Entrepreneurs Don't Listen

Tonight I am returning to the classroom. I have been invited by Denise Peek to join other graduates to speak to the new class of new business owners or old business developers at the Entrepreneur Institute of Mid Michigan. I remember sitting in their seats last year skeptical that the class would do more than serve as a networking tool. Ask anyone how many people Denise knows and you'll understand my misconception.

The first night of the class Denise passed out our books and gave us instructions on how to put things in their proper order. Five minutes into the assembly of stacks of reading material and we were already failing. Everyone was either moving to fast or performing the instructions out of order. Denise made her point very quickly.

See. Entrepreneurs Don't Listen.

I am not over educated but I am not a stupid woman either. I know when to take someone's meaning. From that moment on I was all ears. When we listened to the guest speakers, who ranged from Bob Fish from Biggby to Gordon Ferguson from the Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center, I listened and took notes like a college pro. I spent a few weeks with the amazing, no exaggeration necessary on this one, Liz Kudwa at the Capital Area District Library researching who my target market is so that I could find them and get them to notice me. (Liz is no longer the business librarian but I would bet my bottom dollar she knows who is) I went home on fire with new ideas and the ways I wanted to develop them.

Paul followed me with a mixture of fear and excitement. Everything we learned in the weeks I attended the class was new, risky and somewhat questionable. Not questionable in the way emails from Nigeria are questionable. Questionable in the way stepping outside of the box you created for yourself feels like a tortoise leaving it's shell.

The Foundations of Business Planning is not the end all of business education. Denise Peek, in all of her awesomeness, does not have all of the answers. The benefit of the class is taking yourself, as a small business owner, out of a vacuum and placing yourself in an arena of focus and incubation with people who support you. It's also about putting yourself one phone call away from the person who just might now what trade association would be a perfect fit for your business. It may even be about finding out before you spend thousands of dollars that your business idea is lame and you need to tweak it. We had some of those realizations too.

Tonight I will step into that classroom on the day that a press release that I wrote, in partnership with my friend Maureen from PR Edge, was used for a story in Capital Gains Media. We were also one of the winners of the 2009 Capital Area Michigan Works Employer of the Year Award. My profit margin is up, my social media usage is on fire and I am confident in my ability to grow this company into something beautiful.

The class is not about the cost.

It's about loving your business enough to plan for it.

*P.S. For the record, my husband does not think it fair that I reveal all of these resources in my blog. So, whatever you do, don't tell our competition. LOL!