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We continue our discussion this month with Stefan Doering, a business coach located in New York with a great Weekly Power Booster newsletter. If you aren't already acquainted with Stefan's work, visit his Website, www.beunreasonble.com. He is also a faculty member of CERC (Center for Environmental Research and Conservation) a division of the world renowned Earth Institute, teaching Environmental Intrapreneurism and Environmental Entrepreneurism at Columbia University. This month we look at what Stefan calls "Intraprenerusim" as well as "Energy vs. Action" Intrapreneurs are entrepreneurs that work in a large corporation. Yet they have a unique set of advantages as well as challenges. The advantages they have are the resources, name, and reputation of their company. Their challenges are how "Intrapreneurial-friendly" the company is. Does the company encourage Intrapreneurial activities (like 3M, Apple, IBM, GE, Google, etc.) or do they shun it and tell you to shut up and just do your job? I help Intrapreneurs create a strategy for getting their products/services launched no matter the corporate climate. So, here are the "more or less" standard questions and Stefan's responses. 1. Please tell us a little about yourself, personally and professionally. I've had 6 companies over the past 26 years, some of them becoming huge successes and two of them being shut down and one or two doing relatively OK. I've been coaching now for about 12 years and my most recent creation is in helping entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs (corporate entrepreneurs) go green. That comes from my company I started in 1991, Earth General, which sold about 3,500 products all screened for their environmental impact: things like all natural cleaning products, hemp and organic cotton clothing, recycled office supplies, organic gardening supplies and so on ... 16 departments in all. About 4 years ago I started teaching Environmental Entrepreneurism and most recently Environmental Intrapreneurism (corporate entrepreneurs) at the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation (CERC) in the world renowned Earth Institute at Columbia University. There I teach students, business professionals and scientists how to create environmentally-focused businesses and implement business practices. 2. What is the single biggest reason you have followed an entrepreneurial path? Was there a signature event as you were growing up? Growing up in northern California, my father paid me 1 cent a snail that I picked off our garden in the backyard. He thought it was better than using toxic pesticides and I made more money at the age of seven than any of my friends. Little did my dad know, I also picked the snails off our neighbors garden to "beef up" sales! 3. Are entrepreneurs born or can it be learned? Yes! In other words, both. I've taught and coached thousands of entrepreneurs in over 14 countries over the years and I have seen some of the most unlikely people do extremely well and others who most people would have thought would be a natural, fail miserably. Some, like Steve Jobs (founder of Apple, Pixar, Next Computers, etc.) are natural rainmakers. Others learn it slowly along the way. BTW: I would not put Bill Gates of Microsoft in the same category of a successful entrepreneur as Jobs, since Gates has only created one company successfully from a bootstrap situation. 4. What makes entrepreneurs different? What do you think are the qualities/characteristics that make entrepreneurs different? What I teach my clients and students is while it certainly can be helpful to have experience in finances, bookkeeping, education (i.e. MBA), or a rolodex of investors, a good idea for a business and so on, there are only two things that are required to make a successful entrepreneur. And without them, you will never be successful ... you may do OK, but never GREAT.
Nothing else comes close to these two characteristics in making a successful entrepreneur. 5. Do entrepreneurs network differently? What networking lessons can others learn from entrepreneurs? Differently than ... corporate folks? Yes. Very much so. Successful entrepreneurs are out there selling with their heart and soul. Deep down inside they know there is nothing as great as their product or service. Also, because they have some serious "skin in the game." Most often they have put most everything on the line for their business. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain. 6. What have you found to work well when networking? What caveats can you offer? What's unique about networking from an entrepreneur's perspective? Do entrepreneurs have an advantage in the networking arena? Networking is a form of selling. I have a principle I teach my clients, readers of my newsletter and students: Energy vs. Action Understanding this makes the "selling" we all do in life, in any situation much more effortless and natural. When in a networking environment it usually hits a home run when perfected. In a nutshell, it is when you leave someone touched, inspired and excited by your energy, then about 50% of the time, they will actually lead you into the "action" component: requesting to work with you, do a JV (joint venture), etc. Once you master the stages and differences between the two, you can move mountains. For example, before I knew about the differences, it took me about 1 year to raise $105,000 for one of my companies. The week after learning this practice, I raise over $250,000 from one investor! Powerful stuff. For those interested I have a recording I did recently with one of my mastermind groups on how to do this. Just e-mail me and I'll get it over to you. Also, my new 90-Day Workbook for entrepreneurs walks you through the steps day by day to perfecting this plus 22 other marketing principles. E-mail me for more information. It's taken me 2 ½ years to write and is a compilation of the many entrepreneurs and mastermind groups I've run. It's still in BETA and not even on my website yet. 7. What is the "successful" model for a master networker? See above: Energy VS. Action. 8. What are the primary goals for most networkers? Do you feel these differ from those of an entrepreneur? The primary goal is leverage. Using the resources of one to gain access to many. Understanding this and knowing how to set up your leverage points is the difference between a successful entrepreneur/networker and an unsuccessful one. 9. How do you help other entrepreneurs find and network with each other in your business? I LOVE putting two entrepreneurs together. Because I coach so much and work with some many businesses, it is easy for me to do. In any given week I've probably introduced six or seven entrepreneurs together. Plus, I do a lot of public speaking these days as well as have a decent network from Columbia to tap into as needed. The name and reputation of Columbia is helpful in having people want to work with me or use me to get to someone else. Depending on how well they have used the energy vs. action process with me, is how open I am to wanting to help them. J 10. Please expand on your particular thoughts about what constitutes a quality networking experience. What do we each need to bring to the table to make that happen? By far, it is being yourself. Being real. Being authentic. People are attracted to a "real" human being. They guys that go around with a fake smile on their face and say how life is "Great!" get kicked in the butt a lot. Now that is different than someone who really means it when they say, "Life's great!" If confused, refer to any given speech by Senator Obama. He speaks from his soul, from his heart. From there, he mobilizes amazing results. We all have this capability, if we just learn how to tap into it. Again, Energy vs. Action! 11. Finally, what, in your opinion, is the one main thing we most frequently need to remember? Towards what? Networking? Be you. Not what you think people want to hear/see. Yourself. Come from your heart. Show the other person your authentic passion. With the right energy, the action becomes effortless.
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