I am Paul Singh

Time really does fly, doesn’t it? I can’t believe we’re already halfway through 2008 - ok, sorry, I’ll stop rambling.

I’m moving my blog over to blog.paulsingh.org so please update your bookmarks and RSS feeds.

See ya soon!

“We have no patent on anything we do and anything we do can be copied by anyone else. But you can’t copy the heart and the soul and the conscience of the company.”

-Howard Schultz, Chairman of Starbucks

Amen, brutha.

Sukhi and I have been working on BST Construction over the last 6+ months and it’s been a great street-MBA thus far. For those of you that don’t know, this has been my family’s business for the last three decades here in Northern Virginia.

If you know anyone that needs some masonry work, let me know or pass the word along — I’ll make it worth your while.

Things have been busy lately but the one common job that I’ve always (and will always) have is sales. At some point in my life it was selling cars, selling pizza, selling electronics — but regardless of where I’ve worked, I’ve always had to sell myself to someone.

First of all, get your mind out of the gutter — Paul Singh ain’t no male gigalo (but I’d probably be good at that if the situation ever arose).

Let’s face it — when you want a job and ask for a $103478546173570.99 salary, you’ve got to convince the other guy why you’re worth that much. (Unless, of course, you just want to be laughed at and brushed off — but I’m sure that’s not the case since you’re a badass reading this blog.) So, how do you do that?

Magic word = because

So, let’s go back to the previous example:

You(Badass): Yes, Mr. Boss, I’d like a $103478546173570.99 salary per day…

Boss: Hmm. (Most likely with a slight look of bewilderment.)

You: …because I’ll be bringing to your company and thereby assisting you to further grow this biatch by 4872065% in the near term. I’m sure my resume and references can confirm my ability to do that.

Boss: Ok, you start tomorrow.

You: YAY!

Remember badass readers, the magic word is because.

Guy Kawasaki recently put up a post asking if business plans are really necessary and it definitely deserves a read if you’re even considering heading down the path of entrepreneurship. He cites a recent Wall Street Journal article:

A study recently released by Babson College analyzed 116 businesses started by alumni who graduated between 1985 and 2003. Comparing success measures such as annual revenue, employee numbers and net income, the study found no statistical difference in success between those businesses started with formal written plans and those without them…

“What we really don’t want to do is literally spend a year or more essentially writing a business plan without knowing we have actual customers,” says William Bygrave, an entrepreneurship professor at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., who says he generally advocates “just do it.” Entrepreneurs must be nimble, and will be more apt to stick with a flawed concept they spent months drafting, he adds.

If you haven’t heard of Guy already, he’s a successful entrepreneur and now runs a VC firm — with that said, I think his thoughts on this topic are worth keeping in mind when you’re assessing how much time and effort to devote to your own business plan:

The phrase “unless a would-be entrepreneur needs to raise substantial startup capital from institutional investors or business angels, there is no compelling reason to write a detailed business plan” merits discussion. Most venture capitalists require a business plan as part of due diligence. This doesn’t mean they spend more than ten minutes reading the plan, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they believe it. A great plan won’t make a lousy idea successful, and a lousy plan won’t necessarily stop a great idea. Most of the plans that we see at Garage are too long and too detailed—to the point of reducing credibility. However, don’t draw the wrong conclusion from this study: “Analysis, planning, vision, and communication are unnecessary.” This isn’t true. What is true is that a business plan should not take on a life of its own. It is a tool—one of many that may help you get funded (or, more accurately, hinder you from getting funded if you don’t have one) and may help you get your team working as a team. But it is not an end in itself.

As a wanna-be entrepreneur with a little bit of experience under my belt now (with UpSolv and, to some extent, InfoRelay), I’ve learned that what Guy’s saying is absolutely true. Business plans don’t “prove” anything at all — but they are a tool (one of many) that can help to make sure that your ass isn’t flying completely blind in whatever it is that you do. Man, where was Guy when I was learning this stuff the hard way?!

According to the New York Times:

According to the Census Bureau’s 2007 Statistical Abstract of the United States, most college freshmen in 1970 said their primary goal was to develop a meaningful life philosophy. In 2005, by contrast, most freshmen said their primary goal was to be comfortably rich.

My how times have changed.

I’ve cancelled my AdCenter account after less than one full month with the service.

I first got the idea to open the account after reading the WorkHappy One Month Challenge where is saw this:

Here’s the deal: Microsoft adCenter is MSN’s answer to AdWords and works essentially the same way. It’s Microsoft’s pay per click offering. You bid on keywords, adCenter charges you when people click your ad. It’s new, and Microsoft is trying to promote it. So much in fact, that they’re giving away $200 in free advertising.

