For the past decade I have been focused on a bunch of things, but besides selling, my top two priorities have been:

1. To develop a web-based software that companies can use to grow their business.
2. To create a very special company culture that makes mobileStorm a sought after place to work.

mobileStorm’s Core Team

My travel to India (still here actually), has allowed me to combine these two passions. I started mobileStorm, not because I thought mobile was going to be the next big thing (even though I knew it would be), but ultimately I didn’t want to work for anyone. I wanted freedom of choice. I cover “why” mobileStorm is in business, on our company page. At the end of the day, I wanted to hire I liked (not because I needed them), I wanted to focus my efforts on features I was passionate about (and thought companies would want to buy), and at the same time, I wanted to travel the world and learn about other cultures. Money is only the third reason people to go work somewhere. There is something much more important than money. I waited tables and delivered pizza for years to be able to enjoy the type of autonomy that comes with being your own boss. I knew if I just hung in there, eventually it would happen.

A boy and his beast

After being inspired by the book “Starts With Why”, and learning about how all of the best companies know why they are in business, I have slowly introduced into mobileStorm’s DNA, the freedom of choice. I realize that not only will this type of culture attract other like-minded customers, but more importantly employees will be highly motivated and loyal, which will circle back to client satisfaction. Everything starts with decision making. Our core value states “We believe decisions should be made by those closest to the issue or those most affected by it.

Celebrating Holi

Top down management is old school; make decisions on your own, but ask the advice of others before executing it”. Even if someone makes the wrong decision, we try and never get mad.

We use these moments to re-enforce the importance of decision making, and help people learn from their mistakes. I always say that an A player is someone who can get hit buy a bus and the company can carry on without a blip. True success is when you can make yourself dispensable. When you never have to show up and the company can grow without you, I think that is when you can tell yourself you have made it. We have only just started scratching the surface of putting freedom of choice into our employees hands; there is still so much more work to do.

A few of the ways I encourage the team, is to live what I mean. For instance a few of us had to come to India to be with our fast pace growing team in Dehli. I told the company that my co-founder and I were going to go a couple of days early to Goa to see a different side if India we had not seen before. It was a mini vacation coupled with a week of work. As a CEO I don’t try and hide the fact that I am going to enjoy myself, after all, I have to go thousands of miles away from my wife and kids. To me that is one of the most difficult challenges when you have to travel. I might as well make the most of it and implement some balance.

What just happened?

We happened to be in India during the week of Holi, the Hindu festival of color where people throw, well, colors all over each other. The whole country shut down and so we took the day off and explored the city. The next thing we know we are drinking wiskey’s & cokes, eating chicken and mutton in someone’s house in the slums. It was a very humbling experience that will last a lifetime. You cannot have these types of experiences by sitting in your hotel room. And I also don’t think if mobileStorm celebrated a culture of freedom, that the two people I was traveling with, would have wanted to do something different.

Hanging with our new Punjabi brothers

I tell my wife all of the time, the moment I stop having fun, is the moment I pack up and do something else. I could run mobileStorm for another 10 years as long as I am enjoying what I am doing. The flip side to freedom is restriction. I know so many people in jobs they are just going thru the motions with. They do not have any time to do anything else but the task at hand. Freedom brings you the ultimate enjoyment because its all about how much time we have on this earth and when you are free, you get to choose how to spend your time.

I was talking with the CEO of our development team out here (Tarun Kohli), about culture. He mentioned how he tried to implement Google’s 80/20 rule where 20% of your time you can work on whatever you want. He said it was a failure for a few reasons, and we both agreed that sometimes just because it looks good on paper it doesn’t always work everywhere. With their revenues and size of company, Google could afford to let their employees do this. There have been a few things I have tried to implement that failed because it just couldn’t work for the size and type of company we were. Even being able to spend a couple of extra days in India costs money and I am sure if everyone at the company wanted to do something like this, it would take its toll and we might never make it to the finish line. So the trick with culture isn’t to implement a major policy all at once, you need to slowly move towards your ultimate goal. Maybe its the 99/1 rule and you go from there. Maybe instead of two days in Goa, its surprising them with a less expensive trip to the Taj Mahal. As the company grows, and the revenue and resources are there, then you can start to roll things out you might not have been able to do when you were smaller and with less money.

