2013-04-19-Right Personality to be an Entrepreneur
Seminars@Hadley
Do You Have the Right Personality
To Be an Entrepreneur?
Presented by
Urban Miyares
Moderated by
Larry Muffet
April 19, 2013
Larry Muffet
Welcome to Seminars@Hadley. My name is Larry
Muffet and I am a member of Hadley’s Seminar
Team. I also work in Curricular Affairs and Veteran’s
Outreach. Today’s seminar is Do You Have The Right
Personality To Be An Entrepreneur. Our presenter
today is a familiar one to many of you. Urban Miyares
is a nationally famous speaker, veterans advocate,
and entrepreneur. He is also the head of the Disabled
Persons Association and I couldn’t possibly think of
anyone better to present on today’s topic other than
Urban. He is going to give you some perspective on
what he feels are traits of successful entrepreneurs.
Now let me welcome Urban, and I am going to turn
the microphone over to him.
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Urban Miyares
Thank you Larry, it’s always a pleasure to be with
you.
Larry Muffet
Likewise thank you, I always enjoy these seminars
and I always learn so much.
Urban Miyares
Thank you and to all of you out there I hope you enjoy
today’s seminar. We are going to talk about being an
entrepreneur and what it takes to be a winning
entrepreneur. The word entrepreneur is white washed
all over; anybody who is in business is an
entrepreneur today. When you talk to those that have
been in business for quite a while each one will give
you a different definition of what is an entrepreneur.
Hopefully we will clear that up and talk about those
traits and personalities that are so critical.
Well Larry, let’s get right into entrepreneurship or
what being an entrepreneur, it is quite varied,
especially today. I think the best way to start is what is
entrepreneur?
Entrepreneur comes from a French word; the word
entrepreneur was coined by a French Irish economist
a number of years ago. It basically means a money
lender. In French lending the word implies that
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someone who has a business or multiple businesses
that borrows money with a tremendous amount of
risk. They have personal risk involved. I think most
people would agree an entrepreneur is a risk taker.
It’s interesting, if you as an entrepreneur what a risk is
and their definition of risk is completely different than
someone else. We will cover the risk side of
entrepreneurship a little later.
Primarily being an entrepreneur is someone that is
starting with nothing and has everything to lose when
going into business. There are entrepreneurs and
then there are business people, so let’s not get them
confused.
A business person is someone that will go into
business and they have minimized or eliminated most
of the risk. In San Diego where I am from, there is a
gentleman that is starting a business, he is opening a
business, and they called him an entrepreneur. He is
starting right away with three different types of
businesses, but he is starting with $5,000,000. So
really what is the risk factor? Yes he might lose his
money but he is a gentleman that has the capabilities
of replenishing that with his other activities, mostly
family money. He really had little to lose other than
the $5,000,000 which was not a great loss. That is
where we individuals that are blind or disabled, we
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have a lot to lose when we go into business. It could
be at the risk of our health; with some disabilities
starting a business could be dangerous. Like those
that have a sight loss due to Multiple Sclerosis, those
with MS certainly know what stress can do. It could
cause a worsening of their medical condition.
Then we have that if we are receiving disability
benefits from an agency or organization just the fact
of starting a business could jeopardize our benefits.
This is something each person has to evaluate. So
starting a business you are entrepreneurial, and that
is just one of the traits or personalities involving risk.
As I said earlier, those that are entrepreneurial will
mortgage everything; jeopardize everything, their
home, their car, their family, and penny they get
through benefits to go into business believing in the
business venture they are going into.
Risk doesn’t even come into it when a person is
actively involved in entrepreneurship. Many years ago
INC. magazine and Ernest Forbes had an
Entrepreneur of the Year which I had the honor of
winning. I can remember in Palm Springs, California
in a Jacuzzi with drinks in our hand with some well
know entrepreneur types of people. There were two
ladies from Dallas, Texas who invented Barney, and
then we had the gentleman that invented the airbag.
We were in the Jacuzzi together talking about who is
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an entrepreneur and all of that. One of them said I
don’t know if I am an entrepreneur yet because I can’t
even spell it. I guess I will be able to know after I am
able to learn how to spell entrepreneur.
We pretty much all agreed that you only know if
you’re an entrepreneur when you look back in time.
When you’re a self proclaimed entrepreneur, you’re
not an entrepreneur yet. Entrepreneurship is based
on time more than anything.
For myself, looking back on my 45 year business
career, and 23 businesses, I can now start saying that
now I am an entrepreneur even though I have won
many awards for entrepreneurship.
So that is sort of the definition of entrepreneur before
we get into the traits and personalities of
entrepreneurs and the type entrepreneurships. There
are three different types of entrepreneurship.
Larry Moffett
So if you have to ask if you’re an entrepreneur then
your probably not one.
Urban Miyares
Probably not or it is too early in your career. How
many people have you known who have started up,
where everyone called them an entrepreneur and
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they are no longer in business. That is not an
entrepreneur.
