The Key to Success

Who ever takes the key, returns the key
Here's something you don't think about when you start a business -- how does your staff get into the office? I mean, you aren't a door person, you can't be there to open the door everyday, can you? And who gets the key or code? In our case, we can't have a fancy keypad for our door -- it's glass. We have to use a key. It's safely in a key box. Somewhere. Yesterday, the person who took the key, forget to return it, which led to a call at 830AM from my team -- they were locked out. So, I woke-up and drove across town to open the door. Whoever takes the key, returns the key is the rule. Sometimes rules don't get followed. Which leads to today's theme....

The Artjamz Dupont Studio, 1728 Connecticut Ave NW, open and ready for business.  Photo by Anchyi Wei. 

There are no days off when you are an entrepreneur 
You want to run your own company so you can work when you want. If you're starting a company because you believe that, don't quit your day job. It's a bit like saying, I want to have kids so I can get more sleep and enjoy more "me" time. Ain't happening. Okay, there is some truth to it -- you do decide your hours, no one is telling you when to clock in, its your company, you have no boss. Well, actually, you have thousands of bosses -- they're called customers. And customers, if you are doing something right, want to know about and interact with your business and brand 24/7, when they want, on their schedule. They have a question about your brand at 8am on a Sunday? They call, they email, they tweet, they write Yelp! reviews. And when you're not "on the clock" but your retail business is open,  what happens when the electrical circuits blow?  Your staff calls..... wait for it.... you! How is that day off now?

So, you see, the key to success is very simple -- make sure trusted team members have the proverbial keys to the castle (the front door, the hoot suite account, the phone line and the info email account)  so they can run the business without you.

A business created with "you" as the key to every door will never fully be open.  And yes, that takes a lot of trust.... which is an interesting blog entry in and of itself.

Inertia Part II

Day 1: On the flip side
Days as an entrepreneur meander like mini odysseys -- you move from one issue to next and often back to ones you visited earlier in the day. As the first day heads into the evening, already three big learnings:

1.) Just because you own a business doesn't mean you know what the heck you are talking about. And you have to be able to know your limitations and be open to learning.  

Entrepreneur dilemma –  it's your business -- the buck stops with you. You're always making choices. You kind of like to be right, don't you? Admit it. Today, I was wrong. It happens. In fact, it happens a lot, especially when you're building something new and going someplace uncharted (for you), doing things you've never done.  If you read my earlier, post, well... I could have added a waiver to our event tickets. The nice peeps at Eventbrite enjoyed their Cappucino and got back to me really fast.

 Hi Michael,

Thanks for reaching out. While Eventbrite doesn't have a button on the order confirmation tool, you can absolutely add a waiver to your events that requires the user to agree to terms and conditions specified by your organization before completing their purchase. This could help your merchant fight chargebacks on your behalf.

Ultimately, chargebacks are fought, executed, and resolved by the issuing merchant and the attendees credit card company, so while adding a waiver can certainly help and heighten the chances that a chargeback will be resolved in your favor, ultimately there is no guarantee as these handles at the merchants discretion.

To add a waiver to your event:

Log in to your account and click My Events
Click the name of your event and then, click 'Order Form'
If you'd like to collect information from each guest--not just the ticket buyer--then select the radio button next to 'Collect information below for each attendee'.
Click ‘Add A Question’, and input ‘Waiver’ or ‘Please agree to the following to complete your registration for our event’ in the Question box.
From the 'Question Type’ dropdown box, select ‘Waiver’ (then, copy and paste your waiver into the open field and be sure that the waiver question is displaying for all applicable ticket types by clicking the check box for Optional Settings)
Click Save and then Save Changes
For more information on this, click here:
http://www.eventbrite.com/t/how-to-create-custom-survey-questions

So, ultimately, the entire situation with the chargeback, I could have taken care of 3 years ago by simply adding this custom form to our ticket. Did I know that? Nope. Who's responsibility is it to know that? It's mine. And this is how you learn to run a company. Because not one entrepreneur is born with all the answers. We get them because we "do"and when we "do", we make mistakes. And if we don't learn from them, we don't grow.

2.) Second learning. Don't leave your keys in your car and close the door when you're loading art materials in it. 
Yep. I locked my keys in the car today. That was fun. Had to call my wife to drive cross town with the extra keys. Thanks honey. :-)

3.) Third learning. Be thankful you have an amazing team 
You can't do it alone. Build a team. Everytime I go to the studio, I'm reminded how lucky I am to be able to steer a company with an amazing group of people. We have 18 people on staff. They are wonderful. The feeling of knowing they trust me, keeps me motivated. As does this.... putting it all together 7 days a week (we're open 7 days a week) so, people can smile and have a good time.

Probably won't be blogging this much everyday... who knows... but... in a nut shell... that's a brief snapshot of at least 75% of a day of an artrepreneur. I won't drone on about the cleaning of paint cans, and stuff. But the studio closes at midnight tonight, so still 5 hours to go. I mean, what could possibly go wrong, right....?