Grill me some advice…make it rare

As I walked out the Gilbert Grill my mind was filled with thoughts of what cold medication I was going to get. I was sick. I couldn’t remember a time when I had a cold worse than the one I had that day. I stood outside of Prentis Hall trying to breathe in some fresh air as Wayne State bustled around me. All of the sudden, I notice Dan Gilbert strolling down Cass talking with Ross. On their way to Dan’s car I can only assume. I looked around and noticed all the business student’s coming in and out of Prentis laughing or listening to their iPods oblivious to the fact that a billionaire business professional was standing right next to them.

 

In no way do I say this to say billionaires should be worshiped. I say this because we never know who is right next to us that we may be being rude to, or offering a favor, and even more strongly who may be randomly giving us advice. Ramy Noja is a regional VP at Rock’s Troy office and he spoke to us this week about a chance happening while he was in Chicago. A stranger gave him a random nugget of advice on focus. From this he explained at the age of 15 he began what would later turn into the retail chain Half-Off Card shop, from literally garbage he had been paid to throw away, and later sold the chain to Hallmark in a multi-million dollar deal.

 

All and all, we should all be available to receive advice and don’t worry about who it is from, just worry about how valid it is. The best piece of advice I received at the Gilbert Grill didn’t seem to me from Dan, it was by his friend next to him that did construction when he discussed developing as a viable option in this downtime. I’ve seen all too many times in this group when individuals get advice on ideas they come up with that is great, but they shoot it down and get defensive because they don’t want anyone corrupting their baby. Honestly, I didn’t get a great deal from this addition of the Gilbert Grill in the traditional information Business Wisdom sense. Maybe it was because I was sick or maybe because it wasn’t as strongly focused as most Business Wisdom sessions, but finding good in anything people say or do is what I realize I need to do more o

Franchise Anyone?

The article entitled, Build Your Own Franchise, in Black Enterprise, discusses how two former business partners who owned a Blimpie sub shop started their own franchise. Chris Spears and Gary Williams decided to open a healthy take out seafood restaurant. They did this to counteract the deep fried and high fat seafood options that were available. The great thing about their story is before they even sold one meal, they had already sold a franchise.

 

This article highlights the trend in healthy fast food and take out that is taking place. Also it highlights the trend in franchising ideas. I recently read in article in a local Detroit paper that discussed, while traditional businesses weren’t doing well currently, franchise ownership is actually up doing this economic time in Michigan. The article went on to explain that many former autoworkers took corporate buy outs and then used that money to start franchises. Possibly, what these partners did could be a viable concept to be done in the Detroit area.

 

The article goes on to discuss certain things to look for if you want to create a business you can franchise. The article discussed the high cost in attorney and consultant cost that have to be attended to in order to create a “franchisable” business. Companies such as ifranchise.net and others were given as good experts in the field to consult with. The article also discusses how the franchisor has to pay government fees in every state he plans to build a franchise.

Pangborn Business 101 “You have something I want, and I’m willing to pay you for it.”

“Taking a risk is very important. Being able to make that decision to jump in, if you fail, you better learn how now to do it again.”

 

The simple wisdom of Dominic Pangborn was phenomenal. Pangborn brought something uniquely different to the table than any of the other speakers we’ve had so far in Business Wisdom as well as in our other classes. Pangborn was simple.

 

In no way is calling Pangborn simple meant to be misconstrued for being dumb or obvious. He was a genius in my opinion. His all encompassing message in appeared as simple as Nike in stating “just do it”. We talk about how Quicken says there’s no secret sauce, Pangborn more than anyone seemed to embody that.

 

For a designer, at its essence a technical artist, I’d expect a lot of out of the box power of creativity and positive thinking kind of talk. He very simply seemed to be just the opposite. It seemed even at times when entrepreneurs in the class tried to take him in that direction he seemed two steps close to the area of confused in offering flowery advice.

