EntrepreneurLawyer Limited is a UK based company specializing in helping lawyers with marketing, personal branding, sales, social media, social networking, business development, and innovation.

Please share with us what prompted you to start your business?
I spotted an opportunity, a niche, a sweet-spot, which was the result of certain drivers and trends causing a major transformation in the UK (and global) legal market.

The timing was right to write The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU! and to launch my unique service proposition off the back of the publication. My proposition was helping lawyers and entrepreneurs market, brand and sell themselves by producing a book in which they could teach themselves. This was supported through my speaking at (international) events and consulting, whether 1-to-1 or to many.

I’d reached a stage in my life where all of my previous experiences, knowledge, talents and skills could be honed into EntrepreneurLawyer Limited, the company I founded at the height of the recession in 2009.

Starting my own business was also a lifestyle choice. I wanted to create a business whereby I could travel, live and work, anywhere in the world. I was master of my own mutiny. I didn’t want to be a corporate slave chained to the conventional Monday to Friday 9 to 5 career lifecycle. I wanted to have control over where, when, why, how and with whom I worked.

I knew that I’d also come to a cross roads in my life where I had the opportunity to share and give something which could help many. I just knew it was time… again.

As we all know, there is no typical day in the life of an entrepreneur. Please share with us a sample of your day start to finish.
I usually wake up early and get up at 04:30AM.

• 4:30AM – 07:00AM I work, generally on the following tasks: social media, social networking, emails, marketing, client work/ meetings prep.
• 07:00AM – 08:00AM I go for a run, followed by shower & coffee / breakfast.
• 09:00AM – 09:00PM, or until whenever necessary because I work across international time zones (clients, business and prospects stretching from New Zealand to USA)  I work – meetings, clients, marketing, networking.
• 11:00PM/12:00PM Bedtime.

Weekends differ a wee bit. Generally I make a later start to the day. 04:30 on a weekend by anyone’s standards is rather nuts.

I go biking (cycling) as a leisure pursuit most Saturdays and Sundays. I also work weekends when required (often). The balancing act is when the weather is good I arrange my weekly diary so that I can get out cycling any time of the day or eve (any day Monday to Sunday) as long as I don’t have any client meetings. Naturally, client work takes priority but I try to flex my diary to achieve balance in my work and leisure life.

I kind of work and play 7 days a week. There is no work leisure divide.

What are your ‘can’t live without’ apps?
Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Hootsuite and Property Place. I love social media and social networks for both business and leisure. Property Place is a really new cool website (www.property-place.net ) and app. It helps me identify ad-hoc living / accommodation arrangements when I’m on the move in the UK and Internationally.

What are your tricks for time management?
Schedule, schedule, schedule. I’m a ‘let’s get organised’ boffin. I use Microsoft office Outlook calendar daily for scheduling daily activities, tasks, meetings etc. I get organised the night before for the following day. I’m rather disciplined re. ‘must do no matter what’ every day activities, for example, the first task I do when I power up the lap-top is to check and reply to emails and then fire off social media stuff. I also build in ‘interference’ time as inevitably the day does not always go as planned and in order to not feel stressed these ‘stress buster time-outs’ give me breathing space to capture new opportunities as well as deal with ‘run over’.

What was the best advice you received when you started your career?
Do what you love. Enough said.

Given the current economic climate, what has been your strategy for building awareness of your business for short term & long term growth?
In the book Breakthrough Entrepreneurship (which I highly recommend) by entrepreneur and teacher Jon Burgstone and writer Bill Murphy, Jr. I came across Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevenson’s definition of entrepreneurship:
“Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”
I believe that whether one is in a challenging or buoyant economic climate, the strategy for building awareness of the business for short, medium and long term should not alter or falter. It comes down to devising a personal brand and capitalising on and exploiting  a mixture of conventional and unconventional marketing, branding and sales techniques , processes and methods. For example, I created my personal brand and then used social media and social networking to create “Brand,Me” awareness. No financial resources were required or employed in this activity as use of social media and social networking on the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are free.

Of course, I could have opted to engage in paid for online advertising but I haven’t found this necessary due to the positioning of the “Chrissie Lightfoot – The Entrepreneur Lawyer” personal brand using traffic rich keywords for search engine optimisation and social search optimisation. An investment in time and sweat equity in building a network of key relationships has been my strategy rather than throwing money at the business!

