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    Don't Do It the Hard Way: “A Wise Man Learns from the Mistakes of Others, Only a Fool Insists on Making His Own.”
    Don't Do It the Hard Way: “A Wise Man Learns from the Mistakes of Others, Only a Fool Insists on Making His Own.”
    Don't Do It the Hard Way: “A Wise Man Learns from the Mistakes of Others, Only a Fool Insists on Making His Own.”
    Ebook187 pages2 hours

    Don't Do It the Hard Way: “A Wise Man Learns from the Mistakes of Others, Only a Fool Insists on Making His Own.”

    By Delvin Chatterson and Your Uncle Ralph

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Dont Do It the Hard Way
    A wise man learns from the mistakes of others,
    Only a fool insists on making his own.

    Learn how to be better and do better by sharing the stories of experienced entrepreneurs. In this book Uncle Ralph will help you with:

    Getting Started
    Operating Effectiveness
    Managing Relationships
    Customer Service Strategic Leadership
    Managing the Numbers
    Marketing & Sales
    Building Business Value


    You will be inspired and informed. And you will learn from the mistakes of others to avoid making too many of your own.

    Plus: How to Avoid the Seven Biggest Mistakes that Entrepreneurs Make.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateSep 3, 2014
    ISBN9781496932235
    Don't Do It the Hard Way: “A Wise Man Learns from the Mistakes of Others, Only a Fool Insists on Making His Own.”
    Author

    Delvin Chatterson

    DEL CHATTERSON is your Uncle Ralph. He is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs to be better and do better. Del is an experienced and successful entrepreneur, executive and consultant. As an entrepreneur he grew his computer products distribution business from zero to $20 million per year in just eight years. Through his consulting company, DirectTech Solutions, he provides strategic advice to business owners at all stages: from start-up through the challenges of maintaining growth and profitability to the exit strategies for management transition and business succession. Del graduated as an Engineer and MBA and has lectured on entrepreneurship and business management at both Concordia and McGill Universities in Montreal. He continues to share his experience and offer ideas, information and inspiration for entrepreneurs worldwide under the persona of “Uncle Ralph”. Learn more at: www.LearningEntrepreneurship.com

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      Book preview

      Don't Do It the Hard Way - Delvin Chatterson

      © 2014 Your Uncle Ralph, Delvin R. Chatterson. All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Throughout this book, the actual names and business details have been changed to protect the subjects of each story. Any apparent use of real names is purely coincidental.

      Published by AuthorHouse 9/3/2014

      ISBN: 978-1-4969-3225-9 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4969-3224-2 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4969-3223-5 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2014914069

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Contents

      Can I help you do better?

      Introduction: Learning Entrepreneurship

      Introduction to Uncle Ralph

      Meet the Members of our e2eForum

      1. Welcome to our Meeting

      Why are you here?

      Can you succeed as an Entrepreneur?

      Don’t quit your day job yet

      2. Starting-Up is Hard to Do

      Initial decisions define the direction

      Choose your partners well

      3. Too Entrepreneurial?

      It’s not a good thing

      4. Lead Strategically, Manage Effectively

      Start with a plan

      The Entrepreneur’s Challenge: Strategic Leadership + Management Effectiveness

      Keep your head up

      5. Let’s do it Again

      Maybe the first time is your only time

      Making money doesn’t make you smart

      6. More than the Bottom Line

      Creating Business Value

      Being profitable is easy

      A $600,000 scuba dive?

      Know your numbers

      7. Relationships are the Key

      Employees First

      Who’s squeaking now?

      Is your Bank a Welcome and Willing Partner in your Business?

      8. Marketing is NOT Everything

      It’s a Three-Part Process

      Building loyal, long-term, profitable customers

      Marketing, Sales or Customer Service?

      The Six P’s of Marketing

      The Four P’s of Salesmanship

      Good Customer Service is Simple, Not Easy

      9. Let’s get Personal

      I am not your mother

      Business or Family?

      Listen to Mom

      10. The Seven Biggest Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

      The Entrepreneur’s Challenge.

      The List

      The Answer

      11. Find the Exit before it’s an Emergency

      From Employee to Owner to Exit

      It’s worth how much?

      Pricing your Business

      Packaged for sale

      12. Wrap-up Roundtable

      What’s new with you?

      What have we done for you lately?

      13. More from Uncle Ralph for Entrepreneurs

      You have to have a Business Plan – for the process, not the product

      Consultants: How to choose, use, and not abuse them

      Managing in Difficult Times

      E-Business Challenges for Entrepreneurs

      Henry Mintzberg is Worth Listening to

      The Best Advice I Ever Got

      Appendices

      Guiding Principles of the e2eForum

      Discussion Topics for the e2eForum

      Check Lists from the e2eForum

      Recommended Reading List and Some Highlights

      Thank you for Sharing

      Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur

      Acknowledgements

      The Author

      Dedicated to the principle that entrepreneurs who do better for themselves will also do better for their families, employees, customers and suppliers; their communities and the planet.

      Do better.

      Can I help you do better?

      My intent is to share my knowledge and experience in entrepreneurship – how to start and run a successful business. We all learn from our mistakes, but it is also important to learn from the mistakes of others. We don’t have to make them all ourselves – life is too short!

