I usually hesitate to analogize from the world of sports that of business.

In contrary to many motivational videos, these are two very different realms of human endeavor and there is not a clear line between the attributes and mindsets that drive success in one as compared to the other.

This past week, however, I was moved by the stories and coverage of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis’ retirement after 17 seasons of professional football, and those of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban winning his third BCS national championship in four years.

Watching the various retrospectives and tributes to Lewis, the overriding takeaway was how his "always on” persona inspires those around him with feelings of action, of possibility, and of strong positive intent.

This kind of energy and presence is indispensable in very many aspects of business, but none so obviously more so than in sales and presentation.

Especially in this technologically distracted world of ours, the ability to consistently project high positive emotion is a key success factor and competitive advantage.

Now, a lucky few of us are blessed with a naturally "high motor" that can go on and on without a lot of maintenance.

But the vast majority of us have to work at it.

To eat, sleep, and exercise right.

And to feed one's mind and spirit with equally nutritional fare.

Now, when it comes working at it, Nick Saban is as great a role model as he is a legendary football coach.

While for some it was a bit off-putting to hear - just minutes after his team won the championship - - the notoriously "always on-message" coach already start talking about next season, for me it was refreshing.

Because in Nick Sabin’s world it is the work itself - as opposed to any glory or accolades or money that might come from it - that is the real reward.

And that as this work and its example catalyzes the success and growth of others, it is the satisfaction of so doing that is far sweeter and more gratifying than any personal triumph or celebration could ever be.

Ray Lewis. Nick Sabin.

Strong role models not because of their far greater number of wins than losses but because, in the words of Lewis himself, wins come and go but it is effort that is eternal.

And this effort, when taken to its methodical extreme, results in a life and career like that of Nick Saban's.

Which, of course, leads to triumphs and transformations and joys for millions to experience.

Just ask any Alabama football fan if you have any doubt about that.

Watching the disaster of a process that was the D.C. fiscal cliff drama this past week, I found myself with a curious reaction.

And maybe even a little bit of a selfish one.

It was, by golly, how happy am I that I get to work in this so dignifying world of business and free enterprise and not have to waste my precious life energy on such nonsense?

And then feeling a bit more generous, I felt happiness for the hundreds of millions if not now billions of people worldwide that are able to do likewise.

To work in or at a business, just a plain old simple business.

A restaurant.

A software development firm. A medical device company.

An accounting firm. A roofing company. An insurance agency.

A tanning salon. A yoga studio. A specialty retailer. A freight forwarding company.

Walmart. A donut shop.

Now don't get me wrong, of course government is important.

And that those that work in it often are very truly public servants and we should be thankful for their service.

And yes, our vexing public policy challenges require our attention and concern.

But it isn’t that important.

So much of the real action in this world of ours takes place in the micro.

In that wonderful world of concentrated production.

The world of multi-billion dollar companies like Cisco utilizing information technology to accomplish the accounting miracle of closing their books each and every day.

The world of General Electric growing great managers and business leaders time and time again.
 
The world of amazing customer service at places like Zappos and how that service dedication translates to strong profits that fuel our world.

The world of that sumptuous donut fresh out of the oven.

The world where, with a click of a button on my phone, I can buy a mobile app that sends me my text messages as e-mails (but don't ask me why I want this).

The world where I order new leather seat covers for my car, from Greece, on Ebay, and at a fraction of the price of what the dealership is asking.

And oh yes, by doing so make a small contribution to solving the Euro debt crisis.

And it is the world of my own business’ unique processes and project tasks and how we will profit from this burgeoning new world of global service exports.

Yes, most of the real and meaningful action is in this amazing 21st century global world of ours of hundreds of millions of points and more of concentrated business production.

That creates for all of us, this transcendent potpourri, this never-ending buffet, of essential, helpful, frivolous, sometimes conspicuous, but so blessedly diversified consumption.

And you know what else? 

History has taught that the more folks focus on getting great at what they particularly produce, no matter how great and glamorous or small and prosaic it might be.

Well, it is by so doing that all of our fiscal cliff and other challenges as if by some magical hand just seem to take care of themselves.

