Quicken-to-Go

The Detroit News reports, Quicken Loans plans to move to Detroit. Long term, it’s good that thousands of workers will be coming down to the city. Those are thousands of people who may have at one time or another had a bad image of Detroit begin to see Detroit as what it really is. A big city with a lot to offer, and like any other city, that means both good and bad.

The Detroit News reports the deal will be over $200 million. Kwame Kilpatrick welcomes Dan Gilbert and Quicken Loans with open arms. The city, as well as the state, are doing what they can to secure the deal. Gilbert hopes many more will follow and states “big” things are to come.

One thing the article didn’t mention is the effects on Livonia and Troy. What about the cities that have supported and embraced Quicken for years? These city governments have made sure that it was easy for Quicken to operate there and are will lose out on a lot of traffic. And what about the local dry cleaners and diners that depend on hundreds of Quicken workers coming in day in and day out? I guess there’s room for them to follow. Who’s coming with me?

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007707060360

Myface.com

Facebook.com began as the online social network for college students. It was characterized by it’s clean appearance and spam-free enviroment. It was the oasis from Myspace that college students were looking for. Was…was….were.

Facebook is changing. In the later part of last year, uproar flamed across the network as the simple college social network opened it’s doors to everyone and began to become more complex. Now facebook.com has announce they have opened up the site for developers like you and me (ok maybe you, but definately not me) to build applications that interact with the network.

There are already applications that can connect facebook to your instant messenger and share your music with your friends, and facebook will even allow companies to make money off of their applications if they choose. Now the question is, is that 22 year old idol to internet entrepreneurship, Mark Zuckerberg, a genius or too big for his barely of age britches.Sure options are cool. Adding video to myspace pages almost on its own changed the landscape of the internet helping throw youtube into the spotlight. But is facebook stepping away from its core going to do more harm than good?

http://www.themoneytimes.com/articles/20070525/facebook_unveils_platform_for_outside_developers-id-104121.html

Do you believe in Magic?

It seems as though Magic isn’t a good enough nickname for sports icon Earvin Magic Johnson. When he came and spoke to us last Thursday afternoon it seemed as though he wanted to steal the nickname of another basketball great, Karl Malone aka the Mail Man, as he stressed how important it was not only to deliver, but to over deliver, and boy did we get the message.

Most of the time when former athletes speak to a group of business people, it’s more or less of a chance to pump their own ego and speak of their glory days. Not Magic. When he came and spoke to us he stayed true to his most overseeing statement, “know your customer.” He spoke of his days before playing basketball and how is interest in business got started and he spoke of his current and most recent endevours. To be honest, the 5′5″ owner of a mortgage company spoke more passionately about his basketball achievements that day than the legendary Johnson even alluded to.

Magic’s simplistic message and charsimatic delivery style made for an amazing lesson in achieving success. Contrary to popular belief, his status of a superstar didn’t make start up easy for Magic. He got turned down time and time again from investors who just saw him as a dumb jock who had gotten out of sports and needed something to fill his time It wasn’t until someone took a chance on Magic that the world began to see the business genius he truly is. The amazing part is no matter how much he achieves, every time he goes into a new area of business it’s the same story. He has to prove himself like a rookie in the league before anyone decides to back him.

All and all, Magic’s words on his business success and failure made for a great session of Business Wisdom. The way he stressed the importance of serving and knowing your customer never resonated as clear as it did that day and continues to stay clear in my mind every day as I think of business ventures.

Mentorship Meeting #2

1. The 3 Cornerstones. I’m not exactly what the wording that was used but this was the principle of writing down three things everyday that I need to do before I do anything else. I’ve done this and it’s helped a lot with my organization. I’ve taken it a step further and put time limits on each thing and I’ll stop at the time I’ve written for each one even if I haven’t finished and come back to it after the time is up for the other two(sort of hard to explain, but it seems to be working for me). This helps keep me on track and pushes me to meet deadlines.

