality and for most people it is easier to simply stay within the comfort zone they know.

2. The ability to learn quickly. Someone said, “I never lose - I either win, or I learn” and this to me is the epitomy of the formula for entrepreneurial success. There are a series of rules and principles that must be mastered and it is your job as an aspiring entrepreneur to learn these as soon as possible. So your ability to learn from your experiences is critical.

Whether it’s something that worked or something that didn’t, you need to always be asking “What can I learn from this?”. Entrepreneurship is like a video game. The quicker you learn, the quicker you can overcome whatever challenges are in your way and progress to the next level, where of course some other problems or challenges will pop up. Some people refuse to learn and get stuck at the same level.

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3. Tenacity. If the basic formula is ‘set a goal, take action, learn, repeat until success’, you need the tenacity and determination to hang in there for as long as it takes.

It’s important to remember that the majority of successful entrepreneurs have taken years, often decades, and numerous

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failures to achieve the success they are recognised for. The media loves ‘firsttime entrepreneur makes it big’ stories but don’t let them fool you into thinking that is the way it has to be for you. Entrepreneurship is not just a job - it’s a way of life, so you need to be prepared to spend the whole of your life working towards success if that’s what it takes.

“

“

I believe there is nothing that you need to learn to be successful in entrepreneurship that has not been written down.

Who are some of your heroes or inspirations?

Actually, I have heaps of heroes, but most of them are non-business people. When things are tough, I try and put things in perspective by reflecting on their challenges, achievements and attitudes. Some are Bruce Lee, Billy Corgan, Kurt Cobain, Goldie, Richard Branson, Roger Hamilton, Jim Rohn, Seth Godin, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, Edmund Hilary, Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela...

Some Kiwi entrepreneurs I am inspired by include Rod Drury, Ray Avery, Bill Buckley, Victoria Ransom, Jeremy Moon, Glenn Martin.

Actually, pretty much any Kiwi out there doing their best to make things happen.

You’re a keen reader - what books would you recommend for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Yeah, I believe there is nothing that you need to learn to be successful in entrepreneurship that has not been written down.

So taking time to seek out as much knowledge and inspiration as you can just makes sense. Some of the books I recommend every time are: • Wink and Your Life, Your Legacy by Roger Hamilton • 7 Principles of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey • Think and Grow Rich

by Napoleon Hill • How To Win Friends and Influence People

by Dale Carnegie • How To Get Rich

by Felix Dennis

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With Espire Media you made a conscious decision to build a ‘virtual’ business - how is that working out and do you have any advice for other entrepreneurs looking at the same model?

Basically, we wanted to build a lean business that allows team members to work from wherever they want, without being restricted to a traditional office structure where everyone has to come into an office and look busy from 8 to 5 every day. Instead, we have a culture built around performance and efficiency.

As a result, we have team members (all Kiwi’s) who currently choose to live in Auckland, Wellington, Bali, Singapore, Edinburgh and in the new year, our family will be moving to Wanaka to enjoy the offerings down there for a few years.

There are certainly some challenges but with the cloud-based tools now available it’s very doable, and we serve clients overseas just as easily as we do for our clients throughout New Zealand.

The biggest challenge

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is communication. In an office, a lot of information gets shared just by osmosis - general chit chat and that kind of thing. With a virtual business, you don’t get that, so you need to be more diligent about communicating and ensuring everyone has access to the information they need.

Where do you get your ideas from?

Well, I’m not an inventor or a technical person, so I’ve never really just had any great ideas. Rather I’ve looked for problems related to whatever sphere I’ve been working in and looked to create a business around it.

For example, as an accountant, I saw how much small business owners were paying in accounting fees because of unorganised expenses. So I created a solution to address it. Once I got into sales I saw how existing recruitment firms were failing sales managers and business owners when helping recruit salespeople so we created a business to do that. Through our

“

When what you’re working on doesn’t seem like work you know you are in your flow. You’re hugely productive and you don’t have to think about what you’re doing as you’re completely in the moment.

“

experience in training and recruitment we saw that there was a need for a learning and development organisation for the sales profession so we attempted to solve that problem.

As part of trying to help salespeople learn more I saw that there was a need for a dedicated publication so we started NZ Sales Manager. As a result of starting NZ Sales Manager I created Espire Media in order to do similar things for other interest groups.

I have just tried to go with the flow - one opportunity opens the door to the next. You just need to have the courage to step through the door.

People who know you know that one of your guiding principles is ‘flow’ - can you tell us a bit about this?

The concept of flow is nothing new but it is certainly one of the principles I have tried to live my life by, including in my entrepreneurial journey.