The ending of one year and the beginning of another is a natural time to take stock of all that was accomplished in the past 12 months, and usually more excitedly, to dream and to plan on the great promise of the New Year.

In this spirit, below are a few of my favorite quotes regarding dreaming, planning, goal-setting, and "going for it."

"You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'"

- George Bernard Shaw

(My comment: reflects the essence of the entrepreneurial spirit)

"What is not started today is never finished tomorrow."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(My comment: the "fierce urgency of now" must inform and drive us all now more than ever.  It is too fast-moving a world, too merciless a marketplace, to in any way dawdle or delay.)

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts"

- Winston Churchill

(My comment: The most accomplished executives and entrepreneurs that I have worked with have impressed me as much with their great fortitude as they have with their “glamorous” attributes - brilliance, connections, salesmanship, etc.

"Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great."

- Mark Twain

(My comment: This is the essence of leadership in modern, always morphing collaboration-driven organizations. The best managers build alignment and focused energy around shared goals and objectives.

"Goals are dreams with deadlines."

- Diana Scharf Hunt

(Our comment: The great ones dream it now do it NOW!)

Happy New Year, and may 2013 be the best year of all of our lives!

I had the great good fortune this past weekend to co-host Growthink's third and final Business Blueprint Live event of the year.

This is a conference where entrepreneurs and business owners gather for three days and nights to dream, plan, and network as to how to best grow the revenues, increase the profits and better fulfill the missions of their businesses.

What is really neat is that because of its longer group and in-person format, there is time and space to really listen and, correspondingly, to be heard and to share best business practices, ideas, and inspirations for the New Year.

Golly - what a weekend!

The attendees that ventured from near and far and from the comforts of their homes and regular routines took a chance.

The chance that by "mixing it up a bit," that breakthroughs would follow.

And they did.

From a medical device entrepreneur having that flash of insight as to how to best position his business for a strategic sale, to the software entrepreneur reflecting on how best to integrate a traditional marketing channel (radio) with a burgeoning one (texting), new and powerful business ideas and tactics were hatched and committed to.

And I was reminded of an old wisdom that I forget way too often.

It goes like this: when there is something “nutritious” in my life and business that I am resisting, it is that thing that above all else I need and should be doing.

It could be getting up early and doing that workout.

Or not having that second glass of wine. 

Or sending those holiday cards.

Or taking that vacation.

Or, in business, making that call, writing that plan, structuring that partnership.

Going to that meeting, that conference.

And when you do, hold nothing back.

Don’t let any nagging doubts about whether this strategy, this decision, this job is the right one.

Just dive in.

Wasn't this so much at the essence of Steve Jobs' genius?  This full commitment to do with fierce excellence whatever it was that he was working on at that particular time?

I saw and felt this full engagement this weekend.

Those there were fully there.

And from this full engagement, millions of dollars of business and conceptual breakthroughs and lovely relationships naturally flowed.

And when I reflect on these amazing outcomes, and then when I think back to the resistance I felt of not wanting to organize, not wanting to go to the event…

Well, it hits home that so important wisdom that when I really don't want to do something that I know in my heart that I should…

…well that is the exact thing that I must do. 

And then let the magic happen.

Last night, I read this fantastic article in Fortune Magazine about one of my business heroes - Jeff Bezos - who was named this year's Fortune's Businessman of the Year. 

It is full of awesome anecdotes of how Jeff leads Amazon to keep changing and prospering in our brave new worlds of global and social e-commerce and business. 

I particularly was struck by the description of how Jeff manages the meetings of Amazon’s senior executive team:

“…the Amazon CEO's fondness for the written word drives one of his primary, and peculiar, tools for managing his company: Meetings of his "S-team" of senior executives begin with participants quietly absorbing the written word. Specifically, before any discussion begins, members of the team -- including Bezos -- consume six-page printed memos in total silence for as long as 30 minutes”

Bezos goes on to note that “Writing a memo is an even more important skill to master." Full sentences are harder to write," he says. "They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking." 

Now when I learn of things like this, I understand why the success of a Jeff Bezos is no accident.

Remember, in addition to founding and leading one of the most successful technology companies of all times, Jeff Bezos also made arguably the greatest investment of all time. 

