Christopher Mengel - Razorwest - Operations, Recruitment Services

On Topic | Learning by doing

At some point in our entrepreneurial lives, we get an idea...

In our first few years, we mess up everything. We don't do the right research because we're so excited about the opportunity ahead. We believe all the quotes like "two roads diverged" and "never, never, never give up..." (both so often taken out of context). We read the magazines that tell us we rock because we're taking chances and that we should just stick it out - to the death. So we invest everything we have until we can't even draw $5 from the ATM because it only offers $10. We hear "no" and get confused and consider changing directions over and over again. We don't listen to people who have gone before because we somehow think they are wrong and then we find that they were right. We learned about cash flow but don't really understand how valuable it is to a new business (or any for that matter). We think scaling a business means getting cool offices with nice furniture. We make mistakes in bringing in the wrong partners. We don't know how long it really takes and how consuming it really is. We don't know ourselves well enough to slow down and focus and push the fear aside. We think the deal is closed when someone says they may buy from us. We think networking is collecting ton's business cards.

Then, as the years go by and as we succeed or fail at one business after another, we learn that research is the key to early success. You need to be at least in the right arena. We learn that it's not never, never, never give up...but rather, "never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense." Did you hear that? Good sense! ANd the two roads thing really was about that you can go in different directions and both paths will work out in the end. Sticking to something is dumb if you are sacrificing something better (family) for something lesser (money) - especially so if your ego is in the way.

We learn "no" is not a direct reflection on our own worth, and instead, it means that for whatever reason, we didn't offer enough compelling reasons for there to be a "yes". That, and sometimes we just simply need to settle for "no" and move on. We learn that momentum generates a ready supply of opportunities. We learn that having smarter people around us is smart and that being afraid of that is just plain dumb (did I mention ego?). We learn that having good mentors is one of the most important things you can do early in your entrepreneurial career and that working with good people is always better than working with bad people. We learn that cash flow means oxygen, less fear, better decisions, and ultimately, more happiness. We learn to contain expenses (furniture is not an investment). We learn that the wrong partner can be very much like living in a burning waiting-room in hell. We learn to be more realistic in our approach to time, our future plans, and when a deal is really "closed".

We learn by doing.

Workshop Series | Company Tune Up

How is your business? Is it healthy or sick? Most of us immediately think of ROI and monthly quotas or forecasts. We think of money (or lack thereof). Or, we think about how many sales are in the pipeline and whether we'll still be competitive this year, or next. All of this is important and worth discussing, but we so often stop there, and in the process neglect the larger picture.

Review the following topics and related questions and spend a little time to consider your answers. If you feel it's a hard exercise, you are right. It is. Thoughtfully considering hard (often personal) questions may take months to fully explore. In the end, you will be better for it and it will help you distill out what is most important in your life and your company's path. During the process, you will see common themes (good and bad) and you will learn a lot about how to move forward.

Note: The following questions also second as interesting interview questions for internal staff moving up through the company.

Leadership
How have you grown as a leader over the last few years?  What are some of the lessons you've learned? If you could teach one thing to a younger leader, what would it be? What are your values or beliefs about balancing work and home life? What talents or strengths do you rely on most in your daily life as a leader? What are some of the biggest risks you've taken as a leader?  What did you learn from taking them?

Roles to Success & Top Performance
What does it take to be successful at your company? List the roles that are key to your company's success in the future. What are the characteristics of the top-performing people in these roles?

Growth
If cash were no option, and you could use it to expand somewhere, what would you expand into?

Vision
What vision do you communicate to your company? What do you think your customers believe your vision is?

Challenges
What are the greatest challenges you face?  What are the greatest challenges facing your company?

Customer Care
What makes your customers return and buy more from your company? What do you hope they think about when they think about your company? What will your customers want from your company in the future that will be different from what they want today? How (if at all) do you involve your customers in the process of determining what products or services you will sell tomorrow?

Competition
Who is your competition? What are their strengths? What have been their successes? What can you learn from them? What should you do differently from them? Do you have global competitors?

Culture
How does your company's culture affect how people perform? Are there positive effects? Negative effects? How is your company culture evolving? Please describe the changes you see. What factors are driving this change? What are the first words that come to your mind that describe our company's culture? Does this vary between departments or divisions? Around the world? Do you believe that people are valued and developed within your company's culture? How?

Organizational Change
What is the one thing about your company that you would like to change in the next year? What is the one thing about your company that you hope will never change? Where do untapped opportunities lie within the organization? What are your company's shortcomings? Are they something that can be ignored, or do they need to be fixed? What do you do to stretch communication across the company and across your market? What are your best-run departments, divisions, or product/service lines? How can their strengths be transferred to other departments, divisions, or product/ service lines?