I also wrote The Naked Lawyer eBook at the very start of my new venture in order to establish credibility in the market place, have a “Brand, Product” for PR and residual income purposes and have a point of reference for events managers, customers, clients and collaborators to look to as a lead in for additional services which I could offer spinning from the content within the book itself. For example, keynote speaking engagements and consultancy / advisory work at the high end in both corporate and small, medium enterprises.

What is your proudest achievement as an accomplished entrepreneur?
There’s something really special when you witness your clients success as a result of your “Brand, Product” and service. For example, one of my (lawyer) clients in Australia (a reader of The Naked Lawyer eBook) achieved $1,000,000 in new client sales during 2011. I’m so chuffed for him and others who are achieving cracking results using the ROAR model documented within The Naked Lawyer. I must confess, I pinched myself when I first saw the book in print. I’d always wanted to write a book, to fulfil a dream even. My proudest moment was actually realizing that the dream had become reality.

How do you achieve balance in your life?
I love to run, swim and cycle; kind of triathlon without stringing them all together in one session! I’m blessed to be part of a ‘cycling club’ in the neighbourhood where I live in Leeds city centre. I have a great bunch of cycling buddies whom I ride with every week. We blog on our cycling blog to post rides daily and hook-up ad-hoc. There’s always someone mad enough to ride with me. It’s social as well as healthy and invigorating. There’s not a feeling in the world better than riding the hills – up and down – whether in the UK or abroad. It’s rich for the soul, fuel for creative thinking and exhilarating for the body. Wonderful!

Your 3 book recommendations?
1) The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
2) The Rebel Rules: Daring to be Yourself in Business by Chip Conley
3) Go Givers Sell More by Burg & Mann

And of course, The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand & Sell YOU!

What are your most rewarding charitable involvements?
I am honoured and blessed to be a mentor on behalf of The Prince’s Trust. It’s an extraordinary charity which focuses on helping young entrepreneurs across the UK with funding and advisors to help kick-start their dream ventures.

Who has influenced your career the most?
There’s a statement by Giorgos Seferis, a Greek poet, which captures my answer:

“Don’t ask who’s influenced me. A lion is made up of the lamb’s he’s digested, and I’ve been reading all my life.”

It’s hard to pin-point one person or thing. Albeit, I admire and adore my mother for giving me the courage to follow my dreams. I also read a book entitled The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense Of The Future in my early twenties by Charles Handy. This text affected me greatly as the idea of building a handbag full of skills and portfolio working touched me; the idea of being resourceful and independent due to acquiring many skill sets throughout my lifetime (and as early as possible) was highly appealing. Bottom line, I have my own inner lion compass where my career journey experiences new lambs every Spring

What is your advice to someone interested in entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurship is very much about results primarily derived from your own behaviour and actions. It’s about spotting opportunities and going for it, no matter what. It’s about having the heart and drive to pursue your beliefs and dreams and seeing it through to the very end. Invariably, it’s about taking risks, sometimes in (and on) unproven stuff whilst being comfortable with change, uncertainty, ambiguity and chaos. You have to accept that you will fail and will make stacks and stacks of mistakes. If you can’t deal with failure, take knockbacks, criticism, or handle any of the above, then don’t do it. Stick with a conventional day job.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CHRISSIE LIGHTFOOT

CHECK OUT CHRISSIE’S EBOOK: The Naked Lawyer: RIP to XXX – How to Market, Brand and Sell YOU!

Local Hem is a fresh take on boutique shopping. They take everything you love about boutique shopping and make it accessible from anywhere in the world, 24-hours a day at www.localhem.com.

How did the concept of Local Hem come about?
When I was an undergrad at Georgetown the boutiques along Wisconsin Avenue had me hooked as early as orientation weekend.  It wasn’t until I left D.C. for an internship that first college summer and began suffering boutique-withdrawal that my own selfish desire for the ability to shop local boutiques from anywhere sparked the idea for Local Hem. I wanted to create a place online where people could discover new boutiques they’d never be able to visit in person, rediscover boutiques they’d stumbled upon on a vacation or simply have a more convenient way to browse boutiques in their hometown. I tinkered with the project for a few years while I was in college, but never really gave it the attention it deserved. After graduating, I took a “real” job for a few years, but always knew that I wanted to come back to the idea and give it a serious “go”, which is how I ended up at MIT Sloan.  While back at school I had the time and resources to give Local Hem my all.