The story is well-known but worth re-telling. In 1998 when Larry Page’s and Sergey Brin’s Google offices were a Menlo Park, California garage, Bezos invested $250,000 of personal funds into the fledgling startup.

When Google went public in 2004 that $250,000 investment translated into 3.3 million shares of Google stock. At Google’s IPO that represented a stock share position worth over $280 million.

While he doesn’t disclose how many of those shares he still holds, at the current price of Google stock they would represent an investment position worth over $2 billion dollars.

So, what is it about what makes Jeff Bezos tick that allows him to have such great success when so, so many others - with similar ambition and arguably even greater talent - fall by the wayside? 

I recently finished a great book (bought on Amazon, of course) by Mark Helprin called "A Soldier of the Great War."

It is the amazing story of an Italian PhD student in aesthetics who was drafted into the Italian Army in World War I.  In addition to being an unbelievable barnburner of a read and a tale of love and heroism and adventure, it is also the story of a young man trained as an "effete" intellectual struggling to come to grips / find wisdom from and peace with the horrors of war.

The story ends with our hero - Alesandro Giuliani - as an old man looking back on his life of books, of art, of family, of adventure, and of war and loss.

In the end it is the intersection of these two - of his great intellectual journeys tempered into character and resolve via the various "mortifications of the flesh" of his life - hard work, self-sacrificing, courageous deeds and words, and the willingness to push himself to the limits of one's endurance.

Now before we talk about business, do let us take a moment to both honor the sacrifices and to mourn the uncountable, wasted human potential through the ages caused by the scourges of war, by corrupt governments, by un-free structures.

And, correspondingly, let us stand in gratitude and in awe for the power of these qualities unleashed to make our world a so better place.

This coupling of intellectualism, ideas and analysis with a life of action, battle, and victory that the great entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos possess in spades.

And from this coupling flows - in life, business, and investing - the genius, power and magic of a Jeff Bezos.

The saddest lament of entrepreneurs and owners of private companies seeking to sell and exit their companies is that they want their businesses to be valued on their future potential, and not its CURRENT profitability.

Given that the typical, offered purchase multiples for smaller businesses – as in those with less than $5 million in EBITDA – can be as low as 1 or 2 times last year’s tax return profits, this is understandable.

In fact, we often see purchase offers based on multiples of MONTHLY earnings – not exactly the “happily ever after” exit dreamed of when these businesses were founded!

Yes, getting a business valued and sold based on factors other than its earnings while by no means impossible nor uncommon, is HARD.

The lucky ones that do so – and there are literally hundreds of businesses every month that sell for very high multiples of profitability, for multiples of revenue, and even companies that are in a pre-revenue stage that sell every day just on the value of their technology, their people, and their work processes – focus laser-like on the below:

They Are Technology Rich. Companies rich in proprietary technology in all its forms – patents, processes, and people – are far more likely to be valued on factors other than profitability and correspondingly attain purchase prices beyond a few times current year’s earnings.

As an example, the likelihood of a medical device company being sold or taken public is twenty times greater than that for a services - or a low-to-no proprietary technology company - doing so.

They Have Gold at the End of their Rainbows. Businesses that sell for high multiples communicate exciting and profitable future growth.

Their managers demonstrate understanding of the big 21st century “macros” - i.e. how technology evolutions and globalization will impact positively and negatively their industry, market, customers, and competition.

Concurrently, these managers understand the micros well too, especially how their business’ human capital will adapt and grow as change happens. 

All this translates into well-developed stories that if their businesses aren’t making it now, there is gold (and a lot of it!) at the end of their rainbows.

They Are Great Places to Work. Businesses that sell are usually characterized by that good stuff that we all seek in our professional environments.

They are culturally cohesive. If they don’t have low employee turnover, they at least have well - defined career progression paths. And their compensation policies align and pay well with desired performance.

Quite simply, they are great places to work and are reputationally strong within their industries.

They are Process and NOT People Dependent. Businesses that are overly dependent on charismatic owners or a few dynamic salespeople or engineers rarely sell because the majority of their value can simply walk out the door tomorrow and never come back.