 

At the age of 10, his mother asked him if he wanted to go to America, he answered yes and went. When college came around he didn’t want to do any English so he took art and now he’s the head of an international empire. When asked if he could do outrageous assignments in an unrealistic amount of time he did it. And when confrontation came in his way he told confrontation it better back down because he was going to be its boss very soon.

 

Pangborn’s simplicity seemed to encompass everything he said. I loved his passion for improving Detroit. One thing he simply stated that seemed absent from what I hear about Detroit’s future is how biotechnology isn’t necessarily the way. At every conversation I hear about new industries in Detroit, I always hear about biotech. Pangborn states, this doesn’t help the people living in the city. The people without high level degrees and even at times high school degrees aren’t benefiting from biotech. They might get a job as a janitor, and is that what we’re trying to do to improve Detroit?

 

All and all, it seems that as of lately certain isms are starting to drive in dearer and dearer to me, and the ism of simplicity being genius is one that Pangborn has helped to drive even deeper within me.

You’ve Got Mail…

372 words that don’t seem to mean too much is how the RFC code 2821 read, and that’s all before the introduction. I thought maybe I was tough enough to read the RFC code that established the rules for email, but I quickly found out I was wrong. There wasn’t too much I got from the RFC code, and in a way I felt the same about this edition of Gizmo’s as well.

Let me explain that in no way am I attempting to blast the presenter or the class in this blog. Possibly it was simply a problem with me, but the overall time spent on this didn’t exactly make sense to me. I’ll start with what I did like first. Nearly all of his talk on email security seemed helpful and interesting. In all honesty, this class may have been more effective had that been the only focus. Knowing that 95% of all the incoming messages at Quicken Loans are spam shocked me. I knew spam was prevalent, but I had no idea it was that overbearing.

 

I also found it helpful in the area of email security when he spoke on the importance of not using email for anything even mildly important. I had no idea that all emails with social security numbers or credit card numbers were blocked, but I think that is boldly important especially with all the sensitive information that Quicken carries.

 

At the same time it was interesting to know the legalities of email. I had heard around from individuals I would in no way call experts on the law or the internet about the legalities of work email. This was the first time I had ever heard a definitive answer on those legalities and I found that useful. I found it useful to know that the establishment that and individual works at owns the emails sent and received on that computer. I also did not know that work email is saved for a predetermined amount of time set by the employer. On this note, I liked how he tied this in with the current lawsuit that is going on with Quicken Loans and the former, disgruntle team members.

 

Now to my criticism. I eluded it to it early, but all in all my only gripe with this session of Gizmos was the lack of direction and clarity. This is to say, I didn’t really need to know how contact between servers happened, and things such as that, and if that’s what the class was on then we should have gone deeper on that. More and more I’m starting to believe the tighter any idea is focused the better it will do. I used to be a shot gun type of guy. I’d throw anything out there and hope something stuck; now I’m beginning to realize that aiming for the target with eagle like vision is much more deadly.

Partner Up

I read an interesting article in Black Enterprise about having a successful partnership. The first key they discussed was to communicate constantly, they say to always keep the lines of communication open. Hold meetings, talk about problems and give criticism constructively. It goes on to talk about sharing the same vision and being compatible, two vitale parts of a partnership.

 

The article goes on to discuss the importance of planning in the area of defining roles and making sure each person knows who is responsible for what and this can be done through making a written agreement that details how business will be conducted between the two owners.  The article continues with laying out basics of integrity such as being willing to compromise and honoring your commitments that you say. The article says that a lot of times arguments happen because one partner feels like they are brining more than the other.

 

Towards the end of the article respecting and trusting the others ability as well as not taking things personally are high lighted. The article mentions that partnerships especially those that involve family can be notorious for things being taken personally. The article wraps up with saying never give up. The article states that just like any other business a partnership will take time and needs goals that need to be accomplished. All and all I enjoyed this article and found in interesting as an aside, that this article could, with a few word changes, potentially end up in an issue of Cosmo as relationship advice. Communication really is at the heart of this article.