One of my heroes, Bruce Lee, talks about ‘being water’ - formless, shapeless flowing and crashing. Roger Hamilton’s Wealth Dynamics system for entrepreneurs is based on being in the flow “If it doesn’t flow, let it go” is one of the underpinning concepts of the system.

Sportspeople and artists will understand what it’s like to be in flow - also known as being in the zone. Time ceases to exist and everything seems to flow easily and effortlessly.

In terms of personal productivity it means playing to your strengths. When what you’re working on doesn’t seem like work you know you are in your flow.

You’re hugely productive and you don’t have to think about what you’re

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doing as you’re completely in the moment. Ideas for overcoming problems or challenges emerge without having to stress or obsess over them. But as soon as you start doing work you are not naturally suited to, you start to get bogged down, not sure about how to proceed, finding it difficult to get done.

When you’re out of your flow you’re forced to try and use your head to ‘figure it out’ because your intuition stops working. This is why it is essential you understand the value you bring to the table and build a team who can take care of the things outside your flow so that you can spend as much time as possible on the sort of work you are suited to.

In an entrepreneurial context, aside from personal productivity, this concept of going with the flow and learning to let go can be applied on a number of levels. For example, in sales, if a relationship or deal you are trying to build just seems

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to be hard work, let them go so you can find better quality opportunities.

If there is a team member who just doesn’t seem to fit in, let them go.

If there is a market opportunity, idea or product that seems to stall every step of the way, let it go.

Learning to let go will enable you to spend time on better quality people, relationships and opportunities. The problem is, as entrepreneurs we are a stubborn bunch and love a challenge, so we hate to quit on anything. The idea of giving up on anything feels like we’re losing, and so we dig our toes in even further, throwing even more time, effort and money at trying to make it work.

For whatever reason, consciously or subconsciously, I seem to have been attracted to past times and activities along these lines. Parkour and wingchun kung fu are all about finding flow, and I’m really looking forward to finding my flow on the slopes while we’re in Wanaka.

What’s the plan for the next few years?

Our focus for 2016 is just to continue building on the foundations we have in place now and ramping up the number of New Zealand customers we’re serving and the number of titles we’re putting out. We’ve had two planned funding rounds fall by the wayside in the last two years as the timing hasn’t quite been right, but once we’re comfortable we have the right model and right resource in place, we’ll be looking to Australia, South East Asia and the UK as our next addressable markets. No doubt something will come up!

Any last advice?

Firstly, be careful who you take advice from! When you know nothing, everyone sounds like an expert.

Say “No” more often.

Spreading your time, energy and focus across too many things will get you nowhere fast.

Learn how to sell.

Work harder on yourself than you do on your business.

Document every agreement that involves money, in writing.

Know your strengths and play to them. Delegate everything else to others ■

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MARKETING

More Visibility, More Business Doesn’t Need to Cost the Earth

You may already know that 93% of New Zealanders will research their buying decisions online before making a purchasing decision (that counts for business to business too).

BY Colin Kennedy

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MARKETING IS ALL ABOUT visibility. The more visibility you have, the more business you will do. People like to do business with people they know, like and trust and, in the words of sales guru Jack Daly: “Selling is the transfer of trust.

People do business with people they trust, and they get to trust the people the get to know… and they get to know the people they SEE more frequently”.

marketing, and there are three broad components to it: 1. Positioning (how you want to be perceived e.g. “The experts in pest control” (Rentokil) 2. Content creation (“How to avoid bed bugs” – a blog by Rentokil)

3. Syndication. In other words, how you distribute the information. This may include posting it to your So even Jack agrees… be seen, blog, Twitter, Facebook, be heard – with your existing online media, the local customers and your target newspapers, producing a market. Here’s how you do it: newsletter, a short video on your website and YouTube or I don’t have to tell you, though, writing a book. that it’s no use jumping up and down saying, “Look at me!

Perhaps one of the best things Look at me!” You have to have about content marketing is a reason to ‘show up’ or you’ll that it enables businesses of all end up being booed off the sizes to have an equal chance stage (unsubscribed, clicked, to compete for the valuable crumpled, switched off, deleted). attention and trust of their target One way to increase your visibility is to add value to your ‘audience’ by drawing on your experience, skills and knowledge to share tips, advice and stories that can help a person or organisation make better decisions about business or life. It’s called content

customers. This is because good content marketing does not have to be expensive. It simply requires some thought, a good knowledge of your customers (their ‘buyer personas’), and some commitment to putting out good content on a regular basis. ■

Colin Kennedy, Head of Content from Espire Media is a thought leader in content marketing strategy and communications in New Zealand. www.espiremedia.com

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 23

Tomorrow’s Entrepreneurs

*

Time to Take Advantage - Entrepreneurial Spirit in the Primary Industries With a projected period of growth in the Primary Industries over the next decade, the sector presents huge challenges and opportunities for the future of New Zealand entrepreneurship. As we move away from exporting unprocessed low-value products, and towards capturing the whole value chain onshore, the sector will demand more highly skilled workers and more support services and products. The kiwi entrepreneurial spirit will be needed more than ever before, to take advantage of the huge opportunities available and contribute to New Zealand’s economic sustainability.