Hanging at the Taj

I wanted to personally invite my readers to an awesome event we are hosting with Kony Solutions during the mHealth Summit in D.C. on Tuesday December 4th.

We are taking over the Cherry Blossom, a replica of a 19th century Victorian riverboat. We will have a complete open bar, dinner, and great music that will have you dancing for the entire trip. We will dock for the first hour and then start our journey around D.C. taking in the sights and enjoying each other’s company. The boat will dock directly behind the Gaylord for easy access to the event.

Everything is going great with your prospect. You think you have a potentially huge deal, and are way down the road on closing it — then bam; your prospect stops engaging and you get an email that they went in another direction. Or how about this; you have been working with your client on a huge upgrade, and the next thing you know they are going in a totally different direction and their reasons make no sense. You are blindsided because you thought everything was going to happen, but after a bit more thought you realize its because the decision makers had the wrong information.

Do any of these stories sound familiar? If you sell a product like software, you are probably nodding your head up and down right now; a few of you have whiplash. What you just experienced is the culmination of two things:

1. Your failure to get to the decision maker.
2. Your contact is a B or C player employee who held all of the cards.

Think about it. You spent years building your product, hiring people, and creating your voice. Nobody can tell your story as good as you or the people that work for you. So when it comes to major deals, why are you leaving someone else in charge of your brand? That is what you are doing every time you rely on an employee.

Hiring A players is very hard. It takes time, trust, and a solid recruitment process. I have been told we have a long interview process which sometimes includes injecting the candidate into the business well before they are employed. Yet I still have managed to hire B players (not so much C anymore, our recruitment process has taken care of that).

So if it is that hard to find and recruit A players, and this process is something you are in charge of and work hard at, then imagine how many clients of yours either struggle with the same issues or have no process in place at all? The bigger the company is, the easier it is for these employees to hide. Unfortunately, the bigger the client is, the bigger the deals are. B players to me are people who do not take initiative and have no clue how to properly manage expectations. They have a hard time quickly comprehending things, they drop the ball, they do not approach a situation strategically, and they make poor decisions, over and over again. If this person worked for you, you would fire them in a heart beat.

These B players are out there, and they are working for your clients and lucky for you, your entire company’s reputation is in their hands. They will forget to preform critical tasks, they will not ask the right questions, they will tell their boss the wrong information, they won’t know how to sell you, and they have zero influence within their organization.

I have been devastated by B player employees. Huge six and seven figure deals have disappeared completely because these sub-par employees have not managed expectations. So what can I do to protect myself? I’m glad you asked:

Pre-Customer: If you are trying to win a deal and you feel your contact is a B player then you need to do everything you can to get to an A player, or the decision maker. I know this is sometimes easier said than done but you have to do it. B players know they are B players, so even if they have some authority or they act tough, there is always something you can say to have them get someone else involved. Ask questions like “how does your company make decisions?”. If they tell you the VP has to sign off, then don’t be afraid to ask them for an introduction. If they refuse, get honest with them. Tell them something like this; “I have spent years thinking about how to make _________ (insert the industry name here like “retailers”) successful doing _______ (insert solution type like “email marketing”). I’ve seen people succeed and fail and I want to make sure you guys succeed. I know how busy you must be with your daily tasks, and I wouldn’t want you to try and relay year’s worth of knowledge on how to be successful, so let me save you a bit of time and ensure that your company is as successful as it can be by having a quick call with the VP. If you schedule a call with Mr./Mrs. VP, we can do the call together and I promise I’ll make you look like a rock star.”

There is so much at stake here that you may want to offer an incentive. Tell them that if they sign up with you, you will give them a free month of service if they will introduce you to the decision maker. Tell them honestly that you want the best shot at becoming their partner and you want their business so much you are willing to give them a free month for one simple email intro. I don’t care if you ruin the relationship, you need to go around this person if it’s the last thing you do. And you might be able to do just that. Go on linkedIn. See what other employees your contact is linked to. Do a search for a title, and if you find someone that looks like a match, reach out. Tell them you are working with your contact and are working hard at making them a customer. Tell them you would like to get some insight as to how decisions are made and ask them nicely for a 5 minute call. Tell them that if they will give you 5 minutes, that when you are their partner, you will make sure that favor is repaid. If they are in the market to buy your product or service, and you feel like you are the best solution out there, then you might have more power than you think.

