Bloggertone updates

Bloggertone TV talks With Sean O Sullivan, Ireland's Newest Dragon

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 12:08 PM PST

Always on the lookout for interesting Entrepreneurs to speak with and learn from, I hooked up with Sean O'Sullivan to find out more about his business ventures and what he has been up to recently.

Sean founded several technology companies and organizations, including:

MapInfo, a $200 million software and services business headquartered in New York State.
He established one of his newest ventures, Avego in Kinsale in Ireland, a technology firm that provides Real-time Ridesharing and Vanpooling, and has offices in Ireland, China, and the United States. The Avego App can be downloaded here. A cool aspect of the App is that it tells you how much CO2 you are saving the environment.
Sean is also Managing Director of SOSventures International, a venture capital and investment management firm. SOSventures has just invested in the hugely popular website Silicon Republic. Previous investments include Harmonix, which is the creator of Guitar Hero, Netflix, and net.Genesis Corp.

Sean, who is credited with co-inventing the term "cloud computing," is Ireland's latest Dragon, and he has certainly earned the reputation as successful entrepreneur to join the team on Dragons Den.

I got together with Sean recently to ask him about his background, his involvement in various hugely successful projects, and his experience as the newest Irish Dragon:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I hope you enjoyed the interview and found some of Sean's insights useful and informative for you. Watch out for the First episode of Ireland's Dragons Den on Sunday March 11th, 2012!

Image credit: http://www.rte.ie/tv/dragonsden

The Top 3 Keys To Successful Business Growth

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 07:57 AM PST

When I mentioned this at a workshop recently one of the business owners said: "You mean there are only 3 keys to success? Where have I been going wrong all these years?" I may tend to oversimplify – simply for the sake of directness.

There are more than 3 keys to successful business growth – I am simply mentioning 3 of the more significant ones that I work with clients on. Add to the list: products and services of value to your customers, motivated and talented workers, a fantastic marketing strategy, a superb sales process, raving fans… For our purposes I will present 3:

An actionable business plan,
Becoming more authentic and self-aware, and
Becoming a knowledge-based manager.

# 1. Developing An Actionable Business Plan

It's hard enough to draft a business mission, much less its vision, objectives, strategies, and action process. The key here is to think in terms of MVP – that is, what is your business Mission, Vision, and Purpose. Once you have identified these put a time frame on them. I refer to the Mission as timeless and the Vision as big – from 3 to 5 years.

When I work with clients on their Objectives, I look at them as little – they can be accomplished in 1 year. It helps when you are forming objectives to use a Balanced Scorecard as the base – identifying objectives that satisfy financial, customer, process, and learning/growth functions in your business.

I have found from experience that Strategies are big also – from 3 to 5 years. Strategies also benefit from a balanced scorecard approach. Strategies are intended to serve as a guide to the annual forming of objectives. The Action Plan is little – actions that are necessary in 1 year to accomplish the stated objectives.

If you wonder how important these are to the employees in your business, ask them to rank, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing the highest score, their understanding of your MVP and your objectives. Is there a gap? Do you and they know what they are working to accomplish?

# 2. Becoming More Authentic and Self-Aware

Most owners I work with are not trained to be owners, leaders, or managers – yet they become that by virtue of their idea, their skill and expertise in a particular field. I have found that in order increase your performance as an expert and excel, you need to understand what natural talents you have, why you are motivated to use them, and how you prefer to use them.

Some people have a natural talent to lead others or to persuade others, while other people excel at practical thinking, problem management, or relating to others.[i] Additionally, it's important to understand what drives people to be passionate for their work and fully engaged.

Considerable research[ii] has identified how some people are driven to acquire knowledge, exercise compassion, leadership, or selflessness; while others may be driven to seek the best value for the money or a competitive edge. Finally, research into behavioral traits[iii] helps us to understand how some people may be inclined to be more aggressive or assertive, while others may be inclined to be more patient, passive, or reliable.

The importance of increased self-awareness and authenticity were shown by recent research to significantly impact individual levels of performance – across all industries and employee levels.[iv] Owners, and their managers and employees have the potential to perform better and improve business performance and growth as well.

# 3. Becoming A Knowledge-based Manager

Closely related to the discussion above is understanding that managing an increasingly knowledge-based workforce requires a knowledge-based attentive manager.

Managers who can use proven techniques borrowed from the field of coaching, who understand how best to manage by asking, by becoming more a manager coach, can be more successful at having employees perform at higher levels – principally because those managers will focus on improving employee authenticity and self-awareness.

Are these 3 keys to successful business growth proven? Yes, time and again. As our economy and workforce continue to evolve we can readily nurture and grow our knowledge from within – we simply need focused effort to plan, become more authentic and self-aware, and learn how to manage our knowledge-based workforce better. Are you ready to grow?

[i] Dr. Robert S. Hartman created the Hartman Value Inventory, a value profile, which measures with exactness the character of an individual through the science of Axiology which he created.

[ii] Drs. Eduard Spranger and Gordon Allport in their study of human value, motivation and drive led the development of the Values Index.

[iii] Dr. William Marston¸ Walter Clarke, and Dr. John G. Geier are credited with creating the DISC instrument.

[iv] Jay Niblick, What's Your Genius? How the Best Think for Success in the New Economy, 2009, chronicles the results of the Genius Project, a 7-year study of 197,000 people, which demonstrates how the acquired skills of self-awareness and authenticity can have a direct and positive correlation to performance; page 20-21.

Image: "bunch of keys on the palm/Shutterstock"