Human Resources – A challenge

8 wire’ creativity and skill flexibility are incredibly important if we are going to According to a Ministry for fuel the growth of the Primary Primary Industries study Industries. NZ will require (Future capability needs for the primary industries in more ‘intrapreneurs’; people New Zealand, April 2014), by within organisations who 2525 New Zealand will need possess the skills and mindset to train 235,000 workers for of entrepreneurs. We’ll need the Primary Industries. This people who can innovate new is because of both growth (a products and processes, and net increase of 49,900), and more marketing and sales natural attrition of workers as capability as we expand into the ‘baby boom’ generation different markets. We will also retires. The demand will largely need more people who can focus on sales and marketing, manage fluctuating teams management and transport. of seasonal staff, and skills Entrepreneurial ‘number around resource management.

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Primary Industries Entrepreneurs– An opportunity Farms and horticultural units are tipped to grow, and require the development of huge numbers of support services and products. As we push towards exporting high-value products, the Primary sector will be full of opportunities for entrepreneurs to step in and fill niches up the value chain. Entrepreneurs will be central to the Primary Industries. There will be opportunities around the introduction of more complex farming technologies, growing Asia markets, biosecurity, sustainability, and environmental challenges. Kiwis have a

proud history of innovation and entrepreneurial values.

It is these values that we all need to foster, so the next generation of young New Zealanders are equipped to take advantage of the future opportunities.

Flatpak product.

We at Young Enterprise are determined to respond to this human resourcing challenge, by helping to develop young kiwi’s entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial skills.

Alongside our suite of programmes involving entrepreneurship, we work with Ministry for Primary Industries and DairyNZ, to run The EPIC Challenge – which encourages year 10 students to think about a Primary Industries career.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 25

Emily Tasker - Co-founder and CEO of Flatpak

“

You have to love what you do if you are going to spend your time and focus on it, but if you don’t look after yourself as well, you find you not only let yourself down but also your business.

“

Young Entrepreneur Spotlight Emily Tasker is an example of a young entrepreneur who has spotted an opportunity in the Primary Industries sector, and run with it! Emily is the co-founder and CEO of Flatpak, and alumni of The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme.

Flatpak is a successful startup, with a focus on storage and transport for the Primary Industries sector. The Flatpak Quady, their current product, is a flexible storage bag built to transport things safely on quad bikes and diminish the risk of quad bike accidents on farms. Flatpak has been in distribution talks with a major agricultural supplier and have plans to expand into a line of transport storage products over the next five years.

On her biggest challenge: “There has definitely been a lot of challenges on the way, but I think the hardest ones have been trying to find

some sort of life balance and voicing my own opinions rather than trying to find a solution that will please everything. I’ve learnt and are still learning to not be afraid to put myself first sometimes.

You have to love what you do if you are going to spend your time and focus on it, but if you don’t look after yourself as well, you find you not only let yourself down but also your business.”

On advice for other young entrepreneurs: “Always follow your heart and never be afraid to take a different or new path. We each have the ability to create/take on our own direction in life, and it is so much more fun when you are doing something you love. You don’t have to plan out every step along the way.

Enjoy the ride, set yourself some audacious goals and don’t feel afraid to try something new. It’s when you step outside of the ordinary that you are truly able to discover the extraordinary.”■

Check out www.flatpaknz.com to see what Emily and Flatpak are up to.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 27

SALES

3 SALES FOLLOW UP STRATEGIES TO REPLACE ‘TOUCHING BASE’ Here are three approaches that have worked for me:

WHEN YOU LEAVE messages like ‘i’m just touching base’, or use phrases like ‘checking in’, your prospect deletes them in a nanosecond. Worse yet, they see you as just another pesky salesperson. Clearly, that’s not good! Here’s the deal. To keep sales momentum alive, you need to provide value on every interaction – even a quick follow-up call. That means you need to rethink all your callback strategies.

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1

Re-emphasise the business value

Your prospects will only change because of the impact you can have on their organisation.

