Why You Need an Entourage: Create a master plan for building long-lasting business connections

All great leaders have an entourage. So do royalty and celebrities. So why shouldn’t everyone have an entourage? After all, no one can do anything of significance alone. Today’s leaders have a new kind of entourage – a mutually collaborative entourage. 

The true test of whether someone will be a long-term member of your entourage is that they encourage you to achieve your vision and have a fulfilled life and successful business. Members of your entourage make introductions, give advice from their own experiences and offer support, and you do the same for them.

Thomas Edison did just that when he encouraged his employee Henry Ford, then an engineer at Edison’s Illuminating Company, to build his self-propelled vehicle on weekends. Until Ford received financing for his ‘automobile’ he had been a loyal and devoted employee at Edison’s company. Edison introduced Ford to all kinds of business people, including Harvey Firestone of the tire and rubber company fame. All contributed to the development of the automobile. The Ford-Edison-Firestone entourage is legendary.

Once you get started, your entourage will not only support you, they will also connect you with new people who will come to believe in you as well, and together they will help you thrive. It’s important to realize that an entourage is not just about you. In fact, in building an entourage, the first step is to ask the other person about their vision and goals, and then share yours. Second, look for ways to help them. The more generous we are helping the other person, the more trust is built and the more willing that person is to want to help us. An entourage is a collaborative relationship.

These are the strategies I share in my book, Link Out: How to Turn Your Network into a Chain of Lasting Connections (Wiley, 2013), which provides a master plan for building long-lasting connections with people who will support you, while you simultaneously support them. When you link out, you literally get out, get away from your desk, your computer and smartphone, and build face-to-face relationships — relationships which when nurtured can last a lifetime. Once trust is built through in-person communications, members of your entourage bring their chain of trusted relationships to you, just as you will do to them. They will willingly link out to their connections on your behalf. This is how your entourage grows – not only in numbers – but also in influence.

Here are five reasons to invest more time in linking out to build an entourage:
1. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, who create social media, connect with each other and with investors in person at breakfast meetings, association gatherings and events. That’s how they build powerful relationships which open doors to their newest start-ups, products, and collaborations. Surprisingly, they don’t make these valuable connections through social media.

2. Customers buy products and services from people they trust or from referrals they get from people they trust. Trust is only gained through face-to-face relationships. An entourage can serve as a good referral source for business.

3. People who invest time in being active in nonprofit causes and business associations, build strong relationships with people who open doors and make introductions in new circles of influence. Too often, women don’t see this as a priority to grow their business or career – they spend too much time executing work instead of exiting their work to connect with people.

4. Location is not an excuse for going it alone. With Skype, Face Time and Google Hangouts, we can still have face-to-face communications, no matter where we are based. My friend and entourage member Runa Magnus, executive coach, speaker and trainer, and I have regular conversations on Skype. I would almost swear she is in the same room with me, yet she is in Iceland.

5. It’s never too soon or too late to launch or grow your entourage. Whether you are a new business owner, in your first job or are transitioning later in life, once you start, your connections and relationships will flow. In fact, consider evaluating your current business relationships – are they collaborative or a one-way street? It may be time to make a shift to a new entourage.

The Link Out strategy delivers an entourage of people willing and eager to make introductions, connections, and referrals. Why go it alone? An entourage could propel your business or your career to the top.

Leslie Grossman is a leadership and career development expert, Chair of Vistage CEO Peer Advisory Boards, and author of LINK OUT: How to Turn Your Network into a Chain of Lasting Connections (Wiley, 2013)

The out-of-town founders

Country swing: Go Ape founders Tristram and Rebecca Mayhew say there are plenty of entrepreneurs in the country

 
Every day this summer, forests in the UK and the US have been ringing with ex­cited cries, and occasional screams, of adults and young people experiencing the thrill of clambering among the branches on rope bridges. 

