Its life as usual in this London bookstore destroyed by a bombing raid in 1940.

In my book, the ability to survive is the defining characteristic of the entrepreneur. There is no attitude of reliance or entitlement – no bill of rights – no excuses – no procrastination – no pre-defined game plan and indeed, very few rules. The successful entrepreneur is a survivor; a deep tactical instinct to “survive and adapt” regardless of circumstances, trends or betrayal.

The successful entrepreneur has a war-room mentality. Resources, strategies, intelligence and alliances are close at hand. Using gut-instinct he discerns the available field intelligence and immediately, and without remorse, makes a tactical survival choice – once made he pursues it with uncompromising tenacity because failure is not an option.

For these reasons front-and-center in his war-room are his Code of Values because “survival without conscious” is a dark and lonely road. Making difficult choices have wide and serious consequences and if you are going to be called to book your value-set needs to carry you through critical scrutiny from both friend and foe.

Evolution tells us that survival is built on a myriad different resources. This is why his war-room is over-engineered. Diverse networks, deep relationships and a robust reputation are all war-room resources. The roller coaster of Surprise-and-Business throws out diverse challenges and only over-engineered resources will carry you through.

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SpaceShipTwo – the Virgin Galactic rocket plane capable of taking private citizens to the edge of space.

Sir Richard Branson Leadership – a style of business leadership that is more focused on drawing a line in the sand than robust profiteering.

Branson is an entrepreneur and a pioneer. His leadership is able to fabricate the skeleton onto which others will later attach ligaments, tendons and muscle tissue. This is a hard place to be.

He has spend millions in moving space travel into the realm of the everyday. He has chosen to ignore the self proclaimed prophets who label commercial space travel as dangerous or unprofitable.

The tragedy of 31 October 2014 when SpaceShipTwo exploded after dropping away from the mothership  is one of the risks of being a pioneer. The question is this – will it do for space travel what the Hindenburg crash did for the airship? I think not. Sir Richard Branson’s Leadership is equal to the negative fallout resulting from failure.

Branson is no stranger to failure. He knows that it can spawn success with bold leadership – that one learns more from a setback than unconditional success. He will allow the public to embrace the loss and make it their own. He will invite them to walk the path of failure with him before turning their attention back to the future success. His leadership and singular focus will get Virgin Galactic over this challenge and allow them to recover the momentum they have lost.

Virgin Value . . . “To change the game and challenge the status quo by providing a product or service of great use.” – Sir Richard Branson

Virgin Galactic founder Sir Richard Branson, left, and Scaled Composites LLC founder Burt Rutan wave from the mothership aircraft White Knight Two “Eve”.

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This Empowerment Entrepreneur started the Empowerment Plan giving homeless women in Detroit hope and dignity.

Would-be entrepreneurs think that a business starts with a business plan and bank loan – this is not so. You start with what you have – the proceeds from your entry level naturally seeds the next level up. I have followed this model from my street corner business “Breakfast Boy” all the way up to my newest venture VaultLife . This is what an empowerment entrepreneur does . . .

“Start where you are, use what you have.” Mike Eilertsen

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Some examples –

• When the magazine market became tough I upgraded my luxury lifestyle magazine LIVEOUTLOUD and added 100 pages and a hardcover. We spent more on paper, UV-varnish and editorial. Our expenses per issue increased but so did our subscriptions. Our advertisers loved us because we switched to a quarterly publication and they therefore spent less with us than before.
• When PlayOutLoud was a resounding success I scrapped the software as copycats sprang up. The developers started from the beginning – we changed the app and called it VaultLife. VaultLife International will launch 16 October 2014 leaving our competitors behind as we make a gigantic leap forward offering  VaultLife in multiple countries, in multiple cities, in multiple venues, in multiple currencies and with multiple membership levels. What also sets VaultLife apart is its ability to offer once in a lifetime experiences alongside luxury brands.

