A New Shooter

I was in Las Vegas a few weeks ago and one of the things I like to do is cruise by the table games. Craps is one of the most fun games to play, particularly when you have a shooter that can roll numbers. Nothing is more fun than a hot table. Craps is Lisa's favorite casino game and more times than not she has walked away with cash. In fact, she was the hot shooter at a table in Chicago and won enough money to pay for our honeymoon. Again, the key to winning at craps is finding a hot shooter that is rolling numbers and then trusting your gut to cash in before you 7 out. With the 20th of January just a few days away, we are under 48 hours before we get a new shooter.

While the election was an overall disappointment for me, I guess that I'm grateful that we won't be swearing in another Clinton or a Huckabee. Regardless, I really want our next President to be successful so I've decided to not go "Dixie Chicks" on Obama and be ashamed of anyone who wants to serve our country. I'm happy that he has as much support as he does and it will be interesting to see if that can be sustained as his presidency becomes more centrist than what his base probably wants. These are challenging times but I think we can pull it together so to use a poker term, I'm cautiously putting my chips behind the new shooter.

A few thoughts on President Bush. While it's not popular to say this, I think he was a good president. 9/11 was shoved on all of us and our Nation's innocence was lost forever. For the first time, we were forced to deal with the faces of hate, and of a radical religion hell bent on destroying our way of life. To his credit, President Bush protected our Country and his administration has thwarted numerous attacks since then.

Many mistakes were made in the course of his Presidency and in the end we find ourselves in two wars and a ravaged economy. Was this his evil scheme all along? I don't think so. But I believe that he tried to do the best he could with the information and advisers that he had around him. In any event, I'm grateful to him for his time and dedication to our Country. I hope History proves you better.

As for our new Shooter, I hope that you can enhance the good things that have been done for us already and sidestep the mistakes of those who have gone before you. Whether you voted for him or not, he's the best bet we have right now and on Tuesday afternoon I will be proud to say that he is my President too!

To be successful you MUST share the misery! Yes, you heard it here folks we strongly believe in handing your problems off to everyone else. Isn't this the kind of advice that you have been waiting to hear? Well it's kinda true actually.

If you have ever worked as a small business owner you are very familiar with the fact that work never starts at 8 and ends at 5. Owning a small business is a 24 hour comittment which means that we NEVER stop thinking about it. Over time, this constant focus on profitability and success can take an ugly toll.

The other trait that many small business owners have is a reluctance to lean on outside help. Afterall, your business become like a member of your family and who in their right mind would leave their own baby with a complete stranger?!? Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is flawed and can lead to burnout, frustration and office rage (for example, it's a really bad idea to whack your computer monitor. See here for more on that!)

As a Type A personality myself, I often had a "go it alone" mentality that served me well, until graduate school. It was in my MBA program that I finally had to come to grips with the fact that there weren't enough hours in the day to micromanage every one and every thing. It was a hard habit to break but in the end I learned that there are a lot of talented people who can produce phenominal results if you trust them and more importantly empower them to do it "their" way.

Brock Blake, the CEO of Funding Universe learned this lesson at a much earlier age than I did. Early this month he sat everyone down and challenged us to elimate costs and improve profitability. In a matter of hours thousands of dollars were eliminated from our overhead. New ideas and strategies were put into place and a feeling of ownership was felt up and down the hallways of our office. Funding Universe is "my" company. No good idea is ever turned down and often, good ideas are tweaked into GREAT ideas.

Again, this leadership style comes with a severe warning. If you give power to your employees to solve problems, you must do it with the full faith and confidence that they will come through for you. If you give power and then pull it out from underneath them you will damage credibility forever. Trust but verify, guide but empower. If you view each of your employees as problem solvers versus problem causers you will find small business ownership a constant delight!

Steal Big!

This is a picture of Dale Hibbs or "Mr. Hibbs" as we called him back in the day at Iowa City High School. He was one of my favorite teachers, not just because he taught wildly fascinating classes, but he probably had the biggest arms and chest I have ever seen on a teacher. Always walking with swagger (probably something he picked up as a member of the Sons of Odom motorcycle gang) no one ever gave him grief.

