WEDNESDAY HIGHLIGHTS: Advice and Tips from the Entrepreneurial Insitute
Building the RIGHT Executive Support Team Andre P. Hughes, Accenture/Powered by Action During his more than 20 years of experience at Accenture, Andre P. Hughes has created three companies and a nonprofit organization. A key to his success in every venture is his ability to put together a team that understands, believes in, and is passionate about the goals of the organization. The first step to building a successful team is to know your facts, says Hughes. "If you don’t everything there is to know about your opportunity, your proposal and how it will be successful, you can’t convince anyone else to support it," he says. The quality of person that you want for your team will challenge you with questions such as "How will it work?" and "Why should I get involved?" The next step is to clearly define your vision. "Vision without clarity is hallucination," points out Hughes. "If your vision is clear, you can tell the people you want on your team where you are going, why you are going there, and how you will get there." There are two characteristics you want in the people you choose for your support team, says Hughes. *Find people who think big. "Look for people who are looking for new ideas," says Hughes. If you only pursue ideas that others pursue, you are digging in the same hole as everyone else, he points out. "Select people who are willing to move to a space without a hole, a new opportunity." *Find people who will use their heart in business. "There are a lot of smart people in business but fewer of them follow their heart in business," says Hughes. "People who put their hearts into their business are more passionate, are more likely to create stronger relationships throughout the business, and are willing to put into the business what it takes to succeed." Cracking the Code: Understanding and Winning RFPs Reginald K. Ewing, Ananias Services Group, LLC For most entrepreneurs, getting business means success with Requests for Proposals (RFP). While there is no magic formula, Reginald K. Ewing, a management consultant, offers these tips: *Price along doesn’t always drive the decision to choose a particular contractor. "Many companies may have you submit your technical and your financial proposal in two different packages," points out Ewing. "They’ll evaluate the technical piece, and then evaluate the financial piece of the top choices." Most companies and government agencies, then use different systems to score the proposals based on the combination of the two. "If you have a killer technical proposal, you will have room for a higher financial proposal," he points out. *The proposal development team should include an objective, critical person. When you are in the midst of developing your proposal, it’s easy to lose sight of the RFPs questions, says Ewing. "An objective person who is looking at it with a fresh eye can spot questions you missed, inaccuracies or inconsistent information." *Be sure to answer the question. You can add additional information to describe your experience or the benefits of hiring you over others, but be sure that the first thing you do is to answer the question that was asked, warns Ewing. "Too many people get caught up in the process of selling themselves, and don’t provide the specific information the RFP requested." *Know the company and your competitors. Research is invaluable to ensure that you have a clear understanding of what the company needs, how it matches what you offer and what your competitors are offering, points out Ewing. Understanding what your competitors offer will help you determine the probability of success with the RFP, he says. *Don’t be all things to all people. Be clear about your company’s expertise and focus on proposals that are appropriate for you, says Ewing. "Also, be ready to decide not to pursue the RFP," he says. "Saying no to pursuing business is the hardest thing an entrepreneur has to do," he admits. "But saying no rather than investing time and money in a proposal that is unlikely to succeed might be the best thing for your business." The Unconference This year’s National Black MBA Conference unveiled an innovative addition to traditional seminars. The "Unconference" held on Wednesday afternoon enabled participants to list the topics, issues and ideas that they wanted to discuss but had not heard discussed in the day’s seminars. The list of ideas were: *Challenges faced by part-time entrepreneurs, *Lead conversion and business growth, *Software development and testing, and *Contracting and buying real estate After developing the list, participants divided into groups to discuss the topics in which they were interested. The peer-to-peer sharing was a great opportunity to meet others with similar issues. |
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