Post-Customer: So you have been lucky enough to close the deal but you realize that this is just the beginning of a long relationship that will buy more from you, the bigger and more successful their program becomes. If your client assigns a person to manage your company and they are a B or C player then you have a problem. I think this is even a bigger problem than working with a B player before you make them a customer because your reputation is on the line. B players will mess up and throw you under the bus. They will not take the blame if they messed up. It is so easy to just pass the buck. You could not only not grow their business, but you could lose the customer and create a bad reputation. If it is impossible to get around the B player you need to be very strategic and preemptive about everything. In other words, you need to cover your back. Find out who the decision maker is and work hard at creating a relationship with them outside of your contact.

Use titles to gain access to different players within the organization. For instance you might be a sales person or account manager who is working with another account manager within your client’s organization. It would be very hard for you to go above your contact. This is called breaking protocol and it could backfire on you, so use your own titles to move up the ladder. Your boss (a Director or VP) could have access to your contact’s boss, and your CEO might be able to go up to the VP or C level. Make sure you set this protocol up the right way from the start. Tell your B player contact that your CEO would like to meet so and so. Then let your executives create those upper level relationships so if brown stuff hits the fan, they can move up the ladder without breaking protocol or ruining a relationship.

Do everything you can to have a second contact within the organization and CC that fricken person on every single email you send to your contact. When you ask your contact to do something or they have a deliverable, make sure that you tell that other person who is responsible for what and when.

Always operate under the assumption that everything you told your contact will be forgotten, twisted, and possibly even purposely altered, depending upon how political the organization they are working for is. The more political, the more they need to change the facts to support their agenda. Find out in honest conversations with your contact what their goals are. Do they want to be promoted? Do they just want to not be fired? The more you know their agenda, the better prepared you will be when sharing information.

You need to make sure you cover your tracks. The worst thing that could happen is they drop the ball and blame you. When it happens there is really nothing more frustrating. You do not want to throw them under the bus because now you look like the vendor who cannot admit they are wrong, and of course you don’t want that person to be fired even though you secretly do. If you are really good at creating solid relationships, eventually people will start admitting to you that your contact is not great at their job and they might even help you navigate. Its amazing what people will tell you after a martini or two. Getting your customers drunk to pump them for information will be a follow up article. Haha, ok I’m only half joking.

Bottom line is that your brand is in a B player’s hands and if they are your only contact, you have already failed even before you have begun. I would love to hear some of your strategies for managing B player clients.

Here are the 5 common mistakes I see:

