All posts in The Foundation

Idea extraction wise, I’ve worked (and am currently working) on these things:

• Shut up and listen. Don’t finish sentences or confirm your understanding.
• Get more comfortable waiting even longer when silences are dropped
• Prepare implication questions (SPIN!)
• Look for no (and don’t give yourself an excuse to quit)
• And my last and most important one: craft a shorter, sharper and more honest introduction to create instant understanding of my proposition, filter out ‘goodwill’ conversations, and end up with people that want to talk about improving their business.

But… the last couple of weeks, on a personal level, things have been much more intense. Rationally I’d say these are simply excuses to keep myself from IE action and making calls. But my gut is telling me these are important long-term learnings.

Evaluate the 5 people you spend most time with

This is huge. I know how the people you spend most time with influence you. It’s literally who you are. For over a year I’ve spent time to gather people around me who were like-minded in business. I’m a big believer of the lean startup movement, and think it’s amazing how The Foundation is taking lean principles one step further by starting out finding a problem without an idea.

So to find interesting people I connected with old colleagues, I attended a lean startup weekend, and I ran a meetup myself. I focused on finding people expressing their hopes and dreams of freedom, entrepreneurship and creating value. And the funny thing is, there are so many of them. But in a year time, I learned how hopes and dreams are not the same as acting on them. Few people really understand lean. And there’s a big difference between movement and action, and you can use it to fool yourself with.

This is actually one of the scariest things to say out loud: be selective about your friends and co-workers, and create people around you that support you and are of great influence in your life. The first time stating this I felt like a freak, but I got more comfortable about it. Up to the point where I now seriously understand how unhealthy it is to act otherwise and couldn’t go back. It’s what you deserve to yourself: people around you that do not fool you or themselves, who will hold you accountable, and will point you out on your own bullshit.

Demanding a quality environment will filter out talkers. It raises the bar for the people you are already spending time with, and sets a standard for new ones to meet. For a few weeks, consciously I’ve been evaluating the people around me, and it’s been super painful and emotional to make a decision when I realise how some people act very toxic. Slowly I’ve been reserving the space around me for high quality people only.

Saying no to pointless meetings

As a freelancer and in any business actually, you get meeting requests for coffee (some people refer to it as networking). I used to always accept these. Some are great, but many are precious time wasters as well. Especially when they claim the little time you have to actually work on your business. Saying no to colleagues and companies has been a tough one. At first I felt a little arrogant, but I’ve learned it’s the best thing for both. It’s not about saying no. It’s about getting both to express your goals. If your goals are not aligned right now, it’s perfect to talk about it, and decide meeting doesn’t help.

Declining valuable freelance project requests

I’ve been working freelance for almost a year while putting money aside to eventually take a break from freelancing and being able to dedicate my time on creating a business. Now is the time to do so. With my plans on joining The Foundation I wanted at least 6 months of no freelance work, which I should manage right now.

When my last big freelance project got to an end, I kept declining big projects, but almost naturally accepted a few small projects. I thought they would be great to do on the side to make some extra money, but the day I accepted them I felt totally overwhelmed and realised how I was sabotaging my focus. Didn’t I save enough money then? Maybe I got cold feet. Eventually I told my clients about my plans learning entrepreneurship and how I would probably get myself in trouble creating quality time for their project. Giving back the assignment felt dishonorable at first, but afterwards it felt honest to myself and perfectly aligned with my goals.

Create a dedicated place and time for business

(And saving me from killing my back working on dining room chairs). Next to working as a freelance designer I used to dedicate 2 days a week to create my own business: every thursday and friday, working from home. This was fine for a while. But last week I’ve scaled up to 4 days a week. With my girlfriend also going freelance, working from home is not an option anymore.

There are a lot of co-working and flexible workspaces available, but since I need to make phone calls all day without disturbing people around me, I figured I need something private. So last week I managed to get myself a solo office. What do you know, luck was on my side, making a phone friday afternoon, signing a contract the next monday morning. It might be a temporary office (and an absolutely amazing one), but I’ll find a new one when I need to. More importantly, the actions required to arrange this shifted my mindset.

It cost me almost a week to get it up and running, and it wasn’t the moving and buying of office stuff itself that cost me most time. I think it was the transformation in my mind from seeing business as a side project, to seeing business as my priority.

Investing in proper sleep equipment

This sounds like a small one but is one of the most important ones. After being sleep deprived for nearly 3 weeks in a row I had one lucky night of sleep and felt like superman. Incredible. I told myself to always remember how good I felt that day and wanted to make sure I had full control over feeling that way every single day in the future. I found out how my old sleeping couch/bed was killing my back. Buying a good bed was a big investment, and now one week in, I’m sure it’s one of the best investments I’ve made.

I can’t describe what it feels like to type this all up, the first day of a new period. I know this is just a small high, and there’s another challenge around the corner. And I’m up for it.

I’m trying to be more clear about my offer. This will probably filter out some people that now want to talk to me because they think I’m a student. In order to fine-tune my proposition I will be very conscious about their reasons for rejection.