Any plans to allow independent fashion designers the opportunity to sell through Local Hem?
We’re very selective in determining which boutiques we invite to join Local Hem, which allows us to carefully control the quality of the merchandise and customer service. If this is something we think we could extend to independent designers in the future while maintaining that same level of quality, then we’d certainly consider it, but at the moment our focus is on our boutiques.

There is no typical day in the life of an entrepreneur. Please share with us a sample of your day, start to finish.
I’ll wake up around 7AM, check my email in bed (bad habit, I know!) and hopefully get a workout in. I give myself time between 8 and 9AM to tackle my inbox and get organized by laying out what I want to get accomplished for the day in a to-do list. The rest of the day is spent in phone meetings or knocking out those tasks on my list. I try to stop working between 5 and 6PM and take a break to make dinner and just get away from my desk for a bit. After that point it’s up in the air, when you’re the point-person it’s nearly impossible to ever “shut down” completely.

What are your ‘can’t live without’ Smartphone or Desktop applications?

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook

What are your tricks for time management?
To-do lists are my lifeline during the workday. Since I was a kid, I’ve made one every single day; it forces me to assess what’s a need-to-do vs. what’s a nice-to-do.  I highlight the items that I am most dreading for whatever reason and force myself to tackle those first, with them out of the way before lunch the rest of the day goes much more smoothly.

What was the best advice you received when you started your career?
My dad, Bill McGrath, constantly tells me to “make good choices” and “do the right thing.” Totally vague advice when given in isolation, but watching him actually live it out in his years at QVC and ShopNBC has made it meaningful to me. It’s easy to pop numbers into a spreadsheet and do a cost-benefit analysis, but what’s the point if you don’t feel proud of the decisions you’re making? He reminds me to pay attention to the less obvious effects of my decision-making and to consider its impact on my colleagues, clients, customers, family, etc.

What is your proudest achievement as an accomplished entrepreneur?
My proudest moments are when I hear from a boutique client or a shopper how happy they are with Local Hem.

How do you achieve balance in your life?
I work from home, which helps tremendously. My two dogs hang out in my office all day, which adds a lot of levity (I think every good office should have at least one resident dog).

Your top 3 book recommendations?

• Bossypants by Tina Fey
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

What are your most rewarding charitable involvements?
I find my service experiences most rewarding when I’m able to apply the business skills I use everyday. Most recently, it was helping an animal rescue organization setup an eBay GivingWorks account (I’ve run an eBay business on the side for many years). I love being able to put these skills to use for deserving causes.

Who has influenced your career the most?
My husband, Chris. I’ve heard countless times from other entrepreneur friends and mentors that if your spouse isn’t 100% supportive then you’ll have a rough go of it, to say the least. I feel extremely lucky to have a husband who is not only supportive, but just as excited about the business as I am. He keeps me going on rough days. It also doesn’t hurt that he’s full of great ideas.

What is your advice for someone interested in entrepreneurship
Test the waters by starting small. Start blogging on topics related to your business idea. Talk to potential customers and anyone else who will listen about your idea. You’ll not only make great connections and potentially pick up some valuable mentors, but you’ll have a chance to immerse yourself in a low-risk way in the area you want to break into. It’s a great way to see if you feel as passionate about the idea as you initially thought; you’ll need that passion to carry you through later on.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR LOCAL HEM

Friends of Kevin is the only networking group that brings together the business, non profit and artistic communities. It is unique because they combine in person monthly networking with online monthly promotion to offer you the chance to promote your business.

What prompted you to start Friends of Kevin?
I believe I am supposed to change the world so I started my own networking group to help connect my friends.

There is no typical day in the life of an entrepreneur. Please share with us a sample of your day, start to finish.
Most days I am up by 5 responding to emails and posting information from my blog to promote my clients on social media.

What are your ‘can’t live without’ Smartphone or Desktop applications?
I am very dependent on my Blackberry and my IPad.

What are your tricks for time management?
Time management is not one of my strengths! I work a lot of hours but I love what I do.

What was the best advice you received when you started your career?
The best advice I received when I started ‘Friends of Kevin’ was to remember to never get too high and never get too low.

Given the current economic climate, what has been your strategy for building awareness of your business for short term and long term growth?
I have built my business through social media. For the first two years I attempted to connect with 50 people every day on either Facebook or LinkedIn.

What is your proudest achievement as an accomplished entrepreneur?
I would say it was the first time I helped somebody find a job through the Friends of Kevin.

How do you achieve balance in your life?
I just recently stopped working on Sundays.