Being an entrepreneur is a lifestyle. You live it,
breathe it, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You’re
constantly reading business publications. In fact most
entrepreneurs I know don’t do any recreational
reading; all they read is business publications. I get
24 magazines a month that I read; thank goodness
most of them are now online. I have to stay well
versed in the business arena whether it is
manufacturing, retail, food service, even technology.
Now that I am an iPhone user I have gotten into
technology. I am starting to learn the lingo. Everything
now has an i in front of it so it is getting a little easier
for me to understand.
The entrepreneurship is a lifestyle you live, and I think
I have said this before in another seminar, we took a
cruise to Hawaii and went to all the different islands. I
worked quite a bit on the islands in the South Pacific
with people with disabilities and those that have sight
loss and show them how to start and run businesses
ore help them with their businesses. My wife was so
upset with me, where we were on this nice vacation
and when we would arrive, no matter if it was Kona,
Hawaii or one of the islands there were people on the
dock who I had communicated with me for years by
email and meeting me.
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Of course we go into a shop and she’s here buying
stuff and here I am talking to the manager or the
business owner asking them how’s business, what’s
your best season, and she would be like, just stop
talking about business darn it we are on vacation.
That’s entrepreneurship, you are always trying to find
answers to something, and again it’s a lifestyle. And
you don’t really know if you’re entrepreneurial until
you have been doing it for a while. I firmly believe that
today.
Larry Moffett
I am married to one, so I can heartily concur with the
idea of talking about business on vacation. The thing
that is coming across to me is the idea of being
passionate about something and the need to be
passionate about something. Talk about the level of
commitment and the amount of work that goes into
this. I’ve talked to a lot of people interested in starting
a business and when I start to probe them they say I
don’t ever want to work this hard again in my life, my
boss is bad and I don’t want to have to work this hard,
I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing
because I don’t think they understand the level of
commitment or the level of work you have to do. So
talk a little about passion, work ethic and the
commitment you have to make.
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Urban Miyares
Very good Larry, you have to have a passion for it.
There are too many people who have an idea and
they want to go and open a coffee shop as an
example. They look at it as a job, and they will be
open six or seven days a week or hire people, yea I
will work 40 hours a week, maybe I’ll stretch it and
work 50 hours a week.
I informally retired in 1985 and I was a volunteer and
then I was working 80 or 90 hours a week and my
wife keeps telling me to go back into business full
time because I was at home more when I was in
business. That is where the passion comes in, you
have to have it. An entrepreneur is passionate no
matter what type of business they are in. Once you
understand the basics of business the product or
service really doesn’t matter anymore and that
becomes a passion in everything you do, it’s a full
time commitment.
People will ask how many hours a week do you work,
and when I dream I am dreaming about business.
People say that’s not healthy, that’s not good, I find it
healthy, I am healthier now than when I started my
first business 45 years ago. It’s something that gets
into you. It is so hard to explain to people.
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With passion and commitment you have to be willing
to roll up your sleeves. I remember my Dad who
owned a restaurant telling me until you roll up your
sleeves and wash the dishes you’ll never own a
restaurant.
You have to know what is going on all around your
business to be an entrepreneur. Now a business
person is totally different. They look at it; they hire the
people to do it, they say I don’t know how to cook, I
am not going to wash dishes, and they analyze
everything. A business person really doesn’t move
forward until their able to identify all the facts and
figures and eliminate or minimize as much of the risk
as they can.
An entrepreneur just picks themselves up by the boot
straps and goes and moves forward, and will learn as
I go. That is a critical trait. They’re so confirmed about
their idea or what the business will do, right or wrong
they will.
One thing that people don’t realize is just because
you’re an entrepreneur doesn’t mean your going to
make money. Everyone thinks that entrepreneurs
make money hand over fist, when actually most
entrepreneurs are just barely able to make a living to
support their family.
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One of the key traits and personality of an
entrepreneur is the ability to move quickly and make
decisions quickly. I remember in my early business
career if I had a business that didn’t look like it was
going to make it I was starting another one before I
closed that first one. And that’s what we do we keep
on moving. I claimed bankruptcy. You claim
bankruptcy and two weeks later you got another
business open. Entrepreneurs learn how to do that.
They are always moving forward, they won’t stop,
where other people if the business didn’t work out
they would say my entrepreneur days are over. You
were never an entrepreneur you were just someone
that tried.
That brings up the three types of entrepreneurship.
There are those that are entrepreneurial for soul
purpose for having control. That is how I started when
I first became disabled and came back from Vietnam.
They told me that I would never be able to become
employed so I started because I wanted to control my
future, my destiny. If no one was going to hire me
then I had to do it myself.
The second entrepreneur is those that are in it for the
profit. The profit entrepreneurs have a tough time
because most entrepreneurs start out with nothing.
They don’t need money to get going. The business
person on the other hand says I can’t start this
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business until I have at least $50,000 or $10,000 or
$500,000. That is the business person; I can’t start
the business till I have the money to do it.