Strategy
Do you believe we have a strategy for all of our accounts or customers? What are the linkages between our clients' or customers' business strategies and our business strategy, products, and services? Which sales strategies succeeded in winning our best new clients or customers in the past year? What specifically did we do that moved them to commit or purchase? What plans do we have in place to replicate that success in the coming year? What plans need to be developed and implemented? What marketing strategies are netting us the most new customers? What moves people to buy? How do we move them to commit? What is our strategy for research and development? How do we prioritize the work that nets us the most gain in brand recognition or visibility and corporate profit?

Passion
What makes you passionate about your company? About your role or work?

Your Personal Life
What is your greatest personal satisfaction? What does wealthy mean to you? Finish the following sentence: "I love..." What moves you like nothing else? What is your foundation? Where do you draw strength from? How will your position change over the next few years?

Expectations
What are your expectations of yourself? What do others expect of you? How do you use expectations to drive the performance of the people you manage? How do you know when to raise or lower the bar? Think about your three best employees and what you expect of them. Does their pay plan complement or reinforce those expectations? How do you use your strengths to meet your own expectations?

Doing Your Best
What motivates you to do your best each and every day? What do you do best? How do you use your talents and strengths to do what you do best? What prevents you from doing what you do best? How can we help you focus on your strengths? What are your priorities? How do you prioritize what you do best while ensuring that someone is accountable for what you can't do? What are some things you've put on the back burner? How does our company's growth -- or lack of growth -- affect your opportunities to do what you do best? Which individuals in our company seem to have the opportunity to do what they do best every day?

Recognition and Praise
What is the best recognition you've ever received? What commitment can you make to increase recognition? What plan should we put in place to increase how we recognize employees formally or informally? Think about the people who are gathered here today. Which two people have helped you achieve a goal or have helped you grow? Recognize their contributions by sharing them with the group. How often do you recognize individuals outside your department or team? What plan can you put in place to recognize individuals like these regularly? What are your beliefs about recognition? How do you act on them?  What are the most creative recognition ideas that you have read, seen, or heard about? What is the best recognition you've given or the best recognition event you've coordinated? Which groups within our company are the best at giving recognition? Which groups need help? How much bigger should recognition be? Would spending more on recognition help us increase employee retention and per-person productivity? What events or activities for clients or customers, vendors or suppliers, or employees could we dream up that would recognize what they contribute to our company? Are there times that you're better at giving recognition than others?

Caring & Support
As a leader, how do you demonstrate or show that you care? How far does your "caring leadership" reach? How do those who don't work with directly you know that you care? What formal systems or plans are needed so that every employee in our company knows that we care? How do we ensure that every workgroup has a caring environment and a manager who cares? How do you know when someone needs more attention or caring? Give a specific example. When do you back a person, even in times of weakness or wear-down? How do we keep a caring environment as we grow?

Development & Mentoring
Who has been your best mentor or supporter? What development do you need to excel as a leader or manager? What do you need from members of this group to aid in your development?  What are your plans your own growth and development over the next year? List the people who help you think about your future and push you to greatness. How do you measure or describe your own development? How do you define development? Who are you developing to be a leader in the company?  Who are the three people at our company, outside this group, that you spend the most time mentoring, guiding, and directing? Whose development have you delegated to others? Who have you paired with a mentor? What are the benefits of a formal mentor program? Which teams or groups are best at helping people grow and develop?

Opinions
How do you manage your constituency's opinions while leading with yours? As a leader, what do you do to encourage employees to express their opinions? How good are we at listening to our clients or customers? Do they feel like their opinions are heard? How do we ensure that we encourage people to express informed opinions? Are you seen as an open person who will listen to anyone, or are you seen as a person who has strong beliefs who is unwilling to listen to others? How open are you to the opinions of others?  Do you ever suppress opinions? When and why? Who is someone you admire for their ability to listen to controversial opinions and manage them? What systems or activities should be put in place for hearing employee opinions? How can we ensure that we are open with each other about ideas and issues? Which teams seem best at listening to team members' opinions? Who in the company is best at listening to the opinions of others?

Mission and Purpose
What is your company mission? What is this company's purpose in the world? What is the greatest impact this company has made on the world to date? What values or beliefs are important in creating sustainability? How will you communicate your mission in the coming year? How do we help communicate our corporate mission outside the company? What is your greatest contribution? How do you create opportunities to communicate and discuss mission? How is mission important in our workplace culture? Do we consider a strong mission to be an important trait in hiring new associates? How can we communicate what we have contributed to the world? What success stories can we tell? Which groups seem to be the most mission-oriented?

Quality
How do we define quality at our company? What drives quality at our company? What needs to be changed or improved within your department or division to increase quality service to our clients or customers? How do you encourage quality performance from others in our company? How do you use our employee feedback measures? How do you regularly communicate the importance of value and quality service to the people you lead or manage? What ideas have you read, seen, or heard about quality service that we should consider implementing?

