About a year ago, after getting bored of my blank cubicle wall at Citigroup, I bought a Bob Parsons poster to quiet the dullness. I gravitated towards the poster because Bob Parsons happens to be the CEO of one of my favorite companies GoDaddy. I’ve registered all my domain names with GoDaddy after an outrageous Superbowl commercial a few years ago. I could’ve picked any domain registrar, but the over the top marketing strategy of GoDaddy reeled me in.

So back to the story. Another thing that drew me to the poster was the simple feel good messages that Bob Parsons calls his ‘16 Rules for Success in Business and Life in General”. Granted, I’ve had this poster for over a year, but tonight I rolled it out again and posted it in my apartment workspace. Given my journey as an entrepreneur, and the tremendous amount of effort I expend in developing Invizio, the poster suddenly makes so much more sense than it ever did.

Funny how a life experience brings a decorative poster with a message to life. Here are Bob’s rules for the enjoyment of my readership.

1) Get and stay out of your comfort zone.
I believe that not much happens of any significance when we’re in our comfort zone. I hear people say, “But I’m concerned about security.” My response to that is simple; “Security is for cadavers.”

2) Never give up.
Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.

3) When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think.
There’s an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this. “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

4) With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be.
Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of “undefined consequences.” My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, “Well Robert, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat you.”

5) Focus on what you want to have happen.
Remember that old saying, “As you think, so shall you be.”

6) Take things a day at a time.
No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.

7) Always be moving forward
Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.

8 ) Be quick to decide.
Remember what General George S. Patton said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow.” 

9) Measure everything of significance.
I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.

10) Anything that is not managed will deteriorate
If you want to uncover problems you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.

11) Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing.
When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.

12) Never let anybody push you around.
In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you’re doing as anyone else, provided that what you’re doing is legal.

13) Never expect life to be fair.
Life isn’t fair. You make your own breaks. You’ll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).

14) Solve your own problems.
You’ll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you’ll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of Sony, said it best: “You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others.” There’s also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: “A wise man keeps his own counsel.”

15) Don’t take yourself too seriously. 
Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16) There’s always a reason to smile.
Find it. After all, you’re really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: “We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a GOOD TIME!”

Hope you enjoyed it! See the poster and get your own copy here.

So it’s like 5am, and I finally got through my copy of The Little Black Book of Connections by Jeffrey Gitomer. I enjoyed the book so much that I even sent Jeffrey an email thanking him for the insight. Just the fact that I was motivated enough to send him an email, confirms the underlying premise of his book. You’ve got to give, before you get. Or stated in a way that I like, push then pull. So let me explain.

For those of you not familiar with Jeffrey Gitomer (as I was) he is a seasoned sales professional, writer, speaker, serial entrepreneur and probably one of the most respected names in sales. Most of his books carry catchy titles, and all are written in a conversational and humorous tone that banish the monotony of the subject; sales. The Little Black Book of Connections is no exception. It is an enjoyable read that not only discusses the karmic principle of helping others succeed before expecting a favor, but also gives actionable advice on how to ‘actually’ do it. Everything from providing leads to others to practicing NetWeaving (as opposed to networking), Jeffrey leaves no stone unturned. The mantra here is to provide something of value to others, free of charge, and before you know it people will be trying to connect with you, and not the other way around. As Jeffrey puts it, “it’s about who knows you, not simply who you know”. So let’s bring it 360.

For the past few weeks since we managed to successfully peel off the work-in-progress sticker on Invizio, I have been working feverishly to grow the business. Given our tight marketing & advertising budget, we are officially using every and any Guerilla Marketing strategy to gain exposure and spread the brand. Chamber of Commerce and business association networking events are some of our primary means. My days at times feel like never ending networking. Starting with a 7AM breakfast, continuing with a mid-day lunch and ending with a 7PM networker, it is not usual for me to meet 30-50 new people in a day. The majority of these people are unlikely to be prospects or hot leads, but how can we turn them into at the very minimum, evangelists for Invizio? Certainly not but asking them to do us a favor. After reading Jeffrey’s book, it’s pretty clear that we have to build meaningful relationships that are not predicated on What’s In It For Me, but rather to help these people succeed in whatever they do. In this way we give before we get, push then pull.

With that said, I think we’ll try to send everyone a weekly tech tip.

Please comment with examples of how you push then pull.

Ok, so I’ve been keeping a very low profile especially with the blog and have been focused on getting my company Invizio up and running. It’s been almost three months since I gave up my job in pursuit of this dream and it’s finally here.

As I mentioned to you guys before, Invizio is an IT services, solutions and consulting firm that specializes in offering small and midsized businesses the benefits of a fully staffed IT department for a fraction of the cost.  The key benefits for a small business of going with Invizio’s service include proactive IT maintenance, predictable IT support costs and first class IT expertise. It was my original intention to have the company up and running in July, but it took longer than expected to get the website up and zero in on our message, but I’m pleased to say we’re finally there. We’re up on Facebook and Google with ads right now, pushing as many word of mouth buttons as we can and spreading the word in small business association and chamber of commerce circles. Execution of our sales strategy starts as of tomorrow (Wednesday).

I’ll avoid chattering everyone to death, but I do however strongly encourage everyone to check out our site at http://www.invizio.com, become a fan of our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter, and read our blog. Our press release goes out on PRWeb tomorrow and is available now on our website.

Thanks to everyone who showed their love and support during the past few months as we got things together. Check everything out and let me know what you think as feedback is greatly appreciated.

Quite recently I remarked on Twitter that I felt bad about not updating my blog in a while, but also that I was getting things done. In response David Mullings (@davidmullings) instantly chimed in, “Good. Focus on executing instead of communicating”. I figured I would relay that message on to my readers.

Prior to last month I have spent quite a deal of time communicating about Invizio and my vision to friends and frankly anyone who was willing to listen. Now that I’ve moved back to Miami, and settled in my only goal is to have the tires grip the road. At the stage that I’m in with this venture I would love to keep communicating about what’s happening but execution of my plans must take priority and unfortunately I’m not quite ready to do both. My apologies on not saying much in a month, but thanks to everyone for remaining interested.

Thanks David for making me feel better about not writing this blog for a while. I will also take your other suggestion on writing multiple posts when I have the time. Hopefully my next post will be about what’s been happening during my ‘cone of silence’.

I haven’t blogged in a bit and I’m sure some of you may be getting a little anxious to know what’s happening. So to summarize life at the moment, I moved into my apartment last weekend pretty much after weeks of waiting for my stuff so I’ve only recently settled in to Miami. Currently, Kyle & I are working feverishly in the background to get the Invizio website, marketing packet, prerequisite systems, and vendor relationships together. We’ve had conversations with a few potential clients and so far we’ve been able to get one engagement for a solutions design. Things are a little quiet now but we’re holding off the full barrage of selling until we’ve finalized our marketing literature and narrow in on our pitch. Still no launch announcement to inform you of but in the meantime I can share the Invizio logo design developed by our designer in the UK, Nido (see his showcase on LogoPond).

We were going for a color agnostic logo and have also adopted these three colors to brand our areas of specialty.

If you can make out the jigsaw piece in the logo, you can take a guess at where we want our marketing messages to go. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.