So Al Gore Really Didn’t Create the Internet?

I found the presentation on the internet interesting. It’s hard to believe that in the 70s there were only 23 servers that consisted of the entire internet. Yet now everything is online. If the internet were to shut off then the entire economy would shut down. It would have nearly the same impact as a Y2K epidemic. Cell phones, On Star, customer services, inventory and the World Wide Web are all part of what make up this wild world of the internet. Yet still about 30 years ago there were only a handful of servers around.

 

The speaker seemed extremely smart. He seemed very knowledgeable about the subject. I especially liked the tie in with him being an entrepreneur. He seemed to embody the entire simplicity of being an entrepreneur. He didn’t seem like he had some fabulous idea, or he had a great background on writing a business plan, but he had the initiative to start a business when he saw an opportunity.

 

He said he’s been open for only 6 week and has had about $1,300 cards sold. The best part was that he used free open source software to accomplish start his company. So basically apart from purchasing the inventory that he will sell he’s had an extremely low start up and has to do very little labor to his business.

Did you feel that? Awesome

I titled the last Business Wisdom the Wise Brock. So what can I title this one. Rod
Harrison was possibly the most interesting, unique, and motivating Business Wisdom speakers we have had to date.

 

One of the first things he talked about was the three ways to establish identity. The were as follow:

3 Ways to Est. an Identity

1. A Significant Emotional Event.

2. Conditioning

3. Your Environment

 

Identity established by a significant emotional event encompasses identity formed when an event so outside of your comfort level happens that it raptures you into a new form of identity. This can be seen many times in people who have an illness they overcome or in individuals who have come close to danger or death and have a new outlook on life.

 

Conditioning pertains to a constant and intentional repeating of a process or mindset that overtime becomes who you are. The most common and direct example can be seen in exercise. An individual who works out five days a week, eats an impeccable diet and focuses on increasing their cardiovascular and muscular system will be in a top physical form most likely. This is who that person will be because they have done these processes over and over again. This can also be seen in a person who reads books on happiness on a weekly basis and practices what they read daily. This individual is more likely to be a happy person than the average individual.

 

The third way to establish identity was environment. For me a simple example can be seen in exactly what the training entrepreneurs at Bizdom are doing right now. We live in an environment where from the time we wake up in the morning, until the time we go to sleep at night, we constantly here about business or are involved in carrying it out. In us this creates a business mindset and is helping to create our identity. Another place this can commonly be seen is in the old adage, “birds of a feather flock together.” If a teenager is always hanging out with a group of kids that is constantly getting in trouble with the police for illegal activities, it’s more likely that teenager will become a criminal than if he’s hanging out with the student government of his high school all day.

 

 

“Being an entrepreneur is harder than being a Navy Seal” 

Rod went on to say that “being an entrepreneur is harder than being a Navy Seal. While I find this extremely hard to believe on further analysis of his reasoning behind his statement I can come closer to believing him. Rod implies that just like the Navy Seals, a lot of entrepreneurs get into business for the wrong reasons; once they see the emotional ends won’t be what they thought they drop out.

 

On this level, if someone decides to discontinue their Navy Seal training, they can most likely be sent back to their former area of military service. On the other hand if an entrepreneur decides to do this then she can potentially loser her house, her credit, her family, and potentially a large part of her identity for changing her mind.

 

Mr. Harrison 

It was great to hear about Rod himself. From growing up in a rough school, to training in the military to opening his own business there were nuggets of wisdom all along the way he embarked upon us. I loved hearing the story of his SERE training and definitely found the tie-in to our own attitudes and outlooks. Those extreme kinds of examples of human psychology always tend to intrigue me.

The Wise Brock

Brock Weatherup dropped so many gold nuggets on Friday I felt like a leprechaun on his birthday as he spoke. It’s hard to know where to begin to speak on Brock, so the best thing I can do is list some of his words of wisdom. 