Friendship
In your opinion, what makes a best friend? Who are your best friends outside of work? How long have you know them? What are your common bonds? How do you stay in touch?  What guidelines or promises should we make to each other to maintain trust? How do you help others create lasting friendships and bonds within our company? Think about a situation in which two or more people were disagreed about something important to them. How did you help bring them together? Which groups seem to have the most "best friends"?

Hiring & Retention
When selecting someone to join your team, what talents or qualities do you look for? When hiring, what are some absolutes in your decision? How do you actively attract and recruit the best potential employees to your company? How do you create an ongoing recruitment process to attract and retain the most talented employees for your company's future? In your opinion, what is the best way to attract high-performing employees? How do you retain them?

Progress
Are you diligent about talking with your employees about their progress? Tell us what you do and how you do it. What measurements do you use to track your progress? The progress of your employees? How do you feel about your own performance over the last year? Over the last three years? How often do you want your performance reviewed? Who else do you want to be aware of your progress/achievements? How often should strengths coaching be done in conjunction with performance reviews? Do you combine performance reviews with salary reviews, or do you do review them separately? What do you believe is your greatest achievement at our company? How has your progress as an employee influenced the company's progress? Who are your greatest partners? Who helps you drive performance? How do we make performance a tried-and-true value in our organization? Which managers in our company seem to do the best job at talking with their employees about their progress?

Learning
In your career, what have been your best opportunities for growth? Are "learning" and "growth" different? What are our "best practices" for learning? What are our "best practices" for stretching an individual's growth? How can we balance encouraging high productivity for new employees while pacing individual development? Which is more likely to increase learning: a winning moment with reflection and recognition, or a classroom training experience? Which is more likely to aid in development? Describe your philosophy on learning. Describe the systems you've implemented to enhance learning. Describe how you individualize learning. Which groups in our company seem to have the most opportunities at work to learn and grow? What are the best ways our company can use online learning or e-learning? Are there competencies that do need to be "trained in" at our company?

Miscellanous
Do you have enough of the "right people" to achieve your business goals? Where do you fall short? Do you have talented individuals whose strengths are under-used? How do you see finance, operations, human resources, and marketing working as a team to build stronger emotional bonds with customers and employees? How can we align the performance of products, services, systems, processes, and engaged employees? How can we streamline our delivery system to enhance the emotional experience for our most profitable customers? Which of our products or services are your favorite, and why? Which products or services, in your opinion, have the brightest future? Which products have more potential in our country? Which have the most potential outside our country? What are the strengths of your division or area of responsibility? What are our company's strengths domestically? What are our strengths internationally?

On Topic | Two Good Resumes, One Open Position

Imagine that you follow a solid career path and along the way gain valuable work experience and now 20 years later, you stand out well in your industry. Then, one day you are invited to interview with a good company for the position of a lifetime. They say that you, and only one other candidate, will be invited to come in and interview with senior management. They also tell you that you both look to be equally qualified.

Question: Why does one person get the job and not the other - when they are both identical on paper?

To have the best chance of securing the position, you need to consider the differentiators that will give you the edge in your competitive, once-in-a-lifetime interview.

PRESENTATION

I recommend you show up (on time) in a clean, pressed business suit. You should look the professional part that you are trying to attain and often, you have only that one chance to give a good first (and lasting) impression. Some recruiters will tell you to dress to match the style of the company but I recommend wearing a suit during interviews. It shows the interviewer respect and shows you at your best. You can dress down later.

RESEARCH

Prior to the interview, you should learn something about the company's culture, the product offerings, and their SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and you should kow them well enough to talk intelligently around them. As an interviewer, I will assume that you already know something about the company you are interviewing for (the other candidate will). And I'll assume you have considerable knowledge about the industry you've worked during the last 20 years.

Before we meet, I've already read your resume and so now I want to learn more about your past experience and also how you connect what you know to the world around you and any potential opportunities. I want to see for myself that you are thoughtful and aware of your surroundings, and I want to get inside your head to learn more about how to relate with others. In short, I want to know if you know what you say you know and I want to know if you've done the things you say you've done. And then, I want someone else you've worked under to tell me its true.

Resumes can be written by others, and often are. Resumes make it hard to understand the character and courage of the person, the raw ambition and the persuasiveness of the individual, the kindness shown to others and that person's impact on others. Resumes are better for showing timelines, percentages, awards and responsibilities. Resumes only give me a glimpse of what I need to know about whether you are a good fit for the position and the company. An interview will tell me the rest of what I need to know. The best way to get the right profile is to learn (1) their version of their own story, (2) a past employers versions of the individual's story, (3) any proven accomplishments, (4) all in-depth interviews, (5) and then consider the personalities of the hiring company and the candidate to make sure they are in sync, (6) and then take all of this information and also consider (7) my overall impression of you - to gauge your chance of success in the open position. Do this process correctly and the right person almost always gets filtered out.

