“The Entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity”- Peter Drucker

It was a pleasure to spend the day with the Dragon’s Nest Finalists in Winnipeg, Manitoba this May. High School students throughout Winnipeg competed for The Learning Partnership’s coveted entrepreneurial award in the city’s first high school entrepreneurial business challenge. There was tough competition but in the end our panel of “Dragons” decided on “Clipper Cord” from Kelvin High School. They presented a bracelet with multiple creative uses that could very well be a mainstay item on camping trips.

In the afternoon I was asked to speak and share my wisdom on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

1.     FAITH

Being a successful entrepreneur is similar to being a sailor on the ocean. You need a good boat, a skilled crew, a map, and to know that you are going to get to your destination. You will encounter challenges like: poor weather, equipment that needs fixing, a crew that needs changing, changes in direction, but knowing you are going to get there is what sustains you. FAITH is belief in what you cannot see but know is there.

2.    BALANCE 

The entrepreneurial path is wrought with marvelous challenges and to keep afloat you need to maintain balance.  Now whether it is taking time out for running, yoga, painting or writing, embrace a daily practice that helps you maintain your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance. This “me” time is critical to your thinking, creating and performing your best.

3.    SUPPORT

Build a support network of friends, family and mentors around you. As entrepreneurs we can often become consumed with building our businesses and lose touch with others. When we need help or advice we have nowhere to go. You will need help and advice so build that network now.

4.   INVEST IN YOUR EDUCATION

Never stop learning, listening and observing. As your business grows delivering on financial objectives becomes more complex. It takes different skills to manage a staff of 25 than it did of just 3. It is important on the entrepreneurial path to seek out educational opportunities that help you be a better leader, strategist, employer, and problem solver.

5.  COMMITTMENT TO INNOVATION  (I call it “Going For the White Space”)

When I was doing 3 million in sales from my house, rolling on a stool between 3 operating computers, and feeding my newborn, I had everything I wanted. Cars, boats, vacations… People viewed me as successful. My financials were stellar. But my perception was different. I viewed myself at risk! If I did not continue to evolve my business model I was at risk of staying where I was and this would mean in a short while my competitors could by-pass me. The biggest risk you face as an entrepreneur is not starting a business it is the failure to innovate. Being committed to innovation I pulled out a piece of paper. I drew a Matrix and from this sparked my creativity to design the first online system for national yellow page ad approvals in the industry. This attracted new national customers who loved the cost-effective and paperless way of approving multiple-directory ads. Not only did my company sales go from 3 million to 4.2, to 6.3 and to just shy of 10 million in sales, I could maintain my stay-at-home Mum image and work from the beach! That’s right while lifeguarding the kids I could turn on the diesel generator, connect to Satellite Internet, retrieve email, and make the ad changes for my clients in Toronto and Chicago in ‘real time’. To be successful as entrepreneurs we must commit to being innovators!

“Come let’s sit by the fire pit” the six year old boy said tugging so hard on my hand that I thought his little boy strength would pull my arm from its socket. “Ok, I’m game” I told him as he raced ahead to find a spot for us.

It was the end of a beautiful day in the desert and people were unwinding. Some teenagers were swimming in the pool and a group of men were perched on bar stools trading golf stories over beer.

We no sooner sat down when the young boy jumped up and started pacing back and forth deep in contemplative thought. “Time for me to get home now. I have had a nice vacation and now I must get back to work”.

“Work? What kind of work?” I asked him

“I am President of the Paper Boats Club. I am the leader and teacher. I teach people how to make paper boats. I left John in charge while I was away. Now I need to get back. I need to get more workers. We need to make 5,000 boats.”

“5,000 boats. What are you going to do with them?”

“Sell them. $2 each.”

“That’s a lot of money, what are you going to do with it?”

“Well, I am keeping half and half must go to the workers because you know your workers have to be paid” he said.