The entrepreneur goes in with everything they got and
are able to risk everything with the motive of a profit.
The third entrepreneur is the social entrepreneur
which is really catching hold now. Most social
entrepreneurs go into the non-profit area; there is a
whole host of those. I started out a control freak. I had
to control my destiny because I had no other options.
They didn’t give it to me. I got into the profit mode just
because of business success. You have a business
you start with the credit cards, $1700, and a few years
later have $10,000,000 with 120 employees you
better believe there was profit there. There was a
whole bunch of profit there.
In 1985 I sold my manufacturing company and
became a social entrepreneur and started a non-profit
to help others with disabilities, veterans and nonveterans in business. That is what I have been doing
mostly now, even though I have a small for profit
business on the side. I have already started gearing
up to go back into government procurement and that
is for profit motive. It is to hire some people, family
members and all, because they are having difficulty in
finding work and also hire some people with
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disabilities which I think they are wonderful, a couple
people in video production arena and so forth.
The for-profit is going but my main focus is my social
entrepreneurship which is my non-profit, Disabled
Persons Association.
Larry Moffett
One of the traits I often think about is the idea of
being resilient. If your going to be an entrepreneur
you have to be resilient you can’t just fold up like a
house of cards the first time when something goes the
wrong way. Which inevitably it will, can you touch on
the whole idea that you need to be resilient.
Urban Miyares
You got to have a thick skin, there’s no question
about it. They say you have to have the skin of a
mercenary and the inside of a missionary.
Larry Moffett
I haven’t ever heard that one but that is excellent.
Urban Miyares
The word no to us, no I won’t buy from you, no your
not going to get the money, no, no, no means not yet
to us. We seem to get on fire when rejected. That is
something that has to be developed. Very few people
start out that way, who can accept rejection.
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That’s where personality comes in and is so critical.
People who are analytical, who want to please other
people, tend to rely on third parties depend on facts
and figures before making a decision. They won’t go
forward until they know for sure that it is going to
work. And as soon as someone gives them a negative
like the industry is already over saturated why do you
want to get into it.
I just read a story about the cupcake industry, it’s
dying, and those that are in the cupcake industry
better start making cookies again because cookies
will come back. Mark my words, as an example, and
that is what entrepreneurs do. They predict the future;
they are one step ahead of the market when we
become successful. We think ahead.
One of the main traits of entrepreneurship is being
innovative. We think, if there is a certain way of doing
something we think there has got to be something
different to make it work. We are always testing the
market, not scared of taking a risk, spending money
on advertising, trying a new marketing scheme,
something different than the rest.
These are traits that are critical to the entrepreneur
and we will go over all these key traits before we go to
the questions.
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Larry Moffett
I had a professor once said that you have to have the
quality of the zoom lens in you. What he meant by
that you have to be able to zoom in on important
details but you also have to have the ability to zoom
back and see the big picture. To see what is going on
around you, could you talk about that.
Urban Miyares
You got to key on details, but entrepreneurs don’t
waste time finding these details. They will take
general details either to just satisfy their mind, to get
some new information, and then will step back and
look at the whole picture. The trees from the forest
saying, when your in the forest it just clouds the whole
picture of the forest and we have to stand back.
One thing I tell all the entrepreneurs or want to be
entrepreneurs that really want to make this a lifestyle
you need to step back, take a vacation, getting out of
the office, getting out of your job, if you work from
home, get out of the home, and do something
completely different. You need to get a different feel; it
might be catching up on your reading, go to a couple
of social parties, meet new people. Entrepreneurs
love meeting new people, that’s where you get new
ideas.
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When you’re busy and active your mind doesn’t work
the same speed. We have talked about inventing in
past seminars at Hadley and I’ve always said if you’re
looking to invent something or something new, get
depressed. Depression is a great way of clearing the
mind because the mind is so depressed thinking
about I can’t pay my mortgage, I can’t pay my rent,
they just diagnosed another medical condition and
you get depressed, they tell me I might die in six
months, you will find out how creative your mind
becomes.
And that’s what you have to do, not get depressed
necessarily but get out and meet other people. It’s
amazing what ideas other people may have.
Larry Moffett
Are you ready for a couple of questions?
Urban Miyares
I am.
Larry Moffett
Lynn would like to know how you determine what
passion you should venture forth with. How do you
know what your passion is?
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Urban Miyares
That’s a great question because I don’t know myself. I
know I love selling, I love business in general, but
deciding on a particular business is where
entrepreneurs come in more than anything. They will
jump in take over a business that is failing with no
money down and work it for a month or two months,
you really don’t know what you do. You really don’t
know what to do until you get into it.
You might think you do, I took an aptitude test BriggsMeyers test and it said I had a accounting background
so I am going into accounting, well you might not like
it, you might not have a passion for it. You have to
test things out, and that’s where times, like I said
earlier, entrepreneurs you really don’t know until time,
you’ve been in one business, two business, five
businesses, even if you go in as a manager and see if
you like it.