“Leadership is a Privilege; it must be GIVEN to you by the people you lead.”

            Natural born leaders are cliché. Some people are better communicators, and this helps them lead better, but being a natural born leader is something you learn, not something you’re born with. What I learned from Brock is that no matter what kind of leader a person might feel as though they are; it’s the people that make that call. I can read a million books on leadership, practice presence and communication, but if I haven’t gotten that message of trust and respect across to my team members I am not a leader.

 

“If you can get someone hooked on emotion in a deal, you win the deal.”

 

I found this one interesting. When I had my interview with Dan Izzo to get into this program, I told him, I felt as though making an emotional bond with a person was the best way to create a win-win relationship, and that I believed that humor was one of the easiest and safest ways to do that. I then asked Dan what advice he had on humor to help me create this bond. He seemed a little thrown off by the question on humor at a business interview but very profoundly he said to that humor was being the real you. He said that humor was bringing out parts of you that are already there, but you might not readily access as often, being fake or trying to be funny was not humor at all. That has stuck with me ever sense in a way Brock has reinforced that with me, the way to help make those bonds in relationship marketing is to be comfortable with yourself, which will help trigger an emotional bond with the other person.  

His check-list of lessons and rules he lives by were profound as well and are definitely points that I will add to my own list of wise thoughts.

 

Lessons Learned Building and Managing

1. You have to know what you don’t know
   1. You can’t be good at everything
   2. Let’s you know who you need around you
2. Build a common language
   1. You need a unifying vision
3. Understand and leverage your culture
   1. Your business culture is going to adopt the good and the bad of your personality
4. Do the work yourself
5. Love it or don’t do it
6. Know why you’re doing it

 

4 Key things he looks for in people he hires and he tries to maintain in himself

1. Develop a balanced perspective on life
   1. Everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time
   2. Keep the things like family, community, church in check
2. Obtain the broadest set of experiences
   1. Adds to everything you do
3. Learn to value and use failure- Take risk
   1. Enjoy failure and learn the lessons from it
4. Show you TRULY care about people
   1. Being humble, being respectful, being aware of what’s going on

 

 I think one of the reasons I enjoyed Brock so much was because like a product he created value for us. Some of the speakers were more charismatic, or seemed more the typical CEO types, whether they were or not, but Brock, in my opinion, was the only one to present so much valuable information that could be taken away and implemented in an easy to follow, organized way.

 

 

I think Brock himself said it best when he said, “You have to find the good parts of everything and enjoy those; otherwise you’re going to walk through life miserable.” Well Brock Weatherup made the process of finding the good parts in his presentation extremely simple. They were everywhere I turned.

 

The Trigger of Oppression

When I think of the greatest inventions in history the wheel always comes to mind. More currently the internet or the computer pops in my head, and of course inventions such as the telephone and light bulb seem like some of the greatest inventions in history. But rarely do I ever think of the gun.  More than anything this is what I got from the Charles H. Wright museum. As a black male growing up in a diverse community, throughout my life I’ve always questioned the state of the African-American race in this country and even more recently as I studied African history atOakland
University I began to ponder the position of the entire African race throughout the world.

 I’ve come up with a myriad of reason as to why things are the way they are, but nothing ever seemed to suffice. But at the Charles H. Wright museum, one stuck; the gun. The gun is the reason that one of the most highly advanced civilizations in history feel prey to a minority in their own country. 

Our tour guide told us how the first human came from
Africa. Our guide told us how hordes of knowledge, great architecture, and masses of wealth came from
Africa. He told us that many of the civilizations that we see as the “the greats” such as the Romans were taught by Africans. According to the tour guide, the oldest active university is in
Africa and some of the great thinkers in history studied under those scholars.  All and all, I really enjoyed the trip and found in very informational, but if anything I wish we could have spent more time there to learn more about the recent history.