HISTORY & INSIGHT

Often, I'll start the interview by saying, "tell me about yourself and if you would, please start back in...". What I'm looking for here is your story. I'm looking for insight into how you think about your journey. I want to know who you think you are and I want to know how you've thought about navigating your career to this point. I want to know what steps you took to get where you are and I want to know if you've achieved the goals you've set for yourself. I want to know more about struggles you've had and obstacles you've overcome. And I want to learn how you treated others along the journey. I want to know if those you've worked with in the past thought of you as a good value and positive or somewhat limiting and negative. I want to know if you finish what you start. I already know timelines because I've already seen your resume.

For each position (going back approximately 8-15 years), I'll want to know how you got that last position and whether it was a competitive interview process and how many interviews it too for you to get the position. I'll want to know who you reported to (Dir., VP, CEO, Board) and if you appreciated the management style, I'll want to know who you knew to get in the door? Then I'll want to know how you've grown there and what lessons you've learned. I'll ask specific questions about how you hired your last team, or how you managed to hit quotas 30 months in a row, or how you do something technical, or where you think the overall industry is headed.

And during this process I'll weave in questions that give me information about whether you've considered challenges the hiring company currently faces, their competition, and if you know something about the company's culture. I'll want to know the company's strengths domestically and/or internationally. I'll want to know what makes you passionate about this company and about this role and what motivates you to do your best each and every day. I'll want to know what recognition you've ever received at work and your greatest contributions and I'll want to know who has been your best mentor or supporter and why.

Also, I'll want to know if you've thought about plans for your own growth and development over the next year and I'll want to know what measurements you use to track your own progress and the progress of your employees. I'll want to know if you are open to the opinions of others. I'll want to know how you define quality and how you regularly communicate with the people you lead or manage and ideas have you read, seen, or heard about that the hiring company should consider implementing.

I'll want to know something about how you interact with others and pose questions to you like, "think about a situation in which two or more people disagreed about something important to them. How did you help bring them together?", and "When selecting someone to join your team, what talents or qualities do you look for?, and "Are you diligent about talking with your employees about their progress? Tell me what you do and how you do it. These last few questions beg thoughtful introspection. It's important to know that there is not one right answer, but many. What I'm looking for is how you consider and relate with others.

EXPECTATIONS

It's important to have the correct appropriate salary expectations for the position. You can tell me that you require more (or less) for a position, and I'll be considering whether you are even within budget for the position (though we should know this up front and before in-person interviews). I'll want to know if you are satisfied with the title, benefits, duties, and type of position being offered.

REFERENCES

I'll ask you for professional references of those you worked for, not references of friends. I want to see that people you've worked for will take a stand for you. Whatever answers I could not get out of the interview I might weave into the conversation when I check your references. I'll take into consideration who the references are and whether they are respected in the community. A bad reference carries negative weight, but it will be measured against that specific situation and also against the other references. Obviously, three or four great references is better than three good references and one negative one.

Occasionally after the interview, I might have one other person quickly interview you to get more information about a specific set of details or to just to get a second read on a situation. Or I might simply call you with a question or two at some later time. I'll always do one of those if I have some doubts or need more clarity.

CONSIDERATION

Lastly, and always after the interview, I'll spend some time to consider how well you handled and presented yourself in the interview process. I'll think about your attitude and whether you were a likeable individual, or not. I'll consider general patterns and how well you handled yourself from the moment I learned of you, including our initial phone and email conversations and interview process, as well as your follow up. I'll consider how well you showed cooperation, commitment and control of the interview process. I'll consider how flexible (or rigid) you were in your conversation, and whether you were you enjoyable to talk with. I'll consider your presentation and communication skills during the interview and I'll want to have seen some sense of urgency in your search because I want to know that if the opportunity is given to you that you will be in a position to move forward.

I'll go through the same process with the other candidate and review both side by side. If there isn't a clear winner at this time, I may even follow up by phone with a few more questions and/or have you both come back once more for one last interview. Most often, the better candidate has been noticed during the first interview - and usually early in the process. Early impressions are almost always correct impressions, and are often the lasting impression.

YOU ARE SPECIAL

In closing, you should know that you are valuable and unique and special made in some specific and wonderful way. Spend some time to consider what you offer that is most valuable to a company - assuming two candidates are equally qualified. And, if you don't get this position, take some time to examine why, but don't dwell on it too much. Move on. "No" does not mean that you are not valuable and worthwhile as an individual, it only means that the other person showed the interviewer a few more compelling reasons to be chosen. Move forward and open the next door.

On Topic | Entrepreneurial lessons learned

The other day someone asked me what lessons I would tell a first-time entrepreneur are necessary to succeed in life in business.