I’ve had people say they love food service and they
really are not eaters. They are skinny as a rail, food
doesn’t excite them but they love the food service
business. They will get mixed up between the product
or service you do and the business, they are two
different things.
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Larry Moffett
Tom’s question here hits home on some things. When
I want to run a business very often the motive is that
he wants to be his own boss and write his own
paycheck. In your experience Urban, how long does it
take for that business become more profitable than
the nine to five jobs?
Urban Miyares
If you’re talking strictly about money, if you take that
nine to five job, remember tax laws were written for
business owners they were not written for people who
work for business owners. There are tremendous
advantages, people always get confused, if you have
a business, and that business on paper based on
taxes could look terrible and live a wonderful lifestyle,
more so than the paycheck he gives you.
We’re talking apples and oranges, how long does it
take it depend on the business and you. Your
personality, your business, your contacts, you know
Hadley has that wonderful program where you
measure all your assets, both hidden and obvious
assets. Assets like who do you know, who knows you,
the centers of influence, your background, your
history, these are assets, life in general is a asset.
How much money you have in the bank, or how much
equity you have in your house that’s another kind of
asset. You have to measure all your assets and see
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how much of that you are willing to risk to go into
business.
How long it takes I don’t know. Once I understood
business then the profit became easy. I was going
around ignorantly most of the time as a disabled
business owner trying to compete with the able
bodied world and not understanding business yet.
Larry Moffett
Justin has a question here that you are the ideal
person to answer. Justin says my goal is to become a
motivational or inspirational speaker. I want to share
my trial and tribulations with people so they can see
and reach their full potential in terms of using myself
for who I was to whom I am now, he says he is
actively networking and a active member of
Toastmasters, Urban what are your recommendations
to get more exposure and learning opportunities to
become a paid speaker.
Urban Miyares
Justin, that is a great question and I can’t begin to tell
you how many times I get this. Everyone has a story
and in public speaking you’re primarily talking about
your story. Either your personal stories or stories of
others you’ve met.
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Toastmasters are great as I have mentioned before in
seminars at Hadley and other places, it’s a great
building tool. Public speaking is one that, you go
through school, you go through middle school, you go
through high school and then you go to college and all
of that. Toastmasters are your high school, you get
your diploma and now you have to hone your skills.
How much money you get paid is based on who you
are. Let me tell you a story and it happened in 1986 or
1987; Ken Anderson who was a business columnist
was speaking where I was hired to speak also. I was
paid $500; this was in 1986 or 1987, Jacob Javits
Center, New York City, Toy Fair February of every
year, major toy exhibition, and Ken Anderson, who
has passed away now, shall we say he had Bourbon
on his breath every morning, he got up and made a
political statement, not what he was suppose to say,
moved on and never did anything and he got $15,000.
People couldn’t wait for him to get off the stage, I
spoke after him, on what I was suppose to speak on, I
gave a 15 minute speech and got a standing ovation.
Why did he get more than me? And that is when I
learned my lesson; I have never spoken again for
$500.
You’ve got to build yourself up in name, image, public
relations, how you’re looked at and then your
presentation. People get excited about what you say
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based on your enthusiasm on stage. If you have a
name behind it that you have built up with public
relations it builds up. Last year I did 118 speeches,
this year I took off from public speaking. I am just too
tired, but yes I made good money.
There is a 60/40 rule in public speaking, you start out
for every 10 speeches you do, and you hope you get
something for four of them, and six of them you do
pro bono. You fork money out of your pocket; you
have to pay for gas, train or bus fare, hopefully not
airfare because that is too expensive, so it’s a 60/40
rule. The goal is to get up to where 60% of your
speeches are paid for and 40% pro bono. When you
get to that point you need to hire a staff. So there is a
60/40 rule and I do workshops on public speaking on
how to make it a profitable business.
Only about 5% of all public speakers in the nation,
including those that are agents and all are financially
able to sustain themselves strictly from their public
speaking fees. Only 5%, it’s a rough industry,
everybody’s doing it; all they have to do is stand on
stage. This is something you should look at as a
business, of course if you get Hadley’s book,
preparing yourself for business, you’ll be able to do a
financial analyses of what public speakers spend,
what their operating expense as a profession.
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By the way, just to let you know, public speaking as
well as other professions in America for all those that
are employed, one out of every three people are selfemployed.
Larry Moffett
Alice as a question, do you consider self publishing as
a entrepreneurial endeavor?
Urban Miyares
I don’t know, it depends on how long your in self
publishing, and what businesses you go into after
that. If you go into self publishing and that’s the only
business you go into, then you’re a business person
and not into any other businesses. It’s over time, now
if you had four or five businesses before and then go
into self publishing then you very well could be an
entrepreneur. To me and many others, it’s not how
profitable you are or if your profitable at all, it’s how
many times you go out there and do it again, and how
much is at risk in your self publishing business.