As you know, I helped found UpSolv last year and I figured this was a good time to test out AdCenter (and since I’m a sucker for free money) so I quickly signed up for the account. I followed the help guides that seemed to indicate that I needed to setup a $200 campaign budget and set the end date for one calendar month. (I signed up on 12/12 so I set the end date for 1/12.) At this point, everything was fine and dandy — we started to see some clicks almost immediately. Oddly enough, the system went into a “budget pause” about 7 days later and I thought nothing of it. I figured it was trying to balance out the remaining money to help it spread the love over the one month period. I happened to look at my American Express statement 3 days ago and suddenly noticed that about $135 had been charged by AdCenter. (WTF?!) I logged back into the account to find that the “budget pause” had resumed on Jan 1, 2007 and the budget had reset to $200 again. By now, we had racked up $205 worth of charges between 1/1 and 1/5 and the system was now in a “budget pause” again.

In layman’s terms: AdCenter uses the 1st of every month as the start of a new month. Since I had opened my account on 12/12 and set the end date as 1/12, I had effectively told them to run my campaign for two months. The funny thing is, they didn’t mention this anywhere on the site!

I just spent 30 minutes on the phone with a support representative just now that told me that I should have called in sooner if I wasn’t sure how the system worked and that they were greatful for my feedback. She then proceeded to help me close my account without any further questions. Oh — and before I forget, she even told me that I technically owed a little over $5 more but that they would “round that down” for me. Gee, thanks Microsoft!

Synopsis: Stick to Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter sucks — or atleast their customer service does.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft AdCenter, Google AdWords, online advertising, SEO

Being an wanna-be-professional entrepreneur, I’ve attempted my share of networking over the years and learned quite a few pointers along the way. Obviously, you’re not here because you want to learn all the mistakes I made along the way — you want tips, tricks and hacks! (You lazy bastards!)

First, there are two things you need to realize:

1. No one cares about your or your business.
2. Everyone cares about themselves or their own business.

See a trend here? (Say it with me: “Yes”) So how do we get past all this and really get their attention?

1. Be curious. Everyone loves to talk about themselves. Ask questions about them, their business and anything else that will keep them talking. Don’t forget to interject a few bits about yourself either but let them be the star.
2. Be genuine. People have a funny way of figuring out when you don’t really care. Pay attention, look them in the eye, nod your head… you get the idea.

Throughout the conversation, you want to learn all you can about the other person — their motivations, their desires and/or their goals. The ultimate purpose is so you can tailor a response to show your value to their organization.

For example, when Johnny tells you that he sells widgets that make dogs glow in the dark and you want to get in on that action (whether it be as an employee or some sort of business partnership), you better be able to tell Johnny how you’re gonna make those dogs fluorescent pink with flashing neon ears! He doesn’t care what you’ve done in the past, he wants to know how you’re gonna make him some cash. Get it?

Technorati Tags: business, networking, entrepreneurship, entrepreneur

Slacker Manager has a pretty good article about some tips to keep in mind as we all start this new year. Remember, the goal is to work smarter, not harder!

1. Find the best way. (not necessarily the fastest or easiest, though it often is)
2. Procrascipline. Disciplined procrastination is the art of knowing why you aren’t doing something and when you might.
3. Ensure balance. Even by guerrilla methods (see: 4 hour rule and mental health day)
4. Find your place, for now. This is imperative, difficult and achievable. And you’ll do it over and over.
5. Maximize the work you love, minimize the work you hate.
6. Listen well.
7. Develop (manage) relationships.
8. Market yourself.
9. Think laterally as well as linearly.
10. Master the data. Using simple tools: Excel, SQL, etc
11. Be curious.
12. Pursue other pursuits.
13. Develop your spiritual life.
14. Read broadly.
15. Have a system (of organization).
16. Know how to decide.

Anyone else got some good tips?

Full Article: The guiding principles of the Slacker@Work

I’ve been a LinkedIn member for sometime now but haven’t really exploited the networking power that is built into the service until my recent job hunt. I can tell you from first hand experience that it really does pay to know people and tools like LinkedIn are quite useful when it comes to finding new positions (or being found for them too).

Guy Kawasaki’s blog points out an interesting factoid:

People with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.

And if that’s not enough:

All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees.

If you haven’t already noticed, I’ve placed a link to my LinkedIn profile on the right side of the blog. I strongly encourage you to click through and sign up for an account of your own — it only takes a few minutes and even if you gain one interview off of it (I did), it’s worth it in my book.

See more tips: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn

Sukhi’s getting older — and so am I. Yikes.

We had a little surprise (but I think Sukhi had it figured out) party for her last night. Good times.

Pictures: Sukhi’s 25th Birthday