Your top 3 book recommendations?

• ‘The Tipping Point’ by Malcolm Gladwell
• ‘Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time‘ by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Rahz
• ‘Networking Is A Contact Sport‘ by Joe Sweeney and Mike Yorkey

What are your most rewarding charitable involvements?
I serve as the Chairman of the Board of the Dracut Food Pantry.

Who has influenced your career the most?
My friends and family who believed in me when I decided to chase my dream.

What is your advice for someone interested in entrepreneurship?
Starting my own business was the greatest decision I have ever made. Do one thing today that will get you closer to starting your own business.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR FRIENDS OF KEVIN

The DOCC Project, or ‘Defined, Organized, Comprehensive Care’, is a structured rehabilitation program for spine pain.

What prompted you to start the DOCC Project?
Around 1990 I began experiencing burnout, which manifested itself as extreme anxiety.  By 1995 it had evolved into a full-blown obsessive -compulsive disorder.  I remained in this extreme state of anxiety until 2002. I was able to somewhat inadvertently pull out it using self-directed cognitive behavioral therapy through David Burn’s book, “Feeling Good”. I began to share this book with my patients with the idea that if I could not diminish their pain with surgery, I could at least give them some tools to cope with the pain. I also realized that lack of sleep would increase patients’ perception of pain. Between sharing the “Feeling Good” book with my patients and improving their sleep with medications, I noticed that their mood would improve and their pain would decrease. The DOCC project (Defined Organized Comprehensive Care) evolved into its current form after I did the Hoffman process in 2008. It is an in-house eight-day seminar that teaches you tools to develop alternate neurological pathways. The new pathways do not include pain. I have now consistently seen patients become pain free through engaging in the DOCC protocol. The one predictor of success is the degree of commitment.

I am also the surgeon patients see after they have had multiple failed back surgeries. It is clear that low back surgery for low back pain does not work and has a major potential downside risk of making the situation and pain much worse. If I do nothing more than slow down the rate of unnecessary surgeries I will have considered my efforts worthwhile.

There is no typical day in the life of an entrepreneur. Please share with us a sample of your day, start to finish.
My day usually starts between 5:30AM to 6:00AM and ends between 7PM to 9PM.  My surgery days range from six to twelve hours two days a week. The surgery and clinic days are non-stop with about a fifteen minute break for lunch.

My projects include:

• 50-60 hour/week spine practice
• Co-chairman of the spine surgery fellowship
• Musculoskeletal consultant for Premera (Blue Cross of Washington)
• Program chair of the Puget Sound Spine Interest Group
• Various phases of writing four books: two on chronic pain, one on anxiety as the basis of all mental health issues, and finally applying athletic performance principles to surgery
• Development of an educational website for chronic pain
• Running a committee improving the delivery  of spine care

I work out in the gym three to four hours per week. I try to play golf once a week. My wife is actively working on slowing me down and I have to agree with her.

Enjoy every part of what you do each day & it won’t feel like work. Look at adversity as a challenge and why you are in the game. It is an opportunity for personal growth.

What was the best advice you received when you started your career?
Enjoy today-today!! Your peace of mind must become relatively independent of your external circumstances.  You then can create whatever life you desire and have the energy to do so.  I received the advice early on in my career and stuck with it for about five years.  I slipped away from it and have re-engaged the last three years.  Take what you have today and just do it.

Given the current economic climate, what has been your strategy for building awareness of your business for short term and long-term growth?
I am committed to doing the best job humanly possible for the patient right in front of me.  Slowly as I have observed numerous successes with my patients going to pain free, they have spread the word of the concepts.  My website for the DOCC Project is a self-directed resource that is steadily gaining traction. I also network frequently with my peers.  My next target is to collect data to document the successes and also learn what part of the process is the most effective.  I am hoping to fold  the DOCC project into a non-profit organization that is a resource for others to start for-profit business based on the concepts.

What is your proudest achievement as an accomplished entrepreneur?
I have spent my life imposing my view of reality on everyone else.  To be successful as an entrepreneur it is critical to be aware of the needs of those around you.  I have had the privilege of “waking up” and truly being able to listen. It is not only more effective it is much more interesting to see life through the eyes of others.

How do you achieve balance in your life?
I have not been successful with that.  My goal is to be fully engaged with whatever I am doing at the present moment. Balance is a huge struggle and I am redoubling my efforts in 2012 to attain a small amount of balance.

Your top 3 book recommendations?