I love self publishing; by the way, it has a tremendous
market especially with the internet.
Larry Moffett
Alice I will give you a little heads up, Forsyth Center
for Entrepreneurship here at Hadley is going to be
releasing a course on self publishing as a self
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employment vehicle probably in November of this
year. Keep watching for that, they will publicize it
when the time is right. It’s something that we have a
great interest in too.
Urban Miyares
And it is a great way to go. I have been in self
publishing business at one time. It was one of my 23
businesses.
Larry Moffett
I am going to turn the microphone loose here for a
few minutes and see if anyone wants to ask a
question over the microphone, if not we will just get
back on topic.
Urban Miyares
The types of personality profiles that you have, some
people can be entrepreneurial and have three or four
businesses, and all of a sudden lock onto that one
winning business, and decide that this is my last
entrepreneurial business and then totally convert into
a business owner.
Our first entrepreneur in America was probably
George Washington, did you know that he was an
alcohol and wheat farmer? He was a wheat farmer
primarily before he became our first President of the
United States. He actually did exporting to Europe,
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wheat from the United States. After he became
President and the revolution was over, he went to
whisky. He produced alcohol, and he sold, and he
died as an entrepreneur.
He took a break to lead our country through the
revolution, and then went back into entrepreneurial,
somewhat related industry.
Ray Crock with McDonald’s, his whole plan when he
brought the McDonald’s from the brothers in
California, was to open these businesses all over the
country and we all know the history of McDonald’s. I
was fortunate to have met Ray Crock a number of
years ago before he passed away. Then there are
those that get entrepreneurial awards and then you
never hear from them again. Remember Sharper
Image, they were all over the place and they’re not
around.
Your personality profile often will determine and you
can move into entrepreneurial at any time in your life.
It depends on what you are willing to put at risk. We
see a lot of seniors right now aren’t doing well on their
social security or their 401K’s are looking to getting
back into business or starting a business for the first
time, because instead of dying at 72 they are realizing
they may live to be 80 or 90 or even 100. We have
more centurions, people who are 100 years or older
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right now than ever before in history so it’s not
surprising. The oldest gentleman that I have ever
worked with who was going totally blind was 91 years
old when he started his first business in South
Carolina. What a wonderful and remarkable man he
was. His granddaughter is now continuing his
business.
So the personality profile which you need to do, and
we have done them before at Hadley, everyone tends
to be. Now those that tend to be the controlling
entrepreneur, going into a business tend to have all
four of these personalities. It is based on
circumstance why they go, they are sometimes called
accidental entrepreneur because they just stumbled
into business and found out they loved it and maybe
like some of us with disabilities it was because we
couldn’t find employment, or employment is not
satisfactory. We may have more than vision issues as
problems, we may have other issues or problems, I
do, I need to sometimes take three days off, four days
off for doctors appointments, no one is going to hire
me. I am not a 40 hour type person, nor do I have the
personality for it either.
If you put me in a job, I am going to want to change it
because of my innovative thinking. Let’s try it out this
way because it’s better, and business owners don’t
like that. Those that are over you don’t like that either.
I am not one for that or working for a government
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agency or anything like that. I wouldn’t last long and I
know that with my personality.
Those that have amenable personality are wonderful
entrepreneurs, they like people, they are going into
the non-profit arena, as well as expressive people.
People who are extremely expressive, like to talk, like
to service people, people like to help, customer
service, things in that area, also tend to go into the
socially responsible entrepreneurial arena. They are
often non-profits or an entrepreneurial business that
provides services, whether it be tax preparation, the
analytical side, maybe expressive are also analytical,
and by the way you can be more than one personality
style.
The drivers on the other hand, it’s got to get done, it’s
my way or the high way tends to go into the profit
entrepreneurial side. They’re in it to make profit.
They’re very material, they want to live in the big
house, have the cars, all the toys that wealthy people
have, and they go into the business side.
The analytical entrepreneur has a little bit of a
difficulty; they have to analyze everything before they
make a decision. If they are strongly analytical,
entrepreneurial is difficult for them unless they have a
partner, such as a spouse or a family member or
someone else who can balance out their analytical
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side with out personality traits. That is critical when
you are looking for partners, whether it is in social
relationships as in marriage, or in business. You don’t
want to duplicate your personality and you don’t want
to duplicate your disability either. Any weaknesses
you have you’re just compounding it in your
entrepreneurship.
The personality you take can all be entrepreneurs; the
analytical entrepreneur will most likely become a
business person especially when the business
becomes profitable. The driver on the other hand, the
entrepreneur driver will make a bunch of money and
then buy this business and this business before you
know it they own, five, six, seven, eight, nine
businesses, more than anybody can conceive that
they can handle at one time, as quick as they grow
and profit, that’s how quick they crash. It’s amazing
they can crash, claim bankruptcy and three months
later you hear they are on another venture. That’s the
driver type of entrepreneur. It’s not a passion
anymore it’s an obsession for them especially the
longer they have been in the arena.