It's a fairly open question with so many possible diversions and much has been written about how an entrepreneur should manage their time, establish the correct accounting procedures, spend marketing budgets wisely, and so on - so I'll keep my list more personal. Here goes:

I would say that you really do have to suck it up and pay your dues to be successful long-term. It really will take twice as long and three times the money - count on it. Occasionally luck does happen and having the right mentors can make all the difference. If at all possible, don't over extend yourself. There is risk and then there is educated risk.

Love what you do.

Make sure your business model is scalable and sustainable and don't create a business plan that forecasts owning 1% of any market, as it's never that easy or clean. Get real facts based on personal information, know what you can deliver when, and know how long it will take you to scale with the resources you have available.

Do at least some research before getting into an industry, or instead of spending twice as long and three times the money you will spend four times as long and six times the money - with failure as a very realistic possible outcome.

Just because your boss makes it look easy, doesn't always mean it is. Consider this before you decide to go out on your own and "do it better". Don't spend your life planning to do something someday, if you don't give it a shot you may live to regret it. In the end, money is not as important as having love, good friends, and a strong family around you. If you don't have a powerful mission or purpose larger than yourself, you will always be missing something. The person in the nicer car next to you is not necessarily happier than you, and maybe they are in debt.

Pay attention to cash flow, it really is like oxygen.

Serve others and ask for nothing in return, and you will feel great - It really is as satisfying your hear it is. Having partners is very much like living in a good or bad marriage - consider them carefully. Don't try to get everythign 100% perfect, it's impossible and you it will waste your time - just make sure you get the right things right. Hire up and don't worry about if you are smart enough - lots of very dumb people succeed extremely well in business. It's more important to be nice and fair and have character and courage. Though, being smart as well helps.

Know up front what you are willing to invest to make something work. Know up front what it will take to make you quit, sunset, or shelf something - or you may waste years with the same eventual outcome. Be kind enough to yourself to know when you should retool and move forward again in some different way, or here again you'll waste valuable years. Know the difference between quiting and thoughtfully changing direction.

There are many different paths to success.

We spend too many of our early years working toward being successful (especially in the eyes of others), and then the rest of our lives wondering if we lived lives of personal significance. In your old age, you will spend more time wondering if you were a good person and wondering if people liked you - than if people knew you to be rich. You will be much better off if you live for fulfillment and purpose, instead of happiness because happiness is often fleeting and is very much like trying to exist on a cotton candy diet. It looks good, tastes great, but long-term it simply is not going to fill you up.

Society makes you feel that all the happy people are all out vacationing or golfing and that having fun is the ultimate we can expect, and that if we increasingly have more of it we can somehow achieve the highest level of happiness. Don't believe it.

After years of interviewing thousands of people in every stage of their career, I personally have found that the happiest are those that spend themselves in worthy causes and feel they are making some level of progress on something meaningful in their lives.

On Topic | Rethinking and personalizing progress

Progress is often defined in our society by using phrases such as "advancement", "gradual improvement", or "to move forward". This, generally speaking, only defines a place or moment compared to another next place or moment...something more than before. An extra widget in your toolkit. Another skill to leverage. It speaks to the idea that we move ahead, that we get ahead, that we learned something we did not know before, or that by working hard or sticking to something we will either incrementally inch or leap ahead.

Progress is better understood when we personalize it.

Am I making progress? Am I better than before yesterday? Am I developing in a positive way? Am I accumulating wealth or health or degrees or whatever? To what end? Am I making progress that serves me and my family or am I simply adding to something?

Progress to one person is working to build a business to over $10 million in revenues starting with the incorporation of an LLC. To another, it's saving the first $1000 toward freeing themselves of financial debt. Others see progress when they lose a pound or go for a longer run than before or are less out of breath than yesterday or make it to the second date or live another day after a heart attack. These are all incremental steps toward something, important to some and not important to others...progress personalized.

When I was 17 I wanted to run my own business. With each business I started I made progress toward a large goal connected together with other large goals and all tied to an even larger purpose.

Progress is incrementally moving toward a life worth living.

My initial goals (all fairly selfishly motivated I would later learn) were to become successfully self employed and profitable. Other goals were to sustain health and spirituality and a maintain a sense of peace without living daily in fear of failure. To develop and maintain solid relationships with core family and friends. To expand knowledge and grow into someone better than I started out on this earth. To attain the tools and resources to affect change and gain leverage without using only my own efforts.

I later learned that assessing your initial motivations is important when creating your definitions around the concept of "progress". As is usually the case in youth, my initial motives were mostly self-focused. I wanted to prove to myself, to my father, and to every one else that I was worth something, and running a business and accumulating a title and money seemed like the best way to do it. I figured if I saw larger numbers or more units sold or more money in my account or more business cards collected, that this would be progress.