Making a rejection list

Mentioning pains

The jump for sole proprietors 

Time spent is money spent

Find a profit oriented market.

Broadcast who you are.

This week I felt totally overwhelmed and took a break from calling. It might be a lack of sleep, or busy work for the freelance project I’m doing. Whatever it is, I really feel the need to re-energize. Tomorrow (friday) I don’t have time to work on Idea Extraction. So that’s it for this week…

When feeling down, I get new motivation watching inspiring interviews. There are so many of them, so it’s best to select one close to your current biggest challenge. For me right now, this the Foundation interview with Cameron Herold: The Pain Every Entrepreneur Feels and What To Do About it.

Once again it’s becoming more evident my introduction is messy and doesn’t state clearly the benefits a conversation with me can offer people. Usually though, I’m able to hustle my way through by staying as close as possible to the truth of the situation. I’m telling people this stuff I’m doing sounds a bit weird (because that’s how I still feel about it), and after dropping a few problems heard earlier I manage to start a conversation or make an appointment. And that’s what I kept doing because until now it was most successful.

A lot of times I have a few bumps in the introduction, but I usually manage to get the conversation going. Today I had someone not only tell me he didn’t understand my proposition, he told me to hang up, put it down on paper and then get back to him. Wonderful.

Why would he give me this feedback? Why wouldn’t he just simply hang up because he didn’t see the benefit of it, or because it was wasting his time? Maybe it was because these people did get a slight hint of the value in it for him, even though I wasn’t able to express it clearly. Whatever it is, it wasn’t the first time I was told my introduction is messy. So I definitely need to work on that.

Help needed or offering help?
It looks like most conversations I have start off because the person likes to talk about his business or simply wants to offer me some help. I’m telling people I’m studying their market and want to figure out how these businesses can be improved. Maybe it’s a noble cause to them, even if they don’t see the direct benefit to themselves. It’s funny to see there are still a lot of people that do want to talk with me out of good will.

The ones that do want to see a direct benefit are probably the ones most interesting to work for, so I need to find a direct way to explain them my offer so I don’t have to throw up ‘study’ smoke screens.

Once again it’s becoming more evident my introduction is messy and doesn’t state clearly the benefits a conversation with me can offer people. Usually though, I’m able to hustle my way through by staying as close as possible to the truth of the situation. I’m telling people this stuff I’m doing sounds a bit weird (because that’s how I still feel about it), and after dropping a few problems heard earlier I manage to start a conversation or make an appointment. And that’s what I kept doing because until now it was most successful.

A lot of times I have a few bumps in the introduction, but I usually manage to get the conversation going. Today I had someone not only tell me he didn’t understand my proposition, he told me to hang up, put it down on paper and then get back to him. Wonderful.

Why would he give me this feedback? Why wouldn’t he just simply hang up because he didn’t see the benefit of it, or because it was wasting his time? Maybe it was because these people did get a slight hint of the value in it for him, even though I wasn’t able to express it clearly. Whatever it is, it wasn’t the first time I was told my introduction is messy. So I definitely need to work on that.

Help needed or offering help?

It looks like most conversations I have start off because the person likes to talk about his business or simply wants to offer me some help. I’m telling people I’m studying their market and want to figure out how these businesses can be improved. Maybe it’s a noble cause to them, even if they don’t see the direct benefit to themselves. It’s funny to see there are still a lot of people that do want to talk with me out of goodwill.

The ones that do want to see a direct benefit are probably the ones most interesting to work for, so I need to find a direct way to explain them my offer so I don’t have to throw up ‘study’ smoke screens.

My introduction is still a bit messy, but by staying at the truth, a lot of times I still get through. I know by mentioning 1 or 2 (surface) problems heard earlier I can get the conversation going. “Do you recognise problem X?”. It’s the conversation itself where I’m still having a hard time going deeper.

I feel less motivated in pushing through my still messy introduction, because I start to lose the point of the problem interview itself. Most of them end up with an ‘there is no important problem’.

I believe my introduction will get less messy as soon as I myself better see the value of the interview again. For now, I will not concentrate my time on fixing my introduction.

Getting to deeper problems

I’m analysing how to get deeper and ask better questions. Currently I’m halfway reading the book SPIN Selling, and learned about ‘Implication Questions’ and Need development. Page 74 has an excellent example interview.

A good next step is to analyse recorded calls and write down possible ‘Implication Questions’ I could have asked, so they will be top-of-mind when I need them the next time.

I’ve decided to create full focus on my own business from the 1st October. Right now I’m working on a big freelance project, which is about to be finished. In the meantime I get requests for new ones. I thought it would be smart to flip freelance and my own business around. Change freelance from main activity to a side project, and make creating my own business my top priority. So I thought I’d take on some project request to combine but I immediately felt miserable on the perspective of lack of focus.

It’s a strange thing. While I wouldn’t advise anyone to totally quit any work they do for income, I do feel the need to try and see how much I can get done in a longer period of full focus.