The expressive entrepreneur tends to do well; they
can run a non-profit as well as a for-profit
entrepreneurship. I guess I am more in that arena
right now, I started out as a driver because of the
controlling factor, and then got into the expressive
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and with that, that is why I run the non-profit and the
for-profit now.
So those are the basic personality traits, is it set that
way, no everyone varies, each one of us will change
our personality trait depending on factors, who we are
with, if your single now and all of a sudden you get
married, your personality profile might change
completely, you go to school, you take a bunch of
Hadley courses and you become smart you’ll
probably become analytical. You’ll be more analytical
before you were before because you have more facts
and figures to work with, you’ll learn things you never
did before. It’s a self evaluation point that you have to
look at.
Larry Moffett
I can imagine people didn’t expect to hear that a
former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson would be
quoted in this particular seminar but I brought one up
for you. Mike once said everyone has a plan until they
get punched in the face. The reason I bring that quote
out the balance you need to have between being
decisive having a vision, being driven to fulfill that
vision, and remain flexible because as Mike says you
get hit in the face you got to be able to change your
plan up and accommodate that. Can you talk about
that need, that balance between being decisive and
yet being flexible.
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Urban Miyares
I hadn’t heard that expression, I love it. I didn’t know
Mike Tyson had that in him. That was a great way of
putting it.
Flexibility is something that entrepreneurs have that is
a unique trait that more businesses should have,
more organizations should have, more government
agencies should have, entrepreneurs can be flexible
quickly and that flexibility comes with control, you
make the decisions. When you go into the socially
responsible entrepreneur goes into the non-profits,
they have difficulty in being as flexible because the
Board of Directors help them make those decisions.
They will tell them no, they will punch them in the
face.
The types of entrepreneurship where you are flexible
and can move quickly tend to go mostly with the
driver and the expressive person exclusively. Those
that are analytical and those that are amenable
entrepreneurs have difficulty because they have third
party influence before they will make a decision. Its
little things, so if you’re an analytical person, maybe
you have a college degree, so you have been at the
same job for a long time, you’re heavy into computers
for example, or you’re an accountant or you’re an
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engineer, you have the challenge based on your
personality of being flexible.
You’re going to be like wait, wait, wait, hold up; I need
to think about this where the driver entrepreneur
jumps right into it. I think this is a good day, I am
going to go and will often get punched in the face.
There’s no question about it. They keep on going and
they get battered through life the whole way, but they
will have wins and they will have losses.
It’s almost like going to the racetrack, they only thing
you hear about is their wins. I have had 23
businesses, and only five of them have been
financially sound. I kept going one business right after
the other. One business I closed because the industry
changed. I was flexible; I jumped out of it before we
had a big loss. The year before, we made a very good
living.
In the late 80’s General Dynamic closed in San Diego,
we printed circuit boards at the time, my company at
the time [Novanco] Electronics did most of the printed
circuitry on the Tomahawk Missile. We won awards
for that, and I think I told that story where he didn’t
know I was blind and then went to receive the award
in Washington for government procurement, but the
next year we sold out. General Dynamic moved, that
was 60 to 80% of our business and Northrup wasn’t
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sure they were going to keep us so we just sold it to
another company. If we broke even that last year we
were lucky. We definitely would have sunk the
following year. That’s the flexibility of it.
We don’t hang on trying to make it work, that’s what
too many business minded people do. They say oh if I
only had another $5000 I can make this work. The
entrepreneur is already onto the next business, their
mind is already scattered all over the place instead of
trying to hold on to a sinking ship. We’ll just leave this
sinking ship and jump on the next one. The birds out
in the ocean, you know there are birds 1000 miles off
shore and your like how do they live out there, they
jump from ship to ship. Whoever will feed them, they
will stick with that ship until they see another ship on
the horizon. As their off in the distance in a crows nest
or something.
I will be sailing to Hawaii this July 8th, and another
disabled vet, we are taking our boat to a Transpac
race and I have done it twice and 1000 miles off shore
you will see all the birds. You’re like where did they
go, how did the get here, ship to ship.
That’s what entrepreneurs do; they go from ship to
ship.
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Larry Moffett
Every entrepreneur that I have been around has had
the ability to sell. Not only being able to sell their
particular product or service but the ability to sell
investors, being able to sell the lenders, so could you
talk a little about needing to have sales ability.
Urban Miyares
Selling ability is critical for the entrepreneur, it’s not
that he is a better seller; it’s that they try and sell to
more people. Too many people will try to sell to two
people and get two no’s and they will say, I am not a
salesperson. They’re in that comfort zone, in the
bubble and they can’t break out of it. The person, who
is perceived to be a good salesperson, just goes out
and sells, and sells, and sells and knows they are
going to get a lot of rejections. It might be four out of
five of the sells I make or seven out of nine whatever
the number is for your industry, you just have to talk
to people and you polish your skills. Never use the
same pitch until you hit on one that is working, and
then when your numbers start dropping, then it is time
to change your sales pitch.