Sometimes the wrong progress in the wrong areas can still lead you down the path of failure.

Life throws sand in your face. It distracts you and forces you to reassess. We learn that there are two competing forces - us trying to build and nature tearing down. You learn there is loss...so much loss. In the mirror you see the aging process begin. People you got to know well begin to move away. Those you love pass away. Businesses you thought would be easy to build ends up taking more money, time, and effort than you thought it would, and in the process something shifts deep inside you. You begin to look outside yourself. You mellow out. You gain perspective. Your steps are more sure. You learn that money and status and all the network in the world doesn't matter if you don't get outside yourself. This self-focused path is very dangerous and a slippery path that often leads to loss and loneliness and despair.

We all need to get outside ourselves to find our "self" and in the process seize purest form of "progress".

Now, after 21 years of trying to become successful, I see "progress" defined as the following: To try as best I can to grow my current base of knowledge, money, resources, capabilities, health, well-being, and connectedness, and personal and spiritual maturity - and then with well-formed and positive motivations, focus my energies toward serving others and helping them to live well.

When, and only when, I am headed down this path, I see "progress".

On Topic | Locating new incorporations in your area

If you want to find all New Incorporations in an area, I'd use local resources such as the Washington Business Journal and search their section entitled New Incorporations (updated weekly). I'd also search the web for local DUNS Numbers, and access the DBUS Directory (gives you market identifiers that you can use to do further research via Boolean search, or through engines like Grokker or Clusty, or even go to the local library to pull US SIC Codes (and then localize them).

Or, you can pull weekly text files in ASCII comma delimited format for New Incorporations listings by State. This following example shows new incorporations in Rhode Island. Once you get a list like this you simply import into Excel, convert to csv file and enter into Salesforce.com or some other contact manager.

You can also go to local news sites and pull new incorporations by week. Every new business has to file locally and every new business gets listed somewhere. They even group them for you. (see http://www.al.com/business/birminghamnews/inc.ssf). Sometimes it's hard to get past the login, but just search around the web and often you will locate the page (too much free time in my youth) Here, you will see the actual page to all new incorporations from the local Probate Court. Do this for each jurisdiction.

Somewhere in the process I'd check the U.S. Census Bureau to learn how many people there are in the area and use this as a way to judge whether statistically I'm off (using a rough percentage of how many incorporations there are per person in each area).

I'd also pull announced plans of new or expanding companies from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership. And I would contact the Virginia Department of Business Assistance to access to access new incorporation listings.

Or, and sorry for waiting until the end to mention this one...if you wanted this information without going through all the extra research hassle, I'd just pay the monthly fee of $1000 to pull the Virginia State Corporation Commission's Tape Sales for each month. This will at the very least give you a complete copy. From there you can go back to the other venues above use them to fill in the spaces.

I'd merge all this together and once done, you have a clean copy of all incorporations in the local area with contact information, email, phone, address, first and last name, title, company name, type of company, industry, etc...

Below are a few more resources for you to use.

New Venture Sites and Links

Local Venture Capital Links

Business Networking Sites and Links

List of Business Associations

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Razorwest is a consulting and recruitment services firm that provides organizational success through extraordinary talent to emerging technology, large companies and government agencies.

To request assistance with a talent related challenge that you or your organization may be having, please contact us at 202-580-6650, or visit us at www.razorwest.com.

On Topic: More than money

Most people want to matter and be part of something special. We spend 2000+ hours at work. This equals approximately 20% of all the hours in a year. We sleep 30-35%. There's 45-50% of the hours in a year left to us to travel, eat, do whatever chores we have, sit in traffic, shower and brush our teeth, clean our houses, set goals, visit family and friends, shop - and whatever else it is you do with your time.

Point is, leaders need to be aware that their employees are exchanging 1/5 of their valuable time for something provided through your organization. For some, exchanging time for money is enough, but most require more. Like I said earlier, people want to matter and be part of something special. They want to stretch and be challenged and be a part of something larger than themselves. They want to grow and see a pattern of growth in their lives. They want to work with people they like and respect, and they want to be seen as valuable. Good pay is fine but many want (and deserve) more.

Over the years I've held many interviews with people looking to make a career or job change. Near the beginning of the interview most will say they want more money and a different job - but almost always I find they want something else.

Many people want most what is hardest to explain.

All companies have a story (good or bad) that answers the question, "Who are We?". Since people spend so much time at work, it inevitably serves to shape their own answers to, "Who am I?". Who people are is not only developed out of what they do, what they believe, where they've been, how they live their lives, and the decisions they make. It's also created out of what they do during this rather large 20% of their waking lives.

To that end, what is your company's story? What is important to you? What do you value? What sets you apart? Why are you different? Is your company relevant and positioned to serve those inside? These questions are at the heart of an organization and should be in the minds of each and every leader. Why? Because it's in the answers to these questions that you will win the hearts and minds, energy and time of those working for you.