1. Being unprepared: Too many times I have seen someone slap together a presentation the night before a meeting. They don’t do their homework with who they are meeting or how their prospect makes money. Going to linkedin and looking up the people you are meeting with goes a long way, especially when you realize that Sally has the same alma mater as you. I can’t imagine not going to the company’s website and learning about what kind of products they have, how they make money, and how my solution will fix their problems, but many people just show up and hope their charisma will get the deal done.
2. Ignoring personality styles: There are 4 types of personalities. In the upper left hand quadrant you have analytics, in the bottom left you have amiables. In the upper right hand quadrant you have drives and in the bottom right you have expressives. You need to be able to know which personality type you prospect is in. For instance if they are an amiable, you don’t jump into your sales pitch, you might ask them if that is a picture of their kids on the desk and have a conversation about what their hobbies are. If you are talking to an  analytic, you need to state only the facts and don’t get to excited about your vision. You may consider jumping to a slide in your presentation that shows the facts and figures about what your solution will solve. When talking to a driver they don’t want to chit chat, they want you to get right down to what you are there for, what you are looking for and how you can help them. Keep it quick and to the point. However if you are with an expressive (that’s me) it’s more of an emotional sale. Talk about your vision for the company and the industry, excite me with other things about your organization that makes you different or unique, it doesn’t have to be all about the product. People who fail to match personality styles will never click as quickly as they need to.
3. Ugly presentations: Analyticals aside, most people will care about the quality of your presentation. I might tell you the meeting is over if I see clip art from Microsoft word. The companies who spend time on all aspects of their companies brand are the ones who put more effort into their products. If you have recently read Steve Job’s autobiography you will know that Mark Markkula, the third co-founder of Apple told Steve early on that one of the most important principle’s to marketing was Impute. He goes on to say “People DO judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software etc.. ; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities”. You only have a chance to make a first impression once, so your presentation should blow people’s mind.
4. Not inquisitive enough: Nothing is more annoying than when someone is pitching you, and it’s all about them, their products, and how they can help you. I always try to ask as many questions as possible. The customer will give you the key to how you can win the deal, you just need to ask enough questions and then shut up.
5. Stand the *%$# out: Everyone is going to walk thru that door and compete on three things, pricing, features and service. The prospect will hear the same pitch just said three different ways. You have this knowledge so why don’t you do something about it? Why don’t you spend time talking about what truly sets you apart from everyone? At mobileStorm we celebrate freedom. I founded the company because I wanted to be free to do what I wanted to do. I have spent a long time trying to figure out what that means internally to my employees as well as externally to our customers. Internally I let employees manage their own schedules, wear what they want to wear to work, and make major decisions usually reserved for executives. For customers we make products that are dead simple to use; and we hope the time they save using our products, is more time that they get to spend with their friends and family. We also don’t require long term contracts; we let them decide how good our service is. So imagine if you are up against a company like mobileStorm who is selling something more than just an inexpensive, product with a lot of features, you have your work cut out for you if you want to win the deal. 

I’m honored to be delivering a presentation tomorrow on “Making Money with Mobile Coupons” during a Power Breakfast for EO Los Angeles.

I’ve had the pleasure of watching countless clients earn incredible revenue using SMS and mobile coupons over the past decade and I always love the opportunity to share our secrets for success (some of them at least).  It certainly helps having case studies like this one and this one to prove just how powerful mobile coupons can be.

I just launched my About.me page yesterday: http://about.me/jaredreitzin (Check it out and let me know what you think).

I think this is a pretty cool concept. I spent some time with Tony Conrad the founder at Summit Series, and he gave me some great advice on building a Board of Advisors. I need to get a cool picture like him where it takes over his whole page. Looks a lot nice than my sideways picture of me starring at dolphins (it was a nice day at the beach in the middle of winter though).

What I like about this site is just how simple it is to create a site that you can send someone to you that is a business card on steroids. You can link all all of your blogs, favorite links and social media presence for easy acces. Also the design is very pretty. They have this font I fell in love with (I know that sounds wrong, but a good font is hard to come by) called  ”Proxima Nova”. Its a bit like Helvetica.

Have I inspired you to create your own, or do you already have one? Please comment below.

I woke up today pleasantly surprised that mobileStorm was on Wikipedia. It feels good to be recognized for all our hard work; and what a long road its been. Here’s to many more successful years storm troopers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MobileStorm

The following is a guest article from James Kim is a writer for Choosewhat.com

Small businesses now generate 64% of net new jobs, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. As the small business community surges into its economic reign, now, more than ever, investors are willing to shell out the dough for up-and-coming entrepreneurs. Even so, finding money for your business is sometimes easier said than done. Here, we’ve provided a list of 5 business solutions and fiscal resources for your business:

1. Venture Capital

Venture capital (or VC) is, in short, capital provided to a firm in exchange for equity, or an ownership share, of the firm. According to data from research firm CB Insights, “venture capital investments rose 19 percent, to $21.8 billion in 2010 — the first annual increase since the downturn.” With venture capital on the upswing, it is quickly becoming one of the most efficient ways to get large sums of money, usually from about $500,000 to $1 million. Usually these firms require a structured business plan. The obvious disadvantage with this funding option is that you have less ownership in and control over the company.