Important aside: for those entrepreneurs that harbor the desire to sell but not the ambition to build a meaningfully sized, process-based organization should then focus their exit planning almost exclusively on technology and intellectual property development.

If they are unwilling / unable to do this, then they should put the idea out of their head for now and invest this energy into more meaningful pursuits.

Like my favorite - making absolutely as much money today as one possibly can.

They Have Good Advisors. Businesses that do everything right but have messy financial statements because of poor accounting, messy corporate records because of poor or non-existent legal counsel, and messy “future stories” because of poor exit planning and investment banking advice, simply do not sell.

Sure, they may get offers, but invariably these deals fall apart in diligence and at closing.

And as anyone that has ever been through a substantial business sale process knows, almost nothing in business is as time and energy-draining as is getting close to a business sale and not getting it done.

They Get Lucky. Luck remains a fundamental and often dominant factor that separates the businesses that successfully sell from those that don’t.

The best entrepreneurs and executives don’t get philosophical nor discouraged by this but rather they embrace it.

They try new things. They follow hunches. They make connections.

They start from the pre-supposition of “accepting all offers” and work backward from there.

They and their companies can be best described as “happy warriors” – modern day action heroes ready for the fight. When they get knocked down, they smile, wipe their brow, and get right back in the fray.

And you know what? Our happy warriors, living and thinking and working like this day after day channel some mystical power and draw great luck and more to themselves and their companies.

Yes, companies that sell are the good and lucky ones.

Follow the advice above and fortune just may smile on your company and those you invest in too.

Take this short quiz to find out:

Are your revenues growing month after month without fail?

Are your profits rising, and allowing you to pay yourself enough money to spend freely on the things you want?

Do you have plenty of customers, with no need to get more?

Do your employees care as much about the success of your organization as you do?

Do you have enough cash flow to radically grow your company?

Would your business thrive if you took the next month off?

Are other companies regularly approaching you to buy your company?

... If you answered NO to one or more of these questions, then your business is NOT giving you the results you want or deserve.

And unfortunately, you’re not alone.

In fact, millions of other entrepreneurs and business owners are struggling.

As you may know, Inc. Magazine found that 80% of businesses fail within the first 5 years, and Dun & Bradstreet research showed that 91% of businesses fail within 10 years.

And according to the United States Census, only 3.9% of businesses make it to $1 million in sales, and only 0.6% of businesses make it to $5 million. And with the slow-down in the economy since 2008, many businesses have been struggling...

with no growth and declining profits.

That’s just depressing.  But there IS a solution...

...and I am so committed to helping you find it that I am offering free copies of Dave Lavinsky's new book so you too can discover what it is.

To learn more, click here: http://startattheendbook.com/free-offer

If you haven’t yet registered for my Wednesday webinar, this is your last chance.

Webinar: “How to Make 2013 Your Best Business Year Ever!”
Date: Wednesday, November 14th
Time: 8 pm EST / 5 pm PST
Registration Link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/459943082

The fact is this: successful people figure out what they need to do BEFORE they do it.

For example, a winning football coach always comes up with a game plan BEFORE the game. Then he’ll go over the plan with his team and practice BEFORE the game. So when the game starts, the team is ready and able to execute on the plan.

The same is true in your business. And if you want 2013 to be your best business year ever, you need to start planning NOW (2013 is only 49 days away).

That’s why I’m hosting a complimentary webinar on Wednesday, November 14th at 8pm Eastern / 5 pm Pacific.

The webinar is called “How to Make 2013 Your Best Business Year Ever!”

REGISTER HERE*
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/459943082

On the webinar you will learn:

•    How to significantly increase your business’s 2013 sales and profits
•    The precise way to figure out the best 2013 opportunities for your business to pursue
•    How to set attainable 2013 goals that lead to long-term success
•    My #1 tactic for ensuring sustained success in 2013 and beyond
•    And much, much more!

You can expect to hear a positive, motivating message loaded with actionable intelligence to make 2013 the best year of your business life.

2013 is just 56 days away.

And if you want to make 2013 your best year ever, you need to start planning now.

