Day 219 - Resilience

So today marks the 212th day since I moved to San Francisco to build Feedgen. Its definitely been a long financial and emotional rollercoaster.

Its been a crazy few days. Aslam and I are both having issues with our apartments and Cass is sick with a fever yet still writing code somehow. Its funny how I have conditioned myself to look at every obstacle as simply a possible distraction and seem to plow through them with ease as if I expected it to happen. The thing is that I know crap will happen. I know that people will get sick, landlords will act up, and even girlfriends/boyfriends will break up with you. Yet I believe that our ability to be resilient under pressure is a huge key to our successes – both personal and in business. In actuality, my father was the person who taught me to persevere through the difficult times. He’d been doing it all his life. From his days as a Cuban Exile in the 1950’s to now being a great psychologist and businessman; there are not many things that seem to rattle him - Anyways.

So I guess the moral of today’s post is resilience. Merriam-Webster defines it as:

1 : the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation caused especially by compressive stress
2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

Number 1 makes me chuckle a bit. Just cause when building a company or trying to do something great it literally feels sometimes that you are being squeeze to the point of deformation! Things can get so tough on your mind, body, and soul that if you don’t stay focused and expect to power through obstacles they will knock you down.

Stay resilient folks. We’re almost there.

The Feedgen "Why"

I was listening to one of these motivation speaker guys the other day and the thesis behind his talk was trying to figure out the “Why” in what you do as a business person. And well, it led me to take a step back and analyze why the hell I was doing what I am doing. Why I spend 24/7 thinking and working on Feedgen and somehow find the time to work a full time sales gig at another start up while maintaining a high level of production on all tasks. And the reason is because there is a massive "Why" behind everything I do and somehow I have partnered with a bunch of guys who share similar eccentricities and passion for life and business!

Anyways, this is what I call: The Feedgen "Why".

We exist because we are a team of passionate entrepreneurs who love to build and inspire others. We are thinkers, dreamers, and people determined to change the world. We just happen to be passionate about building exciting sales software.

We want to change the way that people feel at work. We want our employees to be happy and inspired by us and the work that they do.

We are not perfect and will make mistakes, yet we will be committed to learning from our mistakes and continuing to grow as an organization and company culture.

We encourage entrepreneurship and thinking outside of the box. We promote the idea that every employee should be passionate about what they do. And if they’re not yet, we’ll help them figure it out.

My Angelpad Experience

I was a participant in the Spring 2011 Angelpad class, which happened to be the 2nd class conducted since the program was founded summer of 2010. My view on the program was perhaps a tad different from some of the other founders. I was about to be 30 years old and had spent my entire 20’s trying to build my own companies. In fact, since my junior year of undergrad, I have done everything from door-to-door sales to running a nightclub promotions company to launching a travel-based social network called myTripz.com; which by the way, was largely funded by my mother taking a second mortgage on her house, just to give me enough to cash to bootstrap the company (I love you mom!)... Angelpad was a complete no-brainer for me. I figure it was just what the doctor ordered -- luckily was I right.

There are a few things that I think Angelpad really did well:

• Mentors: Every start up typically finds a particular mentor that they essentially bond with. This mentor really starts to get close to the team and provides very granular advice.

• Social Proof: Thomas Korte is a great marketer. Between his connections and the brand he has built in a short period of time, it was very clear to us that doors would open if we built something that was compelling and performed well as a team.

• Product Market Fit: As several other founders have suggested, Angelpad focuses heavily on building the right product, at the right time.

• Connections: Based on participating in the program my network has grown tremendously.

Mopub: A REALLY great company.

The @mopub team is awesome. I believe this is the next big thing on the horizon. Great leadership and talent coupled with a fun environment (check out their facebook page -- do I see Mopub promo models?!) is a winning story.

Now I must admit that I am pretty close to the management team. I’ve known them for a while and have always known they would do something great. The thing is that I am NOT just supporting a bunch of friends; I honestly believe that Mopub will emerge as one of the leaders in its space. The market is for the taking and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. The cool thing about Mopub is that they are a bunch of ex-Admob and ex-Google guys who really understand the space; in fact help helped define it and are now taking it to the next level.