Several weeks after returning home I arrived at the school playground. It was a rainy day and the children were clad in their colorful rain gear floating paper boats in the mud puddles. There were hundreds of boats. It was quite a sight to see. The boy was in the corner helping kids who were lined up waiting to learn how to make a paper boat. As I watched I noticed that the boy was not his usual exuberant self and I wondered what was wrong.

I approached him and asked: “Hey…how did John make out while you were away?”

“Well, not bad but we have a BIG problem”. He then proceeded to tell me how the teachers no longer had room for their paper boats.

The boy had run into his first operational issue and had to deal with a force larger than him, “The Teachers”. There was some sadness in his eyes as he watched his “workers” race their paper boats in the mud puddles. But I was amazed by his maturity and acceptance of the fact that “The Teachers” were more powerful than him and that they were not to be overruled.

At the age of 6 this boy had developed a profitable business model that he turned into a reality. He found a drawing on the internet and while he could not read the instructions (he struggles with dyslexia) he figured out alone how to make a paper boat. He also figured out how to get his supplies for free. Each day he stealthfully loaded his knapsack with paper from his mother’s home printer.  He showed tremendous sales and leadership skills when he skillfully and naturally recruited “workers” from all grades at recess to join his Paper Boats Club. And he showed problem solving skills and bravery in the face of obstacle. He realized instinctively that he could not overrule a force larger than himself “The Teachers”. This boy is an Entrepreneur and he will create many businesses in his future.

I am privileged to know this young boy. He is now 9 years of age, he still struggles with dyslexia but I have the honor of making him breakfast every day. You see that’s because he is my son.

Entrepreneurs are born, not made. My son’s innate talent was not taught to him, and I can see some of me in him as he faces the obstacles that come with running a business. As entrepreneurs, I believe it is our responsibility to support today’s business minds and develop the talent of young people. Through our guidance, we can fan the flames of entrepreneurial interest and make a mark both in business and the lives of those who lead them. For me, it starts with my son.

I was shocked when my daughter Sarah showed me a drawing she had been working on quietly after dinner one evening. I asked her where she got the idea. She didn’t know, she had just been doodling.

The drawing was precise and it had an uncanny resemblance to the The Flower of Life, a sacred symbol in both ancient and modern times.

The flower of life symbols go back thousands of years. In ancient Egypt we find this symbol engraved with laser-like accuracy on a granite wall in the Osirian Temple in Abydos.

Leonardo da Vinci studied the Flower of Life’s form and its mathematical properties.

But it wasn’t until the 1980’s, when Professor Robert Moon at the University of Chicago demonstrated that the entire Periodic Table of Elements — literally everything in the physical world — is based on five perfect 3-dimensional forms -The tetrahedron, hexahedron, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron that things took off.

For me the fascination is the energetic components I feel inherent in these designs. Similar to crystal grids, which I have created for energetic healings there is something so profound, magical and sacred about this ancient geometry.

For some people science and art would appear to be strange bedfellows but I feel excitement, and see real innovation on a scale one could call quantum humanitarianism.

As women entrepreneurs we lead very busy lives from the moment the alarm goes off in the morning we are up making breakfast, chauffeuring kids to schools, working a longer than average day catering to the needs of customers, to our staff, and to our community. By the time the after school lessons, sports games, dinner, homework, and baths are done we are ready to crash into bed.

But this juggling act is more stressful than we think and it takes its toil on our performance and our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health.

When I was leading my company through its second growth phase I was working around the clock.  Business plans, systems and processes needed upgrading, the right staff needed to be recruited and trained, and financial instruments needed to be put in place. While I was busy at work I felt I was in balance as I was still able to put dinner on the table (through various creative means), run 10km three days to keep fit, and meet family and social commitments. What I didn’t know was that there is a lot more to balance than just making it through a day, composed and “upright”.

I discovered that balance is really about proportion. The right proportion of time spent in the right areas leads to unity, harmony, sustainability and growth.

