I had an experience recently that brought to light the importance of taking ‘long shots’ every once in a while. What’s a long shot? In the world of entrepreneurship, I would define a long shot as an initiative that has very little chance of success. You might wonder why anyone sane would bother with a course of action that is bound to fail. Put simply, the potential for gain is huge and the potential for loss, aside from rejection, is non-existent. Allow me to illustrate. A few months ago, I was reading an article in the National Post about the Canada Youth Business Foundation (www.cybf.ca). It’s an organization that helps young entrepreneurs launch businesses. In addition to providing financing through the Business Development Bank, they use a very hands-on approach by matching the entrepreneur with a qualified mentor for a period of two years. The article was about a young entrepreneur in Montreal who started a retail store that sells products related to skateboarding. He has having difficulties in the area of human resources. A mentor from the Business Development Bank helped him deal with these issues by crafting a new HR and management strategy.
I was very impressed with the mentor. He seemed very eager to help the young man succeed. I thought to myself that he is exactly the kind of person I am looking for in a mentor. I wondered if he would be willing to take on a similar mentoring role with me. I read the article again to see if it mentioned his contact information. It didn’t. All I had was his name and where he worked (BDC). I then went on the BDC website to search for his name. Nothing either. I could start calling each BDC branch one at a time, but it would be time consuming. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to say to him. Personally, I’m a big fan of email. I like getting a conversation going through email first before a face to face meeting. It allows the exchange of basic information. There is also less pressure on both sides and it is less intrusive (I find it annoying when I receive a call from someone, who wasn’t referred to me by somone I know, asking to meet me…it doesn’t seem natural). If the email exchange goes well, I then suggest a meeting in person.
The problem here was that I couldn’t find the gentleman’s email address anywhere. I then had a great idea…a real ‘long shot’. Read more »
I was talking to my programmer recently and asked him about how he markets his business and generates leads. He told me he doesn’t do any marketing. All his business comes from word of mouth or referrals. I asked another friend of mine who operates a successful translation company with several employees. He told me the exact same thing. In both instances, I was expecting to hear about marketing strategies related to advertising, cold calling, B2B marketing, or today’s catch word, social networking. 