For this reason I love this TED Talk by Colin Robertson,  a social energy entrepreneur.

He does the unexpected, catches his audience off guard, gets their attention and their engagement. This is my aim with VaultLife . VaultLife is something so new we call it viral gamification – a new interpretation of eCommerce where we . . .

• make supply and demand redundant.
• pursue engagement, not transaction.
• disconnect wow from worth.
• create new consumers for luxury products and once in a lifetime experiences.

VaultLife is a whole new app, unexpected and guaranteed to delight. Be part of the worldwide launch on 16 October 2014.

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VaultLife will launch worldwide before the end of 2014. We have re-developed the software three times – on each occasion taking the experience to the next level. At all times we have been governed by Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle and have asked ourselves the question “Why are we doing what we are doing?” This simple yet powerful question sets the direction and tone for everything we do.  Check out Simon Sinek’s 2009 TED Video

People dont buy what you do – They buy WHY you do it.
 

 

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Apple’s success was often pinned on the thought and leadership of the CEO, Steve Jobs. When Jobs got kicked out, the company went down and when he passed away the share price crashed. It took a long time for the company to build a brand independent of the CEO because of the critical role he landed up fulfilling.

Apple is often regarded as one of the best brands and businesses in the world but in saying that I think Steve Jobs failed as a leader because of the fact that he didn’t build strong enough secondary tier management. This is evident in the fact that the organisation was immediately negatively affected when he was removed from the organisation.

On the other hand let’s look at the organisation of Google. No one actually knows who the leadership of Google is. No one can actually tell me who the current CEO of Google is or their secondary management. The brand and the company is bigger than the managers and the CEO.

For me, when the brand and the company are bigger than the people within their organisation, a great company has not only been built but phenomenal leadership has been achieved.

The goal of entrepreneurship is for the entrepreneur to only pioneer it so far but then have the ability to remove himself and the company’s existence continues in perpetuity.

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The idea is that the entrepreneur can be removed at any time and the company continues to grow independent of the entrepreneur as the correct structures and processes have been put in place. Most specifically, the correct human capital will remain working within the organisation.

Human capital thinks independently, understands the vision of the entrepreneur and implements that vision of the entrepreneur on a daily basis, ultimately expanding the organisation in their field of expertise. We have got to the point now, in our medium size company, that our HODs have each been given the mandates: they each know what they can do and what their budgets are.

More importantly they know how to utilise and apply the creativity and vision of the company to their independent area, to grow the company through their individual efforts.

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Face-to-face meetings take a huge amount of time, require a massive amount of effort and build a relationship that in theory can still be undone because whoever gives the best product with the best services will still win the deal.

Relationships do not play the role that they used to in business 20 years ago. It is far more about professionalism, service, who can meet your needs the quickest  – that is the new business relationship i.e. speed of implementation. As a result, face-to-face meetings have been replaced by the ability to act in a professional manner, deliver professional service and do it in the fastest amount of time.

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One of the things that I learnt first and foremost from this game is that to have a sustainable empire you have to get them into income generating areas. In the game you would have to get them farming, mining gold and stone, and as fast as you started making resources you could apply them to building infrastructure and spending the money that you were currently making.

I think too many entrepreneurial organisations don’t get the fundamentals of this principle. Firstly, they start spending money before they are making money. They believe that they have to put huge infrastructures in place, obligated to have fancy offices, and that they have to bring in a variety of heavy management before they have even got their principles of their sales correct.

The best businesses start employing sales people first, understanding and selling the product, as well as adapting their sales strategy based on what the market is looking for. Once you start generating that income you can start spending on infrastructure – your income generators must exist before you cost centres.

Start off making money before spending it.

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I then mentally modify my offering to their corporate culture.  It is my preparation that prevents me from being put into tough situations or asked questions I cannot answer. In gymming you have a muscle memory, in business you have a pitching memory.

Having gone through the various scenarios before walking into the meeting, I can quickly close down objections and turn them into reasons for buying.

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