That is the problem with too many insurance
companies they have the same sales pitch for their
entire salesman for years, and the salesmen come
and go. You got to modify your sales pitch for your
personality, if you’re an analytical person you try and
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you try and act excited it’s not going to work, it’s going
to come out phony.
Salesmanship is critical in entrepreneurship because
salesmanship is an expression of self confidence that
is all salesmanship is. If your unemployed now and
you have sent out hundreds of resumes and no one
will hire you and you say it’s because I am blind, you
might want to look and see is it something about your
presentation, your salesmanship style. That is
something to look at; I am not saying that is the
reason but it could be.
Larry Moffett
Not to take this too much into sales, because we have
a lot of other things to cover, but my observation is
where people fail in sales is because they are afraid
to ask for that person’s business. They can lead up to
it, they can do the small talk, they can do the back
slapping, they can take people out for lunch, but they
are just not confident enough to ask for that persons
business.
Urban Miyares
It’s difficult; culture has a lot to do with things. There
are those that are Asian, particularly Taiwanese or
Japanese they don’t do business until you make a
friendship first. I have done business with people who
have flown in from Japan and they are here for four or
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five days and all we are doing is socializing, getting to
know each other, going to restaurants, having Sake,
things like that and when do we close the deal, as
they are leaving at the airport on the fifth day. That
has a lot to do with knowing who you are talking to in
salesmanship. You have just got to keep on going at
it and constantly perfecting it.
We talk about colors and personality, which has a lot
to do with salesmanship depending on your industry
and what you’re selling if you’re wearing the wrong
colors that could be sending out negative vibes and
making your salesmanship or your ability to sell
someone else difficult. Remember when you sell, and
we are going into sales a little, there are three things
you sell. You sell price, terms and time of possession,
that’s the only things you sell. The price might be
right, but if the terms of buying it isn’t right or the time
they can get the goods or products is not to your
agreement you don’t have a sell. It’s not going to
happen.
Larry Moffett
I have a question: how do you join the Disabled
Person’s Association and what are the benefits?
Urban Miyares
Membership fees are a cup of coffee anytime you see
me. We have never charged, if you want to make a
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donation, we will definitely cash your check and use
the money. The services we provide right now are five
programs. The five programs are: Self Employment
for the Disabled where we do mostly educational
programs, seminars and workshops, we have an
educational thing strictly for vocation rehabilitation
with career counselors and all on how to use self
employment for a way to find employment.
We have the National Disabled Business Center,
which is how we started out in 1985 and we specialize
in those that are severely and catastrophically
disabled veterans, service connected and non-service
connected. Right now that is most of my focus; of
course if you are a student of Hadley you have my
undivided attention. I have a commitment with Hadley
to help them on their entrepreneurial programs. I have
worked with quite a few students from Hadley who
after working with the instructors want help with their
business plan or if they have a question. We do that,
and then we have our Challenge America Program
which is a adaptive selling program in San Diego,
which is free, we do more than 1000 people with
disabilities including blind, each year we show them
how to sell.
Our last program is Special Kids in Business, where
we take high school kids, mostly with developmental
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disabilities; I mentor 15 kids per semester in San
Diego.
The bottom line is if you email me I will answer your
questions. If you call me on the phone it’s not going to
work out too well. I get 40 or 50 calls a day and there
is just no time to answer all the phone calls.
Larry Moffett
What would be a email address?
Urban Miyares
The best way to reach me is
urban@disabledbusiness.com. If you have any
questions you can go to www.disabledbusiness.com
or www.disabledbusiness.org and read our website.
We are all volunteers; we are all business owners
with disabilities that volunteer our time to help. We
have been doing this since 1985.
Larry Moffett
We have a question in the text box. When you do
business internationally with people of different
cultures which culture is the guiding culture when it
comes to business?
Urban Miyares
Wow, that is a great question, first of all if you are
doing importing or exporting, we should do a
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workshop just on that, and that would have to be five
hours. It is quite different, Europeans have one way of
doing business, the Asian countries are different, the
Persian countries are different, you go to South
America and it is completely different there. It is
based on you, your product and your contacts in
those countries and of course if you can speak the
language.
The biggest problem with doing business with other
countries, is transfer of payment, if you do it on a
regular basis, get with a trading company on currency
so that every time you do a deal the currency, the
value of the exchange rate doesn’t change. You can
walk in, exchange rates on currencies, that’s just a
little tip on trading. I have owned a import/export
company.
If you look at Pier 1 Imports, all the throw rugs they
get from India, it was my company that started that
contract.
Larry Moffett
To go back to that particular question, is it whose soil
your doing the business on, or if your buying from
someone does their culture drive the meetings or if
they are seeking out your business, they get to call
the shots.