This is how I made my decision

• My top priority is creating my own business, so I should devote as much time as possible to it.
• Although I like freelance design, it is taking away focus of my top priority, so I stop doing it
• I do need to pay rent, and have saved up enough money to not need extra income for at least 6 months
• Because it’ll take a bit of time to kickstart myself back into freelancing, I will start looking for projects again when I have 2 months of savings left.

So for now I won’t have time to do any freelance work apart from some after sales service on my current project. I’m not doing any design side projects either.

When to make the jump?

Last year, after working full time, I took 1 month off to start creating some small projects and play with lean principles for the first time. It felt like a small test drive. I liked the concept of investing time into my personal development. In the meantime I’ve heard others save up 6 months or even a year to get their own startup going. I’m sure there are many ways to do it.

After my month of not working, I really needed some income. So I had to start working freelance again, but I did want to do it in a way that allowed me to work on my business as well.

So what are the options?

– Work fulltime and save money until you can spare 1 month
– Work fulltime and save money until you can spare 6 months
– Work fulltime and save money until you can spare 1 year
– Work fulltime and save money until whatever feels safe…

There is no such thing as ‘the jump’

I don’t believe there is a thing such as ‘a jump’ from working as employee or freelancer to working on your own business from then on. There is absolutely no guarantee that after this certain period you will make enough money. You’re more likely to work slower because you have created a deadline but this deadline is not very close. Parkinson Law will make you spread out the stuff you’re supposed to do, out over the entire period.

So it’s important to not postpone important work and learning and not wait until you’ve created this free time.

• Work part-time, and work on your business on the side
• Work part-time, and work on your business on the side, and save money until you can spare … months

Until you can flip them around:

• Work on your business, and work for extra income on the side

Or even:

• Work on your business (full stop)

Invest your time for the right reasons

Whatever length of period of free time you choose, you should see it as an investment in your own personal development. Do it because every single month will pay back itself in every decision you make in the months after. When you can create one day a week to invest, do it. Two days, even better. A month? Perfect. Six months or a year? You’re going to learn an insane amount. Don’t do it because you expect to make a jump or escape your working life. Do it because you deserve maximum learning in that period and will benefit from it for the rest of your life. The business will come, earlier than expected.

Thursday

Having trouble explaining the ‘What’s In It For Me’. People don’t understand what I’m offering. And those who don’t understand won’t talk to me.

Friday

I’ve tried some new introduction stuff, focusing on ‘what’s in it for them’. Didn’t make a lot of calls, but got mostly rejected. Had 1 scheduled call. It lasted over an hour. It was interesting, but I wasn’t able to extract a deep pain. I have to improve my listening skills to get deeper.

Reaching out

Sometimes it feels a little alone, working on these Foundation skills of Idea Extraction and cold calling. It’s great to read about other people’s success. Especially from Foundation alumni. It would also be nice to be able to talk with others your challenges. That’s what The Foundation is set up for exactly. But until the start it’s important to find a replacement.

So I tried to contact other prospective Foundation members and alumni, by e-mail, on Twitter and will try to be more active in comment sections of blogs. Also, Andrew Warner of Mixergy is hosting awesome interviews and business courses and created a Facebook Group about Idea Extraction called ‘Find the pain’. There’s some interesting people out there trying the same stuff.

Earlier this week I completed my target list. My goal was to create a high value list of exactly 100 customers to make it easier to learn from metrics later on.

The list I started out with had company names, main phone number and website. Only the companies I could find the name of the business owner and a direct contact email address for qualified for my list.

Send out in the morning

Although it’s good practise to check your email once or twice a day, most people are not that strict. They have this constant stream of new email notifications and will most likely see your email as soon as they get it. That doesn’t mean they have time or energy to answer it.

I was able to send my emails around 10:00 AM. I’ve read open and response rates are even higher earlier in the day. 7 AM would be perfect. So it would be nice to be able to schedule it.

The numbers

Emails sent: 100
Bounce: 2
Out-of-office: 6
Replies: 12
Answer: 6

Not too bad in the middle of high season summer holidays.

Setting a goal for the call

I planned to call both responders and non-responders. Although I reached a lot of voicemails and a lot of people were still on holidays, it all went quite well. After sending emails on tuesday, this first day of calling (thursday) I ended up making an appointment for next week!

I noticed how setting a distinct goal for the call helped me close it. My goal was to make an appointment to call back or schedule a meeting. It was not about getting as much information as possible from this call already. When I was less focused on what I would learn from the call itself, I was less attached to the outcome of the call, making me sound more natural. And I think that created trust for the person I was calling, making them more open to talk.

After doing more calls on friday I had 3 face-to-face meetings scheduled, two scheduled calls, and there was someone who called me back a day later. It felt real good making this kind of progress.

Making cold calls a little warmer

Some people told me in email they weren’t interested. When I called one of them despite, we talked for over 15 minutes and I ended up with a face-to-face meeting for next week. Unbelievable. This really learned me how sending these emails are just a way to make it easier to reach the decision maker as you have something to talk about. It’s making my cold calls just enough warmer.