      This book is based on the principle that entrepreneurs learn the most from other entrepreneurs and learn best by sharing stories. In each chapter I share my own stories, including the mistakes I have made, and the stories of other entrepreneurs who have also learned from their mistakes. Of course, I will also share what we have learned by occasionally getting it right.

      Some of the most important lessons will help you with these challenges:

      • Getting Started

      When and how? Can you succeed as an entrepreneur?

      • Strategic Leadership plus Operating Effectiveness

      The biggest challenge for every entrepreneur is to provide strategic leadership while managing effectively.

      • Managing Relationships

      Building and maintaining strong supportive connections with business partners, employees, customers, suppliers and the bank.

      • Managing the Numbers

      Understanding the basic principles of finance and achieving sustainable profitable growth.

      • Marketing, Sales and Customer Service

      Three essential elements that must be done well to build loyal, long term, profitable customer relationships.

      • Building Business Value

      Achieving more than simple profitability, but long term business value from the start-up to your exit.

      If I can inspire and inform you on these issues, I will have succeeded in helping you to learn from the mistakes of others and avoid making too many of your own.

      "Don’t Do It the Hard Way"

      Introduction: Learning Entrepreneurship

      Don’t Do it the Hard Way

      Entrepreneurs learn to be better and do better in the same way that other people do – they learn from examples and they listen to their peers.

      Learning from textbooks can provide an initial understanding of the fundamentals of business and management, but grinding through textbooks is very unappealing to the action-oriented, over-worked and often document-challenged entrepreneur.

      We can also learn and be inspired by others - the celebrity entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, or whoever your star entrepreneur may be. But the lessons learned may not be relevant and their experiences just do not fit the circumstances of most entrepreneurs - those of us who are not yet billionaires and have no corporate jet to visit operations around the world. Maybe it’s useful to visualize their success stories as your long-term objectives, but don’t get stuck in the day dream.

      Let’s start with the lessons that are most applicable to your current challenges and opportunities – lessons learned by small business entrepreneurs like you.

      In my experience, entrepreneurs get their most valuable input from exchanges with other entrepreneurs. It may be over coffee or lunch, in business meetings, industry associations, networking events, conferences, or formal peer advisory groups like the e2eForum that I describe in this book.

      The e2eForum is based on my personal experience with two very successful peer advisory groups that I initiated. The first was the Professional Services Network (PSN), a group of about twelve professional advisors and consultants, including an accountant, lawyer and banker – all senior managers or independent professionals that offered services not products, to businesses not consumers. We had a lot in common and helped each other in many ways – sharing tips and tools, market feedback, strategies and tactics on management, marketing and financing. We occasionally brought in guest speakers to add to the exchange and often worked together on joint projects or promotion of our services. The regular meetings allowed us to extend our networks, knowledge and experience with a group of trusted and competent peers in a confidential, non-competitive environment.

      The second initiative was a Strategic Roundtable for entrepreneurs. The approach was to invite a group of my current clients to share their stories, challenges, good and bad experiences and lessons learned. They were all business owners from very different businesses and were surprised to discover how many issues they had in common; like sales management, bank relations, business development or exit strategies. There were no direct competitors, customers or suppliers invited so all the participants were comfortable discussing their failures and concerns, as well as their achievements. Some participants were more open than others and some talked too much. But it was an eye-opening experience for everyone; providing new ideas and generating new confidence in the ability to find solutions.

      My objective here is to accomplish the same for you. Please join me, your Uncle Ralph, in an exchange of ideas, information and inspiration with other entrepreneurs in the e2eForum.

      After reading the book, you might want to find an e2eForum near you or start one yourself. For more information, please visit: www.e2eforum.com.

      To learn more about other elements of entrepreneurship and how to be successful, you may also find it useful to visit: www.LearningEntrepreneurship.com

      Introduction to Uncle Ralph

      Del Chatterson is your Uncle Ralph

      As you have invested your time and money in this book you have a right to know, Who is Uncle Ralph and how can he help me and my business?

      So here is my story.

      I am your "Uncle Ralph". You can call me Del.

      I am an entrepreneur, business consultant, writer, golfer, photographer, happy husband, proud father and grandfather. Originally a small town boy from the Rocky Mountains of Western Canada, I have lived, worked or visited every province and territory in Canada, all fifty states of the US, most of Western Europe, some of Asia and South America. My home for most of the past forty years is the fascinating, multicultural, bilingual, French-Canadian city of Montreal.

      I did my MBA at McGill in Montreal, a few years after graduating as an Engineer from UBC in Vancouver.

      I have extensive experience in the corporate world, in management consulting and as an entrepreneur with my own businesses. My early corporate experience included financial analysis and systems integration projects, purchasing and materials management with Alcan Aluminum and AES Data. I spent six years with Coopers and Lybrand in management consulting, working with businesses mostly in Canada, but also in Europe and Central America. As an independent business consultant, I have worked with many entrepreneurs, often clients of the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).

      In recent years, I have gained more international business exposure as a Volunteer Advisor with CESO (Canadian Executive Services Overseas), an agency providing aid to developing economies in Africa, Asia and South America and to Aboriginal communities in Canada. It has been enlightening to share my business ideas and solutions with entrepreneurs in these exceptionally challenging environments of widespread poverty, untrained workers and limited infrastructure. It has provided a very striking affirmation of the extremely favourable economic and political environments where most of us work in North America.

      My experience as an entrepreneur and business owner started with TTX Computer Products, an import and distribution business in Montreal. We began with

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