2. The tip you gave me on introducing myself when someone has likely forgot the other person’s name was great too. The introduction has always been an awkward thing for me, as to when it’s appropriate to introduce myself or wait to be introduced, but that tip you gave me will be a great springboard into our further networking training.

3. The direct mail concept you spoke to me about was a great thing in helping me think in different directions as for business concepts. Also, if that’s something you don’t plan on pursing sometime in the future I’d like to sit down and talk to you a little about that as an opportunity I might want to further look into.

4. The way you explained how you interview is something I will definitely start to use. The idea of putting the right people in the right seats on the bus was discussed in Good to Great, but the idea of starting the interview with seeing if they are the right people, rather than seeing if they have the right qualifications, was the missing link the book never discussed in the book in order to make that happen.

5. Staying curious was something you hit on that I’m going to always keep in my mind. I know a lot of business owners and executives like to appear like the smartest ones in an organization, but the way you said you help solve problems, by helping them probe to find the answers rather than giving the answer when you know it (or trying to make one up to save face if you don’t know it) is something I believe is needed to create an organically self-sufficient team, rather than a group of order takers.

Stamp Prices

Once again the price of stamps increases. It makes me wonder if the post office has any direction it’s moving in or if they’re just trying to stay afloat. The post office seems to be behind the market in new offerings such as package pick-ups and shipping of bulk items (Services that make up a large amount of there revenue). Yet they seem to be canabalizing their USP (unique selling proposition). The USPS is the only major service that provides first class delivery of simple mail and as in so many of our book clubs books suggest, they need to stay close to their core. Understandably, the Internet has taken a large market share away, with email, blogs, and online magazines, but still their are certain situations were a physical letter needs to be sent. Why are they letting FedEx out do them with overnighting these? Why do they keep making it harder and harder to mail a card to a friend? Maybe there is some strategic reason that the USPS is trying to keep people away from mailing letters, but it looks like to me, with this rise in the cost of stamps they’re just scrambling for pennies. Two to be precise.

Flash these Seats

What a way to kick off a new season of Business Wisdom. Kwame, in my opinion, was more of a warm up act than legitimate Business Wisdom, but Sam Greace came out and owned the stage. As the CEO of FlashSeats, an innovative ticketing company acquired by Camelot Ventures, he had an amazing way of tying together what we had learned in the last semester and seemingly putting a fresh start on this new one. Sam is a self-admitting serial entrepreneur.

Once again he drilled in to me the importance of personal connections. I think this program in a way doesn’t place enough direct importance on developing that quality although implicitly it’s always there. I can’t recall exactly how he got the position at FlashSeats but similar to the CEO of Fathead, he happened to be in the right place at the right time and someone he knew reffered him. As I talked to my mentor most recently, he told me that’s how he does the majority of his recruiting.

Sam talked again and again about how important it was to get the right people in the company. He even said he focuses on that more than their qualifications. While Sam said he does like to have “grey hair” in his organization, he prefers at times to hire people who aren’t experienced in specific areas so they will catch what people who have been doing that job for years will overlook simply out of routine.

Sam is a true entrepreneur. I enjoyed his calm way of presenting that while at times put me at ease, also proved amazingly captivating. One of the most interesting and unique pieces of knowledge he left with us was the different types of businesses. He said there were some you do be cause you love what you do, there are some you do in hopes to sell, there are some you do to their greatest profitability, and there are some you do to drain all the money out of and then ditch. All and All, Sam was great and had a unique story that I believe we all found interesting.

Will the real Kwame Kilpatrick please stand up?

Scandals, misappropriation of funds and incompetence. These are many of the types of things that come along with a story on Kwame Kilpatrick. He’s been rated as one of the worst mayor’s in the country and the us versus them war using Kilpatrick and Oakland County Commissioner, L. Brooks Patterson, as figureheads is all most suburbanites, like myself, really know about Detroit’s 30 something mayor.