To help you succeed, I’m hosting a complimentary webinar next Wednesday, November 14th at 8pm EST / 5 pm PST.

The webinar is called “How to Make 2013 Your Best Business Year Ever!”

REGISTER HERE (note, to allow for quality audience interaction, we are limiting attendance to the 1st 40 registrants):
  https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/459943082

On the webinar you will learn:

•    How to significantly increase your business’ 2013 sales and profits
•    The precise way to figure out the best 2013 opportunities for your business to pursue
•    How to set attainable 2013 goals that lead to long-term success
•    My #1 tactic for ensuring sustained success in 2013 and beyond
•    And much, much more!

You can expect to hear a positive, motivating message loaded with actionable intelligence to make 2013 the best year of your business life.

REGISTER HERE (there's limited space for this free webinar):
 https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/459943082

P.S. Whenever Growthink hosts a webinar, we get a lot of requests asking if there will be a replay or a recording of the call.  Right now we don’t have any plans to do a replay nor to record the call -- so my advice is to be on the webinar LIVE!

REGISTER HERE (there's limited space for this free webinar):
 https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/459943082

Dave Allen, author of the great productivity best seller "Getting Things Done," has developed an almost cult-like following for his ideas, structures, and best practices around to-do list management, prioritization, and metrics and schematics that define what an effective work day should be.

Without question, there are great benefits to his methods, and I especially like his best practice of always ending a meeting, conversation, or work on an open-ended project with the simple question "What is the Next Action?"

This discipline alone can greatly improve daily and meeting productivity, and perhaps more importantly reduce that sometime suffocating sense of anxiety common to knowledge and entrepreneurial work that there is always way more that must be done than there are hours in the day.

 

But a focus on simple to do list management, in the modern world, is far from sufficient.

You see, the dirty little secret that all of the self-help masters, all of the highly paid management consultants fail to tell you is that in our incredibly fast-moving, changing, competition from everywhere modern economy it is virtually impossible to design a plan or strategy that is in any way close to being assured of success.

The reason why is simple. Plans and strategies, by their nature, are speculative and assumptive.

They require the planner to survey the current market and competitive landscape along with assessing the current strengths and assets of their enterprise.

And then, from those assessments, forecast how a course of specific decisions or investments will be received by the market, by current or perspective customers, and responded to by the competition.

 

When stated this way, it becomes obvious that there is a very high likelihood that a plan as designed will not work.

It really doesn't matter if that plan is to introduce a new product or service offering, a new marketing or advertising campaign, a website re-launch, or an internal re-organization.

So, does this mean that planning is worthless? Of course not! 

But it does point to a pair of strategic best practices:

1.    Before commencing any planning process, first reflect deeply and document extensively what is working now.

These could be the practices and habits of a top sales person, a pay-per-click advertising campaign with positive ROI, an invoice collections best practice, a particularly profitable partner or affiliate.

Or, on a personal level, an exercise or diet or spiritual regimen.

Now to do more of these things that work, productivity and accountability best practices as outlined by the Dave Allens of the world are incredibly valuable and should be incorporated aggressively into the daily work habits and disciplines of the modern professional.

2.    But for everything else that falls outside of this realm, the right mindset is one of testing and exploration, of brainstorming, of speculation and possibility. Of open-ended questions.

AND it should be noted extremely well that it is usually in this mode that the big outlier, “black swan” ideas and strategies and relationships are usually discovered.

As for the question as to how much of #1, or playing more of the existing game better, versus #2, playing a new game, should be incorporated into your daily work flow and planning processes, well that is a decision that the best managers, the best consultants and the most renowned self-help masters are paid a lot of money to answer.

My answer is - no surprise here if you've ever met me at a party - is to have my cake and eat it too.

Strictly schedule times, deadlines, to-dos and accountabilities to accomplish more of the stuff that you know works and leave plenty of open space - on the calendar and in one's mind and spirit - to step out of the safe harbor and into the big sea and dream more than just a little bit.

And when you balance doing and dreaming like this - and sprinkle in a little luck, a little bit of being at the right place at the right time - your dirty little secret will soon be how much money you are making.

Or even better, how much difference for the better you are making in the world every day in every way.