• ‘Feeling Good‘ by David Burns
• ‘Forgive for Good‘ by Fred Luskin
• ‘Parent Effectiveness Training‘ by Thomas Gordon: This is still the one book that has had the greatest impact on me.
• ‘Getting Things Done‘ by David Allen:  He proposes a simple but elegant way of getting and staying organized. Every task longer than two minutes is defined as a project. Every project is broken down to the “one next step.”  It has allowed me to juggle many balls at once and not become overwhelmed. My brother introduced me to the concept about 10 years ago. He went from a middle manager to a vice president of his company within three years after implementing his strategies.  It is a game-changer.

What are your most rewarding charitable involvements?
In the midst of a full-time practice my work with the DOCC project is my way of giving back. Working with patients who have no hope and watch them get a full and rich life back is incredibly rewarding.

Who has influenced your career the most?

• Dr. Paul Brand is the first orthopedic surgeon to ignore the stigma associated with leprosy and learn exactly what was going on.  He was the one who learned that it was the lack of protective sensation that caused the structure of the skeleton to disintegrate.  He then applied the principles to diabetes and revolutionized the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers.  He was the kindest most well intentioned person that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. At age 90 he had not slowed down at all.
• Nelson Mandela—his ability to come out of a true victim role and give back is one of the most inspiring stories I have ever heard.  I consider his attitude on a daily basis and have a picture of him in my office.  I don’t really know what a bad day is compared to his experience.
• Joey Gauld—he is the founder of the Hyde schools.  He is about 50 years ahead of his time developing an educational high school that emphasizes character over achievement.  He had the courage early on in his career to step off of the treadmill and follow his dream.  He epitomizes the power of commitment.  My stepdaughter attended the school her junior and senior year of high school. The whole family was involved and it was transformative.  He then did the Hoffman process at age 80 and inspired my wife, me, and my son to go through it. I cannot put into words the power of these two institutions.

What is your advice for someone interested in entrepreneurship?
Consider doing the Hoffman Process. It is an eight-day in-house process that creates an intense awareness of the patterns that run your life.  From birth to age 12 you are simply downloaded by your environment.  The entire rest of your life consists of either adopting or rejecting these initial patterns.  You cannot connect with your authentic self until you can see and clear these patterns.  Instead of “stimulus-response” it is “stimulus-choice of response.” The process gave me clarity and focus that I never imagined possible.  None of the projects I am bringing to life would be possible without having learned the tools that I learned in the Hoffman process. Harvard School of Public Leadership has sent many of their graduates through Hoffman.  I have been a laser beam the day I walked out of there and have not deviated since. About a dozen of my friends have done the process with the same consistent transformative outcome.

Learn how to handle stress in your life.  The number one predictor of success in my opinion is your ability to handle stress. You cannot be successful unless you are willing to take risks and accept failure.  Again, Hoffman is a major resource in learning these skills.  It is not stress that drains your energy.  It is your reaction to it.

Dr. Hanscom’s Bio
Dr. Hanscom is a board certified orthopedic surgeon specializing in complex spine problems in all areas of the spine. He has expertise in adult and pediatric spinal deformities such as scoliosis and kyphosis. A significant part of his practice is devoted to performing surgery on patients who have had multiple prior spine surgeries. He works for Swedish Neuroscience Specialists with eight neurosurgeons and a physiatrist.

He is the founder of the “DOCC” project. It stands for “Defined, Organized, Comprehensive, Care.” This is a structured rehabilitation protocol for spine pain, which involves improving sleep, managing stress, engaging in long-term conditioning, obtaining adequate pain control with aggressive medication management, and educating the patient so as to regain control of their decision making. Surgery is considered in the overall context of the rehabilition effort and is only performed on specific structural problems. He is working with Swedish Hospital in Seattle, WA to improve access to structured non-operative care.

He is the founder of the Puget Sound Spine Interest group, which was formed in 1987. It is a non-profit educational group, which provides a regional forum for physicians to share ideas regarding optimum spine care.

“Awake at the Wound” is a process, which brings athletic performance principles into the operating room. He co-founded the program with his golf-instructor, David Elaimy, in 2006. David Elaimy is also a performance coach who has been giving golf-based performance seminars in the financial sector for over fifteen years.

Current Positions:

• Orthopedic Spine Surgeon, Seattle Neuroscience Specialists with Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, WA.
• Orthopedic Consultant for Premera (Blue Cross/LifeWise of WA, OR, AK