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Urban Miyares
It will be based on your companies FOB, Freight of
Burden. If you were doing business in England, for
example, and the FOB is UK, then legally you have to
go by their rules because everything from there to the
United States, you have to pick that up agents,
shipping costs, insurance, tariffs, and copyrights in
many cases. So the FOB is very important is the
answer to that.
Larry Moffett
Amy has a great question. Urban what trends are you
seeing in start up entrepreneurial endeavors. What
are some hot things your starting to see pop up.
Urban Miyares
Of course you can’t beat technology, the problem with
technology you definitely have to be an entrepreneur
ready to jump in and jump out or change when you
jump in. You know business plans don’t work when
you use them. By the time you finish a business plan
the market has changed already. So you use the
business plan primarily to get what resources you
need to get your business going. Those risk factors,
how much you can borrow, get others to help you with
your business or you start with nothing at all.
But I guess your looking for types of businesses, I
love fuel polishing. Think about disasters, like right
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now in Chicago where they have a lot of rain, how
many generators are being run right now because of
electrical problems. Most of these generators are
diesel. Diesel fuel when left idle, decomposes,
moisture gets in, contaminates get in, and these
generators won’t start. Diesel fuel polishing is where
you go around and polish existing fuel tanks whether
it is hospitals, office buildings that have generators,
people that have boats out in Lake Michigan, they
don’t take them out very often and then they wonder
why they won’t start. When you turn them on they
smoke a lot till they get warm. Their fuel needs to be
polished.
It is a big industry, a big industry that very few people
know about; being blind is no interference if you’re an
entrepreneur. A business person will say how can I do
that, I can’t drive a truck, how am I going to hook up
the truck to the fuel tanks and all.
The entrepreneur figures it out and it’s not always
hiring people to do it. Accounting, I love accounting,
plenty of legally blind and total blind accounts out
there, in accounting and bookkeeping especially with
today’s technology. Hadley has Excel spreadsheets.
Larry Moffett
We are just getting ready to release Accounting for
the Small Business Module within days.
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Urban Miyares
I know quite a few tax preparers who are totally blind.
Be very careful with Technology. Especially if you’re
in software design, I would do that as a side business,
not a primary business at this point. Because that is
how fast technology is moving. Doing anything with
satellites because in 2014 a whole new set of
satellites are going up and it is going to change the
whole industry, so be prepared. \
If it is a new type of iPhone, or a bright idea that
you’re coming up with that going to bounce off
satellites to rely messages, you might have to reengineer your whole thing right now.
I love food service, love food service, especially if
you’re a family person; you know you can always feed
your family. You got food in the refrigerator at the
restaurant or coffee shop. I love food service
preparation, where you do preparation for others in
your home. Some states are now allowing you to do
cooking from the home and sell cookies and other
products from your home. California is just a state that
passed that law if you do up to $35,000 in sales. It is
a great way to get your foot in the door, build up your
clientele in catering but selling cookies or cakes and
then going into a retail storefront later.
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Larry Moffett
I regretfully have to say that I know you’re on a very
tight schedule today, so regretfully we are going to
have to start wrapping this up, because I know you
have other commitments. I wish we could continue
this on for several more hours, because this is a topic
that I know you find fascinating, and I find fascinating,
wish we could continue, but I promised I would have
you available for your next commitment around 11:00,
so we are going to have to regretfully start wrapping
this up.
I want to let everyone know that this seminar like all of
our seminars will be archived on the Hadley website
and will be available for your use anytime around the
clock. Also, now each Hadley seminar is now
available as a pod cast that you can download to you
computer or your mobile device.
If today’s seminar has you interested in learning more
about entrepreneurship, or exploring it further, please
check out the Hadley website, check out the seminar
archives, and check out Hadley’s Forsythe Center for
Entrepreneurs, I think you’re going to find a lot there
that is going to help you very much to make that
decision if entrepreneurship is right for you.
Urban I thank you for your participation and your
questions were outstanding and really added value to
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the seminar. Hadley values your feedback, please let
us know what you thought about today’s seminar or
give us some suggestions for future topics.
One way you can do that is by dropping us an email
at feedback@Hadley.edu another way to share is to
complete a short on screen survey that I will post as
we conclude today.
I am going to turn the microphone back over to Urban
for some closing comments.
Urban Miyares
Entrepreneurship regardless of your personality could
be done part-time or full-time. You don’t have to throw
everything in one basket and go out and rent space
and all, start out slowly, do it with minimal amount of
risk and investment. Many people have started
businesses with no money down, or as little at $50 or
$100. Often you need $50 or $75 to get your business
license. Entrepreneurships are a great way to do that.
If your thinking of starting a business and joining the
ranks of the entrepreneurs around the country, then
do it, do it, I don’t care if you do garage sales and sell
on EBay. Start out, learn about business, the whole
bottom like is to learn and understand business. And
of course improve your own personality and
communication skills with others.
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Larry Moffett
Urban I want to personally thank you and I want to
thank all of you that are signed in today for taking the
time to be a part of this and it was an absolute delight.
I look forward to having you all back for our next one,
thank you.
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