I learnt about balance by observing the growth of the magnificent flowering Amaryllis plant.  This extraordinary plant that grows from a single bulb, sprouts four huge blooms, and perfectly balances these blooms on one stalk with support from a series of leaves.

Here are 8 Things I learned about balance from the Amaryllis Plant:

1. You need to be well grounded
2. You don’t need a lot of water to grow, just enough
3. The experience of growth leads to the experience of balance. You can’t have one without the other.
4. Sometimes you need to change direction to maintain balance
5. Balance is not found through speed but moment by moment
6. A positive, sunny environment is important
7. Moving ahead is a necessity even if some days appear slower than others
8. The journey to discovering balance never ends as what appears an end is only the beginning of a next phase.

The time spent in nature observing, questioning and listening has lead me to a new understanding of what balance and ‘being in balance’ is all about. Nature truly does teach us everything we need to know.

As women entrepreneurs it is important to schedule time for our moments of serenity and self-reflection in order to balance out how much of ourselves we give away. These small moments which we take for ourselves  leads to greater happiness, better relationships, and to our business success.

With hair standing on end, and wearing an old paisley silk robe and worn sheepskin slippers,  he added milk from the carton to the bowl and turned the mix master on to “high”.  Oblivious to the milk spluttering from the bowl he added, eggs, vanilla, and baking powder.  But it was when he added flour that the concoction took off with mass distribution of little dough droplets hitting the counters, walls and even the ceiling.

“Mummy, Daddy is making awfuls!” my brother Donald screamed in glee as he raced up the stairs to awaken the household. Yes, waffles were “awfuls” in my house growing up because to my mother there was an “awful” mess to cleanup following the legendary Sunday morning breakfasts.

Years later, 1993 to be exact, I visited my father for Sunday breakfast and he explained that he had now been delegated to pouring the orange juice and occasionally (under supervision), to the cooking of the toast. “Awfuls” were off the menu. He didn’t mind, as Sundays were also the days he worked on his Cash Flow Forecasts, a process that he wanted to share with me.

He began by unrolling a 11 by 17 inch scroll under his arm. Over 500 inches, and two years of ledger sheets in pencil, attached by month with scotch tape, stretched from the dining room through to the front hall and beyond to his office door.  On hands and knees with the only tools being a pencil with eraser and a magnifying glass my father in his paisley robe explained the importance of cash flow management. There was no calculator as math is done in your head he explained. He showed me how each month he would insert the actuals to replace his forecasted numbers and how he would erase and adjust the numbers going forward for two years to reflect the new reality. He had a column for the previous year to compare his performance.

I recall my mother appearing and discovering us on the floor surround by the spreadsheet mess and asking, “Hugh, what in the world are you doing?”  “I am showing Elizabeth how to do cash flows, dear”.

Thank goodness for Microsoft Excel today as that manual process took us all afternoon! However, the learning was invaluable as I was able to determine the negative impact on my cash flow of taking on a new large customer requiring special billing arrangements. This was my first funding requirement.

Here are 8 tips on managing cash flow:

1. Commit time to regularly updating your Cash Flow forecasts – it can be once a month or more depending on what stage your business is at
2. If you discover a cash flow problem identify the cause and also how long you will have the problem.
3. Determine the best solution – Can you cut back in expenses somewhere? Do you need to negotiate with suppliers or customers, make adjustments to your sales or marketing efforts, or get a temporary extension on your line?
4. If you are borrowing money scrutinize the terms and calculate the interest
5. Efficiency analysis – could technology streamline and make your operations more cost efficient in someway?
6. Customer evaluation – do a credit check on your customers. Poor paying customers may have to be introduced to your competitors (haha)
7. Reset management priorities – you may have to curb some plans for a bit. Determine for how long.
8. Rainy Day Fund – never cut back on contributing to your rainy day fund to fund growth. We live in a game-changer society and you may need to change course suddenly and will need cash on hand.

As a final comment, sometimes putting your business in a negative cash flow position is a calculated risk that is necessary.  We will explore this subject more in future posts.