2. Angel Investing

Angel investing is notoriously less structured than venture capital and is usually sought out in the earlier stages of company development. Angels are typically single individuals who provide capital in exchange for convertible debt or equity (like VCs). Angel investing, like venture capital, has experienced an increase recently. The number of angel investors has surged 22 percent in the last year, according to the National Venture Capital association.

3. Debt Financing

Debt financing includes soliciting a bank for loans with a repayment schedule at a fixed interest rate. Banks often consider previous history with other financial institutions and entrepreneurial experience when dictating whether or not to issue a loan. The upside to debt financing is that you don’t have to give up equity and you can thereby stay in full control of your business.

4. Grants

While many people think it is nearly impossible to receive a grant for their small business, it is always worth a shot. This funding option will, like VCs, require a business plan. Usually these grants can be found at the state level, but government operations such as the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) also provide grants. It never hurts to check out these “free money” options.

5. Friends or Family

At the earliest stages of company development, it may be a good idea to approach the people you trust most, like your friends and family, for funding before asking the bigwigs. If you don’t need enormous amounts of cash, friends and family are always a viable option. It’s always a good idea to write an informal contract for these exchanges so you can avoid potential future conflicts.

So there you have it, the 5 most common ways to get cash. Remember: always analyze what stage of company development you’re in, how much money you need, and if you’re willing to give up equity before picking the funding option that best suits your small business.

James Kim is a writer for Choosewhat.com. ChooseWhat is a company that provides product reviews and test data for business services and products.  Their goal is to help small companies make informed buying decisions on business solutions that help their business.

I just got back from a 3 day cruise. I don’t quite know exactly where we went. I do know however that words can’t quite describe the experience I just had. To put things in perspective, one tweet I read today by @Tim_Rutten said “unreal & mind-blowing experience! ROI? A new life!”. I think that’s a great way to put it. Sure I am an entrepreneur and yes I loved meeting VCs, rock star CEOs and potential clients/partners, but that was only quarter of the story.

Our trip began on Friday where a thousand of us boarded a Celebrity Cruise Lines ship. Brett Leve (the Summit Series Co-founder) pointed out that never before had Celebrity let a DJ pump music thru the customs hall, but you have to set the tone right? Summit staffers walked around handing out cookies and brownies, a cocktail would have been nice, but I am sure they were already pushing the limits with the music. Right when we boarded we ran into Gary Vaynerchuk who would later

turn out to give one of the most inspiring speeches of the trip (he had a standing ovation). Gary’s friendly attitude kicked things off right. Here is a best selling author and Internet celebrity, yet on board he was just “one of us”. That to me was the main theme that kept swirling around my head on the ship. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was super cool. There wasn’t a sign that said “check your egos at the door” (actually  it said “Make No Small Plans”) but their might as well have been.

Here is a ship that if it had sunk, global markets would have crashed yet the entire weekend I didn’t run into one asshole. Hard to believe I know.

If we were at SXSW, CES, TED or Davos there is always going to be this clear separation from the billionaire rock star celebrities and the hungry “up-and-coming CEOs” who just want to learn how to become billionaire rock star celebrities. However once you stepped foot on that ship, everyone was equal. There wasn’t a conversation I couldn’t step into and immediately get a warm welcome. I don’t care if it was Tony Hseih, Russell Simmons or Peter Theil, everyone was warm, generous and on the same page. What other conference has this class? Well if you know about one, please tell me because I haven’t experienced it until last weekend.

I attended Summit in D.C. last year and it was still a wonderful time, but there is just something about a captive audience. In D.C. there was other people staying at the hotel besides Summiters. Also you had a lot of people who lived in D.C. so I felt at times things were a bit cliqueish. However on the boat it was the ship’s crew and our crew. There was no outsiders to disrupt a conversation. Nobody to give you a weird stare if you were talking about a subject they didn’t care about.

Summit Series is invite only so as the old saying goes, “good people know good people”, and that’s what happened.

Balance in life is one of the most important things. Summit brought balance. It wasn’t heavily weighted towards Internet entrepreneurs. I must have met just as many people running socially responsible non-profits. One dude blew me away when he told me about these wood burning stoves they give out to the 200 million people world-wide who cook over an open fire each day, causing health problems and releasing tons of carbon in the air. They then sell the carbon offset rights to a broker who in turn would sell it to a company like Google. He explained to me that Google’s server farms release millions of tons of carbon so they buy these “offset rights” caused by the stoves they create and distribute. It’s a for profit non-profit. His company is helping people and the environment stay healthy, and then money doing it; are you kidding me?