A bigger paycheck is nice (and is important) but only goes so far. Once a person's basic needs are met they begin to focus on other areas important to their lives: service, charity, knowledge, growth, and more. And its your job to consider how your company serves not only those outside the organization, but those inside as well.

I believe that if you spend some time to consider the answers to the questions above, your company and those inside will be better for it.

On People | Steve Borsch

Early in 2006 I was doing some research and trying to better understand "Web 2.0" applications and social networking (scale-free networks) and I ended up finding Steve Borsch's blog "Connecting the Dots". I reached out half expecting him to blow me off. Instead, he offered me about an hour of his time and we discussed collaboration, innovation, Web 2.0 applications, and what to make of all the available Web 2.0 properties and also whether or not they would all fail (making us all relive a "dotcom" flashback) or co-exist and become integrated into regular business practice. We've talked since and he's one of those people who very much understands what is going on and where things are headed and helps you gain clarity. If you run a large organization and are stuck and in need of someone to come in and consult with you about how to make the most of the Web within your business strategy, then you should definitely talk with him.

Here's a few of his posts on collective unconscious, disintermediation and squeezing out inefficiencies, rich internet applications, disruptive innovation, internet-as-a-platform, mashed-up Web 2.0 apps, Widgets, and identity management

(Update to this post on Nov. 7, 2006)

Steve recently wrote and made available a new trend report "Rise of the Participation Culture". This insightful report explains (in simple terms) what it means to be in a "always-on, always- connected culture". If you want to better understand Web 2.0 and see what's coming next - this is the report for you.

Rise of the Participation Culture, Web 2.0 Trend Report, Future of Web 2.0

Workshop Series | Quick SEO

If you are trying to "optimize" your site, first read the following:

• http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291 (SEO Guidelines)
• http://www.google.com/technology/index.html (Page Rank Explained)

In short (and believe me when I say this is very brief), if you want to increase your website's visibility and traffic, continue to grow as a reputable business and try to partner with other reputable businesses. Over time, as your business grows and your web propoerties scale and spread and interconnect with other properties in your industry (as you do more business), your website will become more "important" to the your larger community and will over time generate more visibility and traffic.

Doing this is less about manipulation of your site in relation to its surroundings, and more about "optimizing" your site by increasing its ability to be seen by the larger community, enabling it to be indexed thoroughly by spiders (or bots), building out quality content and partners and community connections that establish your site in relation to other quality websites.

While this can quickly turn into a large time-consuming project (because there is much left out here), there are a few things you can do to quickly prime your site. Overall, the take away should be that while the below items can be done and may help to optimize your website, you should approach it strategically. This means focusing less on short cuts and more on a long-term approach that will generate an increase in visibility over time.

Consider your keywords thoughtfully...

You should decide which primary keywords you will use and ideally place those keywords in the URL. Then you should place the keywords in the Title tag (10-60 characters with no special characters), in the Description Meta tag (less than 200 characters), and in the Keyword Meta tag (less than 10 words and each should appear in the body text). Then, you should place your keywords in body text (at 6-8% density), in H1, H2, and H3 on your site page, and in the top part of the site page text. You should place keywords in Alt text and in links to site pages (keyword should be visible, not the underlying URL)

Be careful with your outgoing links...

You should only link to quality sites, not link farms, and all outgoing links should use Anchor Text (keyword as URL, not "click here" or other). Longevity of the outgoing link is important (once set, let it be) and outgoing links should be valid and limited to 100-200.

Micellaneous things to be aware of...

You should stick to hyphens (-) and not underscores (_) when building URLs (because a-b becomes a and b, whereas a_b becomes ab and noone will find your product if the primary keywords are mashedtogehterlikethis. You should also keep site page content fresh and change over time (don't allow your content to become stale) with a positive ratio of old pages to new pages and also keep the majority of the site content fresh. You should frequently make updates to your site (more updates means more spidering) and you should "theme" your site keywords and content structure (meaning that your site should read like an outline with each level down serving as a sub of the one above). Also, each subsecquent page should reinforce the one above it.

You should use multiple variations of the keyword (ie. web content management system, content management system, content management, web content management) and URL length should be less than 100 characters in length, less is better. Also, Google likes big sites with more content and the older the site the better. You should have a site map off the home page and have primary text as "anchored" and linked text to the inner page of that name (or to that services page)

Don't do any of this...

Don't link to bad sites or use redirects, and don't use bad language. Don't create multiple sites and excessively cross-link and don't submit to DMOZ more than once. Don't use products that spam or send automatic queries to Google or insert hidden, random text to raise your keyword density. Don't use frames or have = and ? in URL (keep it simple)

Incoming links are very good...

