Communication

Reluctance

There’s an art to keeping the right people engaged, for the right amount of time. When things feel stale, it’s often a signal of disinclination. One way to infuse new energy into a group, is to create space by releasing the reluctant.

Life happens, so it’s natural for interest and commitment levels to change over time. While engagement may expand, anyone’s ability to contribute can just as easily be reduced as a mission evolves and roles transform.

The spiral of someone’s reluctance will soon create stress between others who are still devoted. The longer this misalignment lingers, the more tension it creates. Even so, people hold on too long and the group fears confrontation. This extends the pain for everyone. The reluctant feel guilty for not contributing, while the zealous begin to resent the perceived lack of integrity. Along with internal toxicity, those being served experience less dependably, which devolves into reduced trust, enthusiasm, and engagement.

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“Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.” -Seth Godin

Keeping an eye on our personal bandwidth adds clarity for what and when to quit. This self awareness helps us stay centered and motivated by the way we spend our time. It also helps maintain good relationships by avoiding the unnecessary roughness of dramatic encounters, even when it’s time to explore a new direction. When bridges don’t get burned, we can make a ruckus, move on, and actually expand our impact while still staying connected.

For leaders dealing with lingering reluctance, let’s finish with a few friendly tactics to keep the group vibrant, while maintaining lasting loyalty from the departed.

An easy way to start, is by respectfully inviting individuals who have written their story, to graduate gracefully. Sometimes, good people simply don’t want to quit on the people/program they care about. When given a polite opportunity to exit with elegance, appreciation leads to a smooth transition. Another approach is to invite everyone to do more. Inviting initiative often provokes less committed members to bail. Lastly, know the end will always come. Be clear with expectations, transparent as things evolve, and keep succession apart of ongoing planning. Compliment the internal clarity with external celebration. Make a habit of recognizing individuals who made a difference in the past and praising those who are being generous now. This nurtures an environment where people are inspired to do their best when they’re involved, without feeling a sense of loss when it’s time to let go.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Breakout Valuation

Breakout valuations are achieved when a business is valued based on how it makes people feel and its future potential, not just what it’s done in the past.

The nine components of a breakout valuation are confidence, vision, curiosity, people, communications, cash management, financial forecasting, capital strategy, and business design. Whether or not you sell your company, business owners who optimize in these areas, position themselves to capture a breakout valuation.

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This caffeinated contribution is a special adaptation from Breakout Valuation, which is the #1 New Release in Venture Capital and was written by my good friend, Patrick E. Donohue. Patrick is an entrepreneur, mentor, advisor, investor, valuation expert, and community builder who offers unique insights into the dynamics of money and business.

While you’re running a company, breakout valuations make everything easier. It attracts talented employees and quality customers. This expands your market position, makes financial capital less expensive, and invites vendors to extend better terms based on your surging trajectory.

Knowing what your ownership of the business is worth helps you make important financial decisions and becomes increasingly important as a business matures. If a business grows to the point where it becomes valuable to acquire, academic and finance professionals attempt to make valuation objective, but the complexity of each transaction makes valuation subjective in the end. Along with all the objective data, valuation is highly influenced by the environment, relationship, and personal views of the participants in a transaction. Knowing how investors and lenders use objective valuation tactics is crucial, but understanding the potential value of the business, articulating it to potential partners, and having them buy into the vision will arm you with an advantage to get what you want—a breakout valuation.

Breakout valuations are not aspirational. They emerge from what you are doing right now. It’s all about being clear with your mission and vision. It’s knowing your numbers and how everything comes together through a shared mindset, communication, and workflow. The pursuit toward a breakout valuation compounds, requiring attention today, and every day moving forward. This aggregates understanding and builds confidence. When the day comes to part with some or all of your business, the confidence from a breakout valuation will maximize the payout or deliver assurance in walking away from the deal.

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What are we doing today to support our goals for tomorrow?

By Ben McDougal, ago

Follow Up

As you continue to show up and stand out, it’s important to wrap a bow on your interactions by following up. Why? When creating connections, a single encounter is rarely enough. Whether it’s an email, phone call, social media connection, or handwritten note, follow up.

These tiny touch points can root a relationship. Even if there’s no obvious ways to collaborate right away, take a moment to say you enjoyed meeting that new contact. If possible, include something memorable from your encounter to personalize the message. This is also another chance to ask if there’s anything you can do to help, then close by sharing how you look forward to staying in touch. Whether they respond or not, this follow-up will increase the chance you’ll be remembered.

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The moment you meet is an effective time to connect on social media.