It was moments like this when you are humbled. You start thinking about the next amazing product you are working on, and you realize in the long run it’s not the most important thing; I said to myself “Hey Jared  it’s time you visited Africa to give back”. I was inspired by non-profits like Falling Whistles and Invisible Children, check em out.

Summit is one of those conferences that as you are standing on the outside of a forrest looking at trees, along comes a Virgin Galactic shuttle, scooping you up and into the atmosphere, giving you a view of your shit that you have never seen before. The forrest you thought was so big for so many years, now just looks like some pick up sticks a 5 year old was playing with.

I listened to a speech by Shai Agassi, SAP’s previous president. He is now working to get the world off of petroleum. His company “Better Place Electric Vehicles” raised $700 million dollars. He has a deal with the Israeli & Danish governments. I think he said that everyone in the country could drive an electric vehicle if we didn’t use gas for one week. His idea is a simple but brilliant one. He realized that we are many years away from a battery that runs for days, so he thought about a cell phone and how you can simply swap out the battery for a newly charged one. This dude had me so convinced we could get off of petroleum I started dumping my oil futures when we disembarked. Ok I don’t hold any futures of any kind, but if I did, I wouldn’t anymore.

The panels were great, and I loved hearing Greg Gunn and Tony Conrad talk about how to have a successful exit (note to mobileStorm employees, I am not ready to sell anytime soon). However the most amazing things didn’t happen in the panels. Brett’s opening comments hit the nail on the head. He said something to the affect “go with the flow, it’s those unexpected moments that will lead to new relationships and experiences”. Brett if you are reading this, please correct me. But his words couldn’t have been more true. I ran into a buddy of mine, a student in upstate New York named Tyler, most people know him as Tyler Do-Good, he has an amazing story of he traveled the country, doing random acts of kindness. We sat down for a chat and before you know it our group grew like amoebas splitting. This type of situation happened daily on the ship. You would start talking with someone and before you know it a whole crew of people would be gathered around, talking about how to change the world, how to sell your company, set up an amazing culture, or help those in need.

Another major highlight for me was the music. The Roots was the house band, ya no big deal. I realized they are the Grateful Dead of hip hop. They would go into these 15 minute long jams that had you dancing your ass off. Everyone kept telling me, “don’t miss Pretty Lights”; I now know why! Before I talk about PT, let me say that Axwell, of the Swedish House Mafia fame, tore a hole in the boat (another tweet I read today). But I expected Axwell to turn entrepreneurs into fist pumping hooligans.

What I didn’t expect was this young kid named Derek aka Pretty Lights, to absolutely demolish my understanding of music. You have to understand, I am a music connoisseur, I write music, i’ve produced music, I live music. It’s not often a DJ comes along that I haven’t heard of before and shares a new sound. I say “DJ” very lightly because that’s what you think he is but then you realize he is playing all of his own music; and he gives it all away for free at prettylightsmusic.com. I asked him afterwords what BPM (beats per minute) he was playing at because I couldn’t believe how slow his set was, and how much of a frenzy he worked up, I told him “bro, you were crushing it”. He looked at me and said “90 all night. 90′s the new crushing it”. Just to put things in perspective in his genre (if you can put him in a category), most DJs play at 120 to 140. To have the crowd that worked up at 90 was a thing of beauty.

So as I sit here in Palm Springs for another insane weekend (Coachella baby) I reminisce about the life long friends I made at Summit Series 2011. The conference will be in my memory until the day I am lying on my death bed with my family surrounding me, only to be drowned out by the amazing things that happened at Summit Series 2012. Guys, can you please give us a hint of what’s to come? This whole captive audience thing really worked. Another tweet I saw said “Next Summit will be on the moon with Tupac & Biggie”. I wouldn’t put it past you guys.

If you want an invite to next years conference hit me up. I can’t make any promises, but I can promise to get you infront of the right people.