If you were to ask most of us from the Detroit suburbs if we were knowledgeable enough to judge Kilpatrick as a mayor we’d most likely say of course. We hear about him almost on a weekly basis, and often times even more frequently. But if you were to ask most of us if we have ever heard him speak, in any capacity aside from a Steve Wilson, yellow journalism sound bite, we probably couldn’t say we had.

Friday we were ready for just that. I heard him speak at the State of the City address, and I thought it was pretty good, but anyone can make a speech sound good, right? Well Friday I was shocked. Expecting a swendling disingenuine spin doctor to show up, I was confronted with someone completely different. I was confronted with Kwame Kilpatrick. The real Kwame Kilpatrick. It was a straight forward, seemingly honest (for a politician at least), completely competent individual who spoke of a vision for the city that lined up with my own.

He answered our questions without, to steal a piece of Quicken jargon, ARP’ing us. He explained how many of the situations the city was dealing with were issues that were put into motion before he even came to office. He said he simply didn’t know, when question came that he didn’t know about and he gave us the contact information of his personal asstant just in case we ever needed to contact him.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m going to run up to Ink Slingers and get Kwame’s name tattooed on my forehead. I’m not even completely saying if I was in the city I’d 100% vote for the guy. When he explained why we were selling our portion of the tunnel to Canada the numbers didn’t work out in a realistic fashion as to how many Americans use the tunnel each day. I think it worked out to something like 1 car every 6 minutes. But what I am saying, is smelling the breathe directly from the horses mouth came out a lot more fresh than the stories I’ve been told. The meeting with Kwame last Friday reminded me how important it is not to trust anyone who’s telling me it’s black or it’s white when I know it’s always a hue of grey.

Gail Perry-Mason

Gail Perry-Mason, now that’s what I’m talking about. Gail is successful, energetic, knowledgeable and most of all real. We’ve had many speakers in Business Wisdom. I can’t think of any that were particularly bad. As far as I remember they have all offered a great amount of knowledge and wisdom, but none have in the way that Gail Perry-Mason did. Most of the speakers seemed as though they submerged their lives into their business and became extremely successful. The thing about Gail is it seems as though she brought her business into her life and then continued to live her life and managed to be extremely successful.

 

Gail had an element that I haven’t seen in any other speaker in the class. It’s hard to exactly pinpoint what it was, but it was all incased in an ounce of realness. She never got out of the box, and frankly I think there’s some credit in staying in the box. It was simple real talk. The most applicable talk we’ve ever had in that class. She gave us the kind of advice that a rich successful aunt would give. She didn’t feel a need to come across as wise, just honest. I respect that.

 

The way she got to where she is today also amazed me. The fact that she had so many cards stacked against her really made me look at the opportunity that we all have set in front of ourselves. We have guidance, advice, great instructors, and funding. All she had been her own will and a can do attitude. If we can never cease to incorporate those into our mindset I think there is no limit to what we can do.

The life of the virtual rich and famous…

“China’s fastest growing currency isn’t the Yuan, it’s the QQ,” begins an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about a new player in the world’s economy. With the rise of internet use, the online world has almost taken on a life of its own. Now in China the QQ, which began as an online currency to buy things such as ring tones and for online promotions, is big business. According to the article it has risen as much as 70% within the last few weeks.

 

According to the Chinese government the amount of currency spent on virtual items last year came up to $900 million last year. This number only seems to be getting larger as well. All of this online use of the QQ is starting to make the Chinese government nervous. Online people are starting to accept the QQ for non-virtual good such as CD’s and makeup. Private online chats are accepting this currency and most threatening to the Chinese government, gamblers have started using the QQ as a way to get around Chinese gambling laws.

 

As I first read this article I was amazed how something like this could happen. Later that week I was introduced to Second Life and saw similar things going on in that virtual realm. As the article states, currency is simply as valuable as the confidence people have in the entity that backs it. Talk about opportunity.

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