(1) What are your professional goals?

(2) What are your personal goals?

It was my view that if my company couldn’t help them to achieve both personal and professional objectives then we probably weren’t the right fit.

Last week over lunch with the John Espley, chair of the Victoria Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors, we were talking about various matters related to management and entrepreneurship. It reminded me of this practice and of a great memory.

My last company was a computer services firm. It was a brutal start-up and took eighteen months to turn our first profit. While the company was profitable every month thereafter it never really made enough money to justify the risk I took in starting it.

Through the fog of these start-up challenges I’d say that the most rewarding day was when one of my key employees, now a successful founder of his own company (www.multitrends.com), notified me that he was at a Chrysler dealership signing papers to purchase his wife a new Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Another key team member had a professional goal. That was to build a full time motivational speaking business. So we struck an arrangement whereby as long as he achieved his targets with my company he could take time off as necessary to build his speaking practice.

He is now a very successful international speaker on matters relating to sales and goal setting. While other companies might have been concerned about a senior employee moonlighting, I was firmly of the view that this was an opportunity to help this person achieve a professional goal.

These days were even more rewarding that the day I sold my company! This is because my little company helped these people achieve their goals. If it could keep doing this then we’d have happy employees moving forward in life in ways important to them.

You can read John Espley’s blog post on this topic at his Accent Inns blog here: http://www.accentinns.com/blog/2012/good-employer/#more-2129

If you’re voting in the British Columbia municipal elections I recommend you read Michael Geller’s recent blog post. It can be found at: http://gellersworldtravel.blogspot.com/2011/11/please-read-this-before-you-vote.html.

The part I found most entertaining and accurate is as follows:

The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year.
The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest.
I decided we would have an election for a class president.
We would choose our nominees. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.
To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members.
We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have.
We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot.

The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids.
I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support.
I had never seen Olivia’s mother.
The day arrived when they were to make their speeches Jamie went first.
He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place.
He ended by promising to do his very best.
Everyone applauded.
He sat down and Olivia came to the podium.

Her speech was concise.
She said, “If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream.”
She sat down.
The class went wild. “Yes! Yes! We want ice cream.”
She surely would say more.
She did not have to.
A discussion followed.
How did she plan to pay for the ice cream?
She wasn’t sure.
Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it.
She didn’t know.
The class really didn’t care.
All they were thinking about was ice cream.

Jamie was forgotten.
Olivia won by a land slide.
All candidates running for office offer ice cream.
Fifty percent of the people react like nine year-olds.
They want ice cream.
The other fifty percent know they’re going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess.

Put simply, a business should focus on dominating its first market segment with its first product. Only after it is the “go to” organization for its product in its market segment should it look to grow a new product line or with the existing product line into a new market.

I adopted it from Geoffrey Moore’s book “Inside the Tornado“.

Brian Scudamore is one of BC’s leading entrepreneurs. He is the founder of 1-800-Got-Junk and has built that into a $100mm plus franchising business. His company faces lots of mom-and-pop competitors, but “Got-Junk” is by far the most dominant player.

He is now taking the expertise, relationships, systems and know-how that has turned Got-Junk into an international success story and applying them to a new market segment. 1-800-Wow-1-day promises to paint your house in one day.

Here’s an article taken from today’s National Post on 1-800-Wow-1-day: http://business.financialpost.com/2011/10/31/primed-for-growth/. I’m going to follow it with interest to see the Bowling Alley Strategy work its wonders!

I am very pleased to see that the entrepreneurship@UBC Fund has announced its first investment: Aeos Biomedical.

Colin O’Neill and Nick Seto co-founded Aeos to commercialize their “Target Tape” invention. Target tape is a disposable, adhesive sticker that assists surgeons to better target their incisions. This idea is something that surgeons immediately understand and appreciate. I think this company has great potential.

Colin and Nick are terrific examples of what can happen when engineering students are partnered with commerce students. They play to their strengths, complement one another and are already on a successful track.

I am very happy for them and for entrepreneurship@UBC for helping foster some great student entrepreneurs.

Jack Layton, Ronald Reagan, Tommy Douglas, Ralph Klein and George W. Bush were all straight shooting politicians. Whether you liked them or hated them, you knew where they stood.

The other criterion I use is whether I think they can execute. Being a successful elected politician requires a lot of different skill sets, but chief amongst them is the ability to get things done. Barack Obama and Gregor Robertson would be two examples of leaders that can’t execute.

My friend Christopher Gorman is running for elected office in Kelowna, British Columbia. I have served with Chris on the UBC Alumni Association board and have seen him in action. I have also been a colleague of his at UBC when I was forming UBC’s entrepreneurship@UBC initiative.

Chris is a professional, honest and capable executive. He is a community minded person and does a great job at whatever I have seen him do. If I lived in Kelowna I would vote for him in a second.

If you will be voting in the forthcoming Kelowna civic elections I highly recommend Chris for School Board.

http://www.votegorman.ca/

Ric Elias’ five minute TED Talk was about the three things he learned as a passenger aboard the US Airways flight 1549 that was ditched in the Hudson River in 2009.

Enjoy this five minute vignette.

(1) Competition,

(2) The Scientific Revolution,

(3) Property rights,

(4) Modern medicine,

(5) The consumer society and,

(6) The work ethic.

The US:China per capita income was about equal in the 1500s. The UK:India per capital income was about equal in 1500. In the 1970s UK:India ratio was about 10 and the US:China ratio about twenty.

His conclusion: the Great Divergence is over, but the West is not necessarily on an imminent path to becoming a has-been.