As you meet more people, it can become hard to maintain this habit without support. Don’t be afraid to use relationship management tools to keep conversations organized. Hubspot, Airtable, and other free CRM tools may be a good place to start. These platforms can automate your communication efforts, but play it cool. This is not the time to sell or bombard someone’s inbox. Instead of a pre-determined cadence, make a simple note to follow up. Use this reminder to comment on a social media post, share a quick idea, suggest a meaningful introduction, or invite your new contact to an upcoming event. While these follow ups are unscripted, it doesn’t hurt to internally track how many times you’ve touched base.

This balanced, friendly, and ongoing effort to stay connected will separate you from the pack and keep you on that person’s radar. Business may not spawn from these touch points, but there will be fresh context the next time you see each other. If opportunities to collaborate emerge, you’ll have a channel of communication already in place. Either way, showing up, standing out, and following up makes it easier to explore engaging ideas with your evolving network.

By Ben McDougal, ago

Co-Founders

The freedom to build as a lone wolf is exhilarating, but collaboration is how to go beyond your own limitations.

It takes more time to collaborate with others, but finding a co-founder can be life changing. Generosity, transparency, and candidness will bring the right people on board faster. Even if it’s one other person who wants to build in an aligned direction, co-founders pave a smoother path toward success.

Good people eager to collaborate can fall in your lap, but finding co-founders usually requires a concerted effort. If you hunt for the right co-founder in the beginning, it will take more time to make early progress. The trade-off is more creative and cultural alignment when things come together. This makes it easier to evolve ideas when a team finds its groove early on.

If you’ve been building as a lone wolf too long, you may have a harder time working with a co-founder. This is because it’s difficult for others to jump on a bus you’ve been driving the whole time. It’s still possible, but a thoughtful willingness to adapt is required. If you’re merging energy with another lone wolf, take your time. Moving a bit slower will uncover the why behind what was built before the partnership. As trust grows within the team, everyone will have more freedom to make the impact they want.

No matter how you decide to join forces with co-founders, choose wisely. It’s easy to work with someone like you, but don’t clone yourself. As a fun analogy, we also don’t put linebackers at wide receiver, right? Identify what you’re good at and know where you fall short. This allows you to pinpoint people who have complementary skill sets. It will also keep you focused on finding those who can push you further. With indelible honesty, who might be fun to build with?

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Perhaps you are looking for a co-founder? Show up to where the people you may want to work with are congregating. For instance, I met two of my co-founders at 1 Million Cups. We were working on different things, but over time, our shared interests led to a business idea we decided to pursue together.

Like anything new, as a team forms, early excitement will provide a surge of enthusiasm. This will soon fade and at some point, the story of this venture will end. It’s easier to plan ahead than it is to react to problems after they arise. Talk openly about roles and how everyone wants to be involved to avoid future tension. Discussing everyone’s immediate and future commitments reduces the stress of unknowns. With professional transparency a team can also work with more sustained stability. This leads to less drama and more consistent success.

As you solidify complementary co-founders, the goal is to have everyone equally enthusiastic. Think deeply about what a fair equity and role distribution means now and how it can also support future growth. No matter how cap tables look, co-founders expand capabilities and add valuable accountability. Working with others to achieve a shared goal is also more fun than working alone. Collaborate with remarkable co-founders and you’ll enjoy the ride together.

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Want more? Check out the Team chapter in You Don’t Need This Book!

By Ben McDougal, ago

Jargon vs. Understanding

Seth Godin is my favorite thinker, but I’ve been pondering the words of Naval Ravikant a lot lately. In this interview, Tim Ferriss and Naval riff on how Richard Feynman differentiated jargon versus true understanding.

This has me reflecting on how humans seek the ability to effectively explain our thoughts, but too often a lack of understanding leads to fancy words and long-winded rhetoric. Sounding smart may protect our perceived knowledge, but as Albert Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

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This tweetstorm first introduced me to @Naval. I’ve since listened to his podcast, read the Almanack of Naval Ravikant and enjoyed this Joe Rogan interview where Naval says, “We have two lives, and the second begins when you realize we only have one.”

As I translate this collective wisdom, I’ve organized a few simple constructs to practice this mental mindset.

  • Be more succinct with my words.
  • Ask an increased amount of concise questions.
  • Get comfortable with uncomfortable silence.
  • Inspiration is perishable. Act on it immediately.

    When trying to balance this cerebral equation, here’s are two questions to ask: Can we deconstruct, expand, or compress what was just said? Can we then describe the exact same idea five different ways? If not, seek further insight to go beyond memorized jargon for true understanding leads to more confident, diverse, and transformative conversations.

    By Ben McDougal, ago