He loved to talk about politics and gave everyone who turned 18 a voter registration card on the day of their birthday. It was his "gift" to us and I for one, have voted in every Presidential election since he handed me my voter registration card (although as a staunch Democrat I often wonder how disappointed he would be if he knew I was a registered Independent?!?!). He made fast friends with a lot of students when he would ask "Don't you think it's amazing that at 18 years of age you can cast a vote for someone to become the next President Of The United States, be old enough to go to war and die for your country but still not be old enough to drink a can of beer?" Huge cheers would erupt each and every time. He loved it.


He also taught something that I can still remember to this day. His lesson went something like this;

"I want you kids to know, that if I ever find out that one of you has held up a 7-11, I will find the prosecuting attorney and offer my services as a character witness about what a crummy student you were and how the judge should throw the book at you. But, if you embezzle a couple million dollars from IBM, I will find that same attorney and tell him what an upstanding student you were and how charges should be dropped or reduced as a result of your great contribution to this school and community. You see kids, when you factor economics into the equation, if yer gunna steal, STEAL BIG!"

So it is with a chuckle and grin that I have been reading about Bernie Madoff, the former NASDAQ Chairman who was arrested for embezzling $50 BILLION Dollars. I know that I am with Dale Hibbs in offering a standing ovation for a job well done. It takes an evil mind to keep up a 10 year rouse and if it weren't for his kids he'd still be doing it today. So Bernie, thanks for the laugh and to Mr. Hibbs, thanks for the education. After twenty years your lessons still ring true!

Cleaning House

On my way to work this morning, the AM radio talk show I was listening to was bemoaning the news that another local company was "releasing" 500 workers from its ranks. At first the news was upsetting because I feel bad for anyone who loses their job, particularly around this time of the year. It was also a double shot of reality as I found out yesterday that one of the local flower shops in my neighborhood was going out of business after many years of service. For the first time, I am seeing the very real effects of a down turn economy. You may have a brain seizure when I tell you that this is going to be a good thing... in the long run.

I was a high school senior the year Yellowstone National Park caught fire in 1988. I remember returning a few years later to see for myself the absolute destruction that this fire wrecked on that beautiful park. I truly believed that in my lifetime, Yellowstone would never be the same. As it turns out, I was both right and wrong.

It's been 20 years since those fire raged in 1988 and even today the scars are painfully visible. Amazingly, it has rebounded better than I ever thought possible. It has been well documented that even though the tremendous heat from those fires consumed anything and everything in its path, it also forced the pine cones to loosen their grip on seeds tucked neatly inside and in essence re-fertilized the soil again. Wildfires are Mother Natures way of cleaning house.

Depressions, recessions and down turn economies are also wildfires in a sense because they cause a lot of destruction. Businesses are forced to evaluate, cut back and streamline processes. Profitability values are assigned to products, services and painfully, employees. Despite this, I strongly believe that these painful choices are a good thing in the long run, even a GREAT thing. Follow my logic here.

History confirms that more millionaires were created from the smoldering ashes of the Great Depression than almost any other time in American history. Like a Yellowstone wildfire, the ground was prepared for new growth. When you take an average American worker, pull the rug out from underneath them and then hold their feet to the fire, something magical happens. Inevitably many will choose to take fate into their own hands and become entrepreneurs.

I predict that some of the greatest inventions, products and services that we will see in the next five years will be born out of this current economic down turn. We are seeing many of them at Funding Universe right now and many of them will tell you that it took this boot to the shorts to find the courage necessary to TRY.

If you happen to be an unfortunate casualty of the current economic crisis, I am truly sorry AND excited for your circumstance. I challenge you to seriously take a moment to ponder your situation and do some soul searching to see if there is an entrepreneurial spirit in you. Is this your time? If it is, feel free to contact Funding Universe to see what we can do to make your dreams a reality! Friends, this is a GREAT time to be alive!