These pursuits are thanks to the entrepreneurial talents of husband-and-wife team Tristram and Rebecca Mayhew and their business Go Ape. The brand extends across 34 centres in the UK and the US and is a multimillion-pound business. They plan to open more sites and expand into Russia in the next year.

Received wisdom is that the city is the place for ambitious founders, while the countryside is for bumpkins and where city folk spend a pleasant holiday. But what if entrepreneurs could just as easily spend their working lives in bucolic bliss? 

When the Mayhews hit upon their business idea 12 years ago, they were city- based. They had made home in the fashionable south-London area of Clapham, just as an influx of early-stage venture capital, networking clubs and general buzz about entrepreneurship was fuelling a boom in start-ups in the city.

However, rather than turn their spare room into an office and launch a web venture, the couple upped sticks to the Suffolk village of Hargrave, a 90-minute drive away, used a tent in the garden as their workspace and launched a treetop-climbing business on Forestry Commission land. “The countryside is full of ambitious people,” Ms Mayhew says, noting she now has a group of friends that she meets at the pub who are founders of high-growth companies. 

Rural start-ups in other parts of the UK include eco-clothing brand Howies which was founded by Clare and David Hieatt in the west Wales town of Cardigan after they quit London to indulge their passion for surfing and the outdoor life. Similarly, Jack Wills, the youth clothing brand, began in the Devonshire sailing village of Salcombe. Dyson, maker of bagless vacuum cleaners and bladeless fans, is also still headquartered in the Wiltshire town of Malmesbury, and exports around the world.

The image of the city as the only place for fast-growth start-ups is a myth, according to Grant Thornton, a UK accountancy firm specialising in founder-led companies. It recently noted that 40 per cent of the companies on its GrowthAccelerator programme were based in rural locations. 

Pros and cons of starting in the sticks

● Advantages
Lower cost base. Whether it is rent, wages or support services, such as accountants and lawyers, the cost of doing business tends to be lower. 

A stronger position when recruiting talent. The best people locally are likely to have fewer alternatives.

Networking. It can be easier to get candidates with personal recommendations when everyone in a community knows each other. Local suppliers are more likely to want to do a good job because they know that news about the quality of their service will travel fast in a small community.

● Disadvantages
Lack of choice in certain services. There may be lawyers and accountants in the countryside, but the best ones are more often found in the cities. 

Poor transport links. You may not miss the commute, but the lack of a decent rail service or fast roads will make it hard to get to clients and customers based a long way away.

Inadequate infrastructure. The countryside is usually the last place to receive the fastest broadband and mobile phone services. Getting a line connected to a remote location where there are no other buildings is expensive. 

Networking. Chance encounters with people you might need are less likely when everyone lives a long way from one another.

The Kauffman Foundation, a US-based think-tank that res­earches ent­re­preneurship, found that Montana, which ranks 48th out of 50 states for population density, had the highest proportion of start-ups per capita. That may be because there are few other sources of employment. How­ever, second on Kauffman’s list is Vermont, home to one of the most famous US start-ups of recent years, ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s.

One of the fastest-growing companies in the US is the Greek-style yoghurt manufacturer Chobani, based in upstate New York. It started trading six years ago and is now the market leader, with more than $1bn of sales. It has been credited with saving and creating hundreds of rural jobs. The area is a lot like rural Turkey where Mr Ulukaya grew up, and this was important. “When I arrived it immediately felt like home,” he says. “When you are home you can do your best work.”

Even some of the benefits usually ascribed to busy city clusters are present in the countryside. It is often observed that one of the characteristics of Silicon Valley’s highly successful urban start-up cluster is the deg­ree to which people help each other out without expecting anything in return. Potential explanations include that many founders have backgrounds in the sciences, where collaboration is encouraged, or that entrepreneurs do not view their activity as a zero-sum game.

However, generosity of support is something Christian Jones, managing director of Gro Group, which makes baby sleeping bags and other nursery items, claims is a benefit of its location amid the farming communities of Devon. “People here are genuinely more willing to help without a need for you to do something reciprocal.” 