Backlinks (or incoming links) are important and a high Page Rank of the referring page is good. Any inbound links should be as anchored text (not as URL) and the older the inbound link the better (the older the site the better still). It's good to have a high position of the referrer page and having links from an expert site is very good, as is having a referrer with the same theme.

Directories help to spread the word quickly...

Fast Search Add URL (Alltheweb.com)- http://www.alltheweb.com/add_url.php
AOL Add URL (Free) - http://www.aolsearch.com/aolcom/add.jsp
Add Hotbot URL (Free) - http://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/lite_step1.asp
Add Hotbot URL (Paid) - http://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/
Add Ask Jeeves URL (Paid Inclusion) - http://www.ineedhits.com/paid-inclusion/ask-jeeves-search-engine.aspx
Add Open Directory URL (Free) - http://www.dmoz.org/add.html
Google Add URL (Free) - http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Add Looksmart URL (Paid) - http://listings.looksmart.com
AltaVista Add URL (Free) - http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new
AltaVista Add URL (Paid) - http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/kpsrch.php
Add Yahoo URL (Free) - http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request
Add Yahoo URL (Paid) - http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/submit.html
Have large quality incoming link from expert sites
Google SiteMap - http://www.google.com/webmasters/ (Create sitemap for index)
Add MSN URL (Free) - http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Add MSN URL (Fee) - http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

Watch who is coming and going and how long...

You should want to know many times your page was clicked on and much time was spent on each page. You should want to know if it was bookmarked and also how they left the site. An upward trend in site traffic is good obviously) and having an authoritative referrer (expert references) is good as well. It's important to know if people are doing keyword searches to find you, and you should know which keywords they are using to find you. You should also want to know how much time people are spending on your site.

Don't do any of this either...

You shouldn't have zero links to your site (that is bad and means it's all by itself) and you shouldn't run out and purchase links in a very short amount of time from unrelated sites. You should not use mirror sites or cloak your site (showing one page to a spider and another to everyone else), and your should not have bad links from bad sites (do what you can). Don't domain hijack (when a copy is made of a site and hosts it elsewhere with few changes) and make sure your hosting provider offers reliable server uptime. And do all you can to not be cut off from large sites you've been previously linked to.

On Topic | Career change

In Dante's "The Commedia", the first tercet opens with, "In the middle of our life's walk I found myself in a dark wood for the straight road was lost."

We spend our youth in exploration and education. It's during this time that we run fast - and we have all the time and energy in the world to take big chances and seize every opportunity. It's here that we make our easiest mistakes and when we do, we tell ourselves rightly that we are learning from it and that it is all worth the experience. The opportunities here are smaller and usually don't require a large financial investment, and therefore the hole we dig in this stage is (most of the time) not a very big one. There are less long-term obligations here.

Then, we move into a later stage where the opportunities are much larger and while they require the same kinds of decisions regarding time and energy and money, the obligations are much greater and the timelines are longer. When we make a decision here, it usually involves a contract of some sort, much more money and time to see the opportunity through. Many of our resources are required to turn these opportunities into successes.

It's here that our earlier decisions began to move us down one path, and turn us away from other paths. For some, it starts at college when you receive your first credit card limit (at no cost to you) and you begin making minor career decisions out of financial obligations. (ie requiring more income or less) For others, it starts with the job you thought you needed to build a great resume instead of taking the job you loved. Many people now in this "middle of our life's walk" have not reconsidered their career options since. They simply continue down the same path. The only consideration was earlier in their life when they began their career. Is that enough? How have you changed? Don't you require a career tune-up?

For a life worth living, we are called to adapt and grow and develop during our life. Where are you today? Do you find yourself "in a dark wood" not knowing where to turn? Are you still making decisions based on your past? If so, you are not alone.

We are all capable of change and growth and while it can be hard, it can be done. If you are currently reevaluating your career, invest in yourself and consider the following:

• That you life's purpose is not a job description, it is a calling. What is your calling?
• That by aligning yourself with your core (your center), you will find peace. What is your core?
• That by doing what you love you will find happiness. What do you love?
• That you will gain more happiness with a focus on significance, meaning, purpose, and fulfillment than on success. Success is self-focused, the other four have a focus outside yourself - and that does make all the difference.

It would be a shame to enter the "middle of our life's walk" and know we are not centered or balanced and then do absolutely nothing about it - and later look back with regret. Are you still leveraging your past to serve your future or are you thoughtfully considering your life, and activating a plan to move forward? Are you building a paycheck or building a career life worth living? If you haven't considered this before and if you do feel something is not right, will you thoughtfully reevaluate your career and life with what you know now about yourself, or will you continue along the same old path, lost in the dark?

Consider that we have only one earthly life. Wouldn't it be a shame to get to the end of this life only to realize we lived using candle light when all the while the sun was available.

Chris

Christopher Mengel, Razorwest, LLC

www.razorwest.com