I’m definitely excited to see what CEO Jim Payne and crew are working on over the next few months. Knowing these guys, it should awesome.

Great Sales People...

Great sales people are not only hard workers, yet are students of their craft. They are always prepared and understand the process of selling. They focus on understanding why people/teams/companies buy things; and as silly as it sounds, a lot of the time it's about simply ASKING and then listening. Over time you will be amazed what you learn.

One of the biggest challenges is overcoming the psychological hurdles associated with developing the mental toughness and discipline that leads to becoming laser focused in sales. Some of the greatest athletes in history were the most disciplined people in their sport. Most people struggle grasping the idea that "NOT EVERYONE IS GOING TO BUY". In fact, MOST WON’T. -- and that's perfectly ok. Some will buy now, others tomorrow, and some will never buy from you even if you give your product away for free! You CANNOT let the "NO"s bring you down. Every no, brings you closer to a yes. In its most basic form, its simply the law of averages. These are laws that all sales people must internalize before they can really be effective.

Now in regards to the notion that: "Some will buy now, others tomorrow, and some will never buy from you even if you give your product away for free!" --

There are a few key concepts to think about:

BE PREPARED:
How do I prepare myself so that no matter what "objection" the prospect gives me, I am going to provide a valid response?

Now this is an interesting concept. Unprepared sales people often sound like liars and frankly are full of crap. And the reason is that they were not prepared, gave a senseless answer, resulting in the prospect to smell their lies a mile away. The result is often the sales person loses credibility and trust. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that you will always lose the deal; yet you now will have to dig yourself out of the pile of skepticism.

Be Organized: Every great sales person has their own system of staying organized. (shameless plug coming) In fact, one of the premises behind Feedgen was to build a tool that was easy to use, so that sales people actually used it properly and were able to stay organized and disciplined. So although we hope everyone uses Feedgen, find a system that works for you and USE IT. It will mean the difference between figuring out who is going to buy NOW, TOMORROW, or NEVER. Moreover, finding the people that will buy tomorrow consists of making sure that you are organized in a way that will keep you top of mind and in contact with them until they are ready. Again it's simple in concept, yet requires mental toughness and discipline to execute.

Start preparing today. The sooner you begin to internalize these rules the sooner you will begin to yield great results.

Attributes of a Real Sales Person

Cold Calling skills are essential when your goal is to be a top sales person.

We live in a digital age where people consider themselves "salespeople" just because they studied business in college or responded to inbound leads provided by marketing. It is fair to say that technology has evolved the sales process and online marketing/social media gives a sales person a helping hand, yet at the end of the day a real sales person understands human behavior. They understand the way people want to be approached irrespective of the channel or method; whether it is via email, phone, social media etc.

For example, in the same way that we hate being called up by a telemarketer who is clearly reading a script, sounding phony and impersonal, we don’t like receiving mass email blasts, which are clearly marketing generated. These only work when your brand is recognized and trusted, NOT on a cold approach.

Real sales people can pick up the phone and generate their own leads. They understand how to create a prospecting or “approaching” strategy and the processes of executing against that strategy. They understand that some will take your call and some wont. Some will respond and others won’t. They are masters at crafting properly worded emails, with just enough messaging to intrigue the prospect to giving you a chance.

At the end of the day we are the same old human beings simply using new methods to communicate. If anything technology provides more transparency than ever before.

MoPub: Rethinking Mobile Monetization

I have recently been chatting alot with Jim Payne CEO of an awesome new start up called MoPub, which is focused on optimizing the way the world views mobile monetization. MoPub is a mobile ads serving platform, built by app developers for app developers. It's pretty sweet; the thesis behind MoPub is to help publishers in mobile to increase their revenue by working directly with advertisers, running cross-promotional and house ad campaigns and working with backfill ad networks like iAd and Google AdSense etc.

Jim founded MoPub along with a group of talented fellow ex-Google and ex-AdMob product managers and engineers: Bryan Atwood and Navis Jamal.

Bryan Atwood, who is currently head of product, gave me a sneak peak at the latest iteration, and lets just say that I am very impressed and excited to see them crush it in 2011.

MoPub is backed by Accel Partners and Harrison Metal Capital, two of the most respected investment firms in the Valley.