Raised in the rural northwest of England, Mr Jones worked mostly in London before moving his family to Devon after his wife fell ill with lung disease. They also felt it would suit their two sons.

Mr Jones joined Gro Group as managing director before taking control through a management buyout, back­ed by the bank HSBC and London-based venture capital trust Mob­eus. Access to capital has not been an issue. “We had no shortage of offers when we did our last funding round at the end of last year.” he says. 

But not everything is rosy for rural entrepreneurs. There is less choice of people for recruitment and transport links may be poor, making it hard to meet potential suppliers, clients and investors, and for staff to commute – although that can become a benefit. 

“There is a real advantage, if you are going to do it, to moving to a place where it is not easy to commute daily [to the city],” Mr Mayhew says. “By doing so you instantly remove a lot of the competition for the best local talent because, for these people, moving to a city job is just not a realistic option.” 

On the other hand, he admits that good transport links are desirable for getting to the city for meetings with backers or advisers.

The lack of broadband connections is another big frustration. “Increasingly, our business is digital with demand for online bookings and the need for faster communication with suppliers and customers, but we suffer a lot of power and broadband outages,” Mr Mayhew says.

Reliable broadband would enable Go Ape to accelerate its growth, but that would require paying out about £100,000 for a dedicated cable to the of­fice. Ironically, extra sales generated by a faster digital line would probably mean Go Ape having to move its headquarters to a location with a larger building.

Although the Mayhews are happy to have set up in business outside London, they do recognise that it has nevertheless helped them in their ambitions. By renting out their Clapham home, they were able to cover their living costs in Suffolk for 22 months when they did not draw a salary.

Even the most successful rural founders admit that they could not do without some city support.

From Shy to Schmoozer: 10 Tips for Business Networking

If the thought of networking in a room full of strangers starts your knees knocking, rest assured that you’re not alone. In addition to being prepared beforehand (see 5 Things To Do Before You Walk in the Room) here are 10 simple tips for making the most of your next business networking event.

1) Eat before you go. Networking is best done ‘hands-free’ – leave plates, glasses, portfolios at the table. If you’re forced to carry something, make sure you can do it easily in your left hand, so that your right hand is always free.

2) Remember, everyone is there for the same reason as you are – to connect with other business people who might potentially become clients or whose services might be helpful to you or someone you know. This is not the time to try to sell something on the spot but to meet and get to know some new people and to start building some solid business relationships.

3) Put your name badge on your right side (not your left, which is the intuitive thing to do) because you greet people by shaking with your right hand which puts your badge in clear view and avoids awkward stretching to read your badge.

4) People love to talk about themselves so ask them why they decided to attend this event. How did they get started in their business? What are the things they like most about it, etc. Listen for clues that will help you decide whether this person might be a good contact to develop a longer-term mutually beneficial relationship with.

5) Read the newspaper on the day of the event so that you’re not caught flat-footed on today’s headlines.

6) Be prepared to handle questions like “What do you do?” with a simple, 10 or 15 second elevator pitch or infomercial that tells the listener what you do, for which type of client, that solves which specific problem for them.

7) Carry a pen to make notes on the cards you collect – date, function/event, other relevant details. Also make a note if you think the person you have just met would be worth introducing to someone else in your network.

8) If you need to start with baby steps, ask someone you know to introduce you to someone you particularly want to meet.

9) If you’re nervous or ill-at-ease, the best way to relax is to stop thinking about yourself and how anxious you feel, and concentrate completely on the other person. One strategy is to approach someone else who is standing alone (likely feeling as nervous as you are) and finding ways to make them feel at ease!

10)  Act confidently even if you’re not.  You may not like the expression “fake it ’til you make it!” but the truth is that we become good at what we practice, so practice acting confidently with your shoulders back, head up and a smile on your face.




By: Mary Lou Gutscher , Magnetic Business Solutions