growing a business accidental ceo

Growing a Successful BusinessAn Accidental Entrepreneur's Journey

Janet Amirault

2www.softwareconsortium.com

It’s like running a marathon: train, make mistakes and pace yourself


Metaphor of growing a business

For me, it was similar to starting out of college You live in a room – either at your parents house or

apartment sharing As quickly as you can, an apartment And one day, a town house And hopefully, a single family house And for some, another single family house or a mansion

Image wise, a small-big thing - if selling to corporations or to government, it is important to appear bigger than you are, so being in a shared office facility versus working out of your home are tradeoff decisions to consider.


Skills to run and grow a business? Get real with yourself.

What have you done in the past?

What will you need to learn and how do you plan to learn it?

My background was professional management, typically technology oriented, had most of my MBA.

My background wasn’t helpful for running and growing a small company. It was extremely helpful forInteracting with clients and our consultants.

What was more helpful was my fast food management skills.

Microsoft had training for partners, I took advantage of every class – running a business, sales and marketing. And I read a lot of books, which many attendees at the seminars shared.


Skills Necessary to Start, Expand, Grow the businessIt’s vital to understand your strengths, turnover the reins to others as the business grows and/or invest in yourself to get the skills you don’t have

1 - Technician• Has the original idea &

ability to direct the work

3 - Entrepreneur• Capable of adding new

ideas & risk taking

2 - Manager• Capable of managing

teams & building processes

Book: E-Myth Revisited


As a manager, my approach was to understand the lifecycle of businesses and planned ahead to move into the next phase Courtship through go/go years are one set of skills and energies

Adolescence is the founder turning over the reins to a COO who can set policies and financial goals to scale the businessPrime is a senior team turning the crank of innovation, hiring, serving larger number of customersI created a detailed plan with systems, hiring, etc.

The Pursuit of Prime(and other books) by Ichak Adizeswww.adizes.com


As a manager and technician, my greatest weakness was sales

Our business is marketing driven, so focus was on generating a marketing engine to engage possible customers

And focused on generating income to afford a business developer And read everything in sight, interviewed sales personnel to learn how to

manage a business developer and the sales process

*We have about 10% consciousEnergy per day, so focusing and preserving energy are key. (Your Brain at Work byDavid Rock)


On the business, key decisions to makeOn growth

What growth goals are you going to set? We set 10% as our annual goal, track to it every month

How are you going to fund the businesses growth? Investors, bank loans, investing your own capital boot strapping? I chose boot strapping #1 reason businesses go out of business is lack of cash flow so a close banking relationship, credit line is a necessity

How do you plan to grow the business? Business to business or business to government are the likeliest source of growth, business to consumer is the hardest way to grow

Scaling walls require different actions, diversification of region or services1 M, 2 M, 5M , 10 M - We added geographic diversification to DC first and added State government, then local then Federal

Being clear about what business you’re in, and not in is vital so that you don’t get distracted, add partners. Differentiation – what makes you different, why should your customers buy from you is what will determine how big you can get business wise

Networks to grow business: prospect channel, professionals to service taxes, etc., ability to partner to generate business: We belong to groups that prospective clients belong to, have networking to meet partners, meet partners at open solicitation meetings


More decisions…

Recruiting and Managing a Team

Teams outperform non-teams by a factor of 5 to 1 Are you a skilled manager, or do you need to hire one? What values are core to you? We have excellence, teaming and growth of company and

individually as our vital core and hire based upon it

Risk mitigation What happens if something happens to you: disability, life insurance, succession, will,

etc. ? Disability is typically the worst thing to happen – go through scenario planning and have rocket proof insurance

How are you going to integrate the rest of your life: social, family, physical? Many give up running the business since it’s “too much. Delegate responsibilities: my husband was the main parent, took care of the home

and private school was outsourced values education for us.


Software Consortium Contact Info

www.softwareconsortium.com 410-740-1910 Janet’s extension 105, business development x103, x104 Twitter: softwconsortium janetamirault

http://www.softwareconsortium.com/

growing a business accidental ceo

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