Reiterate it. Remind them of how you can help. You might say: “Pat, in our previous conversation you mentioned how important it was to get going on this soon so you could realise the savings (eliminate redundancies, drive incremental growth) that you need by year end. Let’s set up time to talk so we can get you moving forward”.

“

Sometimes your prospects are still asking themselves: “Does it make sense to move forward or not?”

From the outside, you won’t know. But you can keep giving them more reasons to change!

“

2

Share ideas and insights

Your prospects want to work with someone who’s constantly thinking about how they can improve their business. Be that person.

You might say: “Pat, I’ve been thinking more about how we can help you increase sales (reduce costs, speed up productivity).

I thought you might be interested in what we did with XYZ organisation when they were dealing with the same challenge. Do you have a few minutes for a quick conversation?”

3

Continue To Educate

Sometimes your prospects are still asking themselves: “Does it make sense to move forward or not?” From the outside, you won’t know. But you can keep giving them more reasons to change!

You might say: “Pat, I know it’s a big decision to change from the status quo. That’s why I thought you might be interested in this article (ROI calculator, case study, webinar, eBook) on (relevant topic). Let’s set up a time to talk through your questions.”

See the difference? You’re still providing value. Even though they said, they were interested.

Even though they told you to check back next week. Even though they told you it was a ‘slam dunk’ and they just needed to get the paperwork done.

Drop the ‘touching base’ and ‘checking in’ mentality from your vocabulary entirely. When making follow-up calls, become an asset in their decision process. That’s when they’ll want to work with you! ■

Sharing her fresh sales strategies, Jill Konrath helps salespeople to speed up new customer acquisition and win bigger contracts.

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 29

PERSONAL TRAINER

Entrepreneurial Intelligence

with SandyGeyer

I’m not sure if it’s just me that feels this way but why is it that most employees are so lazy and don’t use their common sense? What’s the point in hiring people when I just end up having to do their jobs for them? How do other employers do it? What am I missing here?

What you are missing is that leadership is everything in this area, and you are at the root of your problem. There is no doubt that it’s difficult to find committed people, and the work ethic, in general, seems to be getting worse, but we have to be responsible for who we take on. Here are some tips to employing the right people: Always hire the traits that are the hardest to teach ie. accountability, honesty and focus. The candidates need to prove these from previous work experience and their professional development journey so far.

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Check references carefully and make sure all periods of work are covered with references available. If they are late for the interview, misspell words in their CV, dress inappropriately or don’t communicate well - stay away from them. How they present themselves on their ‘best behavior (in an interview) is a very strong indication of what you might land up with and if you have a negative instinct, listen to it, even if they have the most impressive skills base. A very experienced entrepreneur once told me that if we take the time to

employ properly, management is easy, but it also works the other way round - and he was dead right.

Use employment tools such as personality profiles and proficiency testing. This gives you important insights into their strengths and motivations and a good idea of what they can actually do. Also, these insights assist you to manage them effectively and motivate them appropriately.

Don’t get too attached to your employees. Being the business owner can be lonely, and it’s tempting to befriend our employees; but at some point, someone has to be the boss and offer guidance, and maintaining a professional distance equips us far better to deal with employee-related issues appropriately as they come up.

Don’t take non-performance personally. In most cases nonBase their wages on performance is due to lack performance and not hours. of understanding, difference If you pay them to show up, of focus or unconscious it’s likely, that’s all they will do. incompetence. Try to get a Remunerating for performance good understanding of why creates a win-win situation the person is not performing from the start, and they are and deal with it constructively automatically incentivised to through better communication want to do well. and skill training, or start Unless your company requires termination proceedings if all else fails. Losing productivity access to facebook, twitter, and employees is distressing, etc. during working hours, but it’s all part of being a block these applications as they cause major loss of focus business owner and it’s seldom and productivity. a personal issue.■ In each issue, Sandy will be answering commonly asked questions from new entrepreneurs. If you have a question for Sandy to do with entrepreneurship, building successful businesses or the challenges and difficulties faced by entrepreneurs, email the editor at jennifer@nzentrepreneur.co.nz Sandy Geyer is an entrepreneur and mentor and teaches the principles of entrepreneurial intelligence (EnQ), to entrepreneurs in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. You can visit Sandy’s website at www.enqpractice.com

www.nzentrepreneur.co.nz • 31

Investment Corner

Market Matters Most Sizing Up Your Market

BY Nathan Rose

MARC ANDREESEN, VENTURE CAPITALIST, cofounder of Netscape and board member of Facebook, eBay and Hewlett-Packard wrote a seminal post in 2007 on the importance of operating in a healthy market to a venture’s success.

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Andreesen begins by making the case that businesses can be boiled down to three core elements: team, product and market. He then goes on to convincingly argue that market is the most important element of the three – that a baseline competent team with an

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Despite the importance of quantifying their target market size, companies often shy away from doing so.

This reluctance can be due to either a lack of understanding of the importance of sizing the market or due to difficulties in obtaining reliable data.

acceptable product can still be successful in a booming market while the reverse is rarely true.“In a great market… the product doesn’t need to be great; it just has to basically work. And, the market doesn’t care how good the team is, as long as the team can produce that viable product…

Conversely, in a terrible market, you can have the best product in the world and a killer team, and it doesn’t matter – you’re going to fail.”

Whether they have read Andreesen’s 2007 post or not, investors intuitively understand the importance of exposure to large and growing markets, so it will be extremely

helpful to your case if you can show that your venture is operating in such a space.

Of course, it is not enough for an entrepreneur seeking funding to simply assert that a market is large and growing – investors will invariably want it quantified: ‘how large’ and ‘how fast-growing’, based on reliable third-party sources.

Despite the importance of quantifying their target market size, companies often shy away from doing so.

This reluctance can be due to either a lack of understanding of the importance of sizing the market or due to difficulties in obtaining reliable data.

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Hopefully, the first part of this article has convinced you of the importance of sizing the market. Next, I want to show you some good places to begin your search for third-party sources you can credibly reference.

Government departments: Governments routinely commission reports to inform public policy. They are particularly happy hunting grounds for information around such things as tourism, construction, housing, energy, and transportation.

Statistics departments also gather amazingly detailed information on demographics, trade and consumption, and these can often be accessed by the public either online or with the assistance of a statistics department employee whose specific job is to assist with queries such as yours, free of charge.

Industry bodies: There is a very good chance an industry body is out there that represents the interests of whatever your business does or whichever group it is selling to. Sometimes you can download reports on the size and growth of a market directly from their website. Other times, you can get in touch with the industry body to see what figures they may have to hand – and at the very least they should be able to point you in the right direction.

Research reports: Privatelycommissioned research commentary is produced daily on every aspect of the economy. PwC is particularly prolific, and their reports tend to be easily available and downloadable. Sometimes it is possible to get industry thinkpieces from brokerage houses, such as Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. Special research organisations such as Forrester and Gartner also produce highly credible data on just about every market, albeit for a price.

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Presentations from publicly listed companies: Companies listed on the stock exchange regularly produce publiclyavailable reports and investor presentations rich with data designed to fulfill their continuous disclosure obligations. Access these reports online, flick through a few and you could be amazed at what you find.

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Media surveys: Very useful for making statements such as “73% of consumers surveyed say they are prepared to pay more for environmentally sustainable paper” or “82% of businesses with revenue of over $1 million agree or strongly agree that they expect to increase their social media spending in the next 12 months”. If someone else has done work that supports your investment case, go ahead and take advantage of it!

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Having market size data to hand shows that you have done your homework and that you are on top of the trends shaping the space that your venture is operating in..

Including a market size figures in your presentation pre-empts the questions that potential investors are going to ask anyway if you don’t include them. Having market size data to hand shows that you have done your homework and that you are on top of the trends shaping the space that your venture is operating in. Though the data may not always be easy to come by, investing the time to find something reliable is absolutely worthwhile when developing a business plan or writing a presentation to seek funding. ■

Nathan Rose is an experienced investment banker, and offers services in financial modelling, building great pitch decks, and capital raising analysis for entrepreneurs and small business. Find out more here:

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Ecosystem

ThreeHighlights FromLivetheDream’s FirstTwoWeeks

We love the work Inspiring Stories are doing for a better, brighter future for New Zealand.

Check out just some of the good work they’re doing with their Live the Dream project.

BY Guy Ryan

AUCKLAND PARTICIPANTS not only saw social enterprise in action at Eat My Lunch, they also pitched in to help make 2,000 lunches for hungry school kids.

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They also got matched with awesome mentors including a number from our sponsors, Kiwibank and KPMG - through a spot of speed-dating.

Christchurch news station CTV came into the classroom to talk to participants about Live the Dream, which is new to

Christchurch this summer.

You can watch the resulting story at 7:51.

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Wellington participants got caffeinated and got advice from local social entrepreneur Scottie Reeve, whose two

shipping container espresso bars provide first jobs for young baristas. â–

Supporting these guys is good for everyone, check out more here for the opportunity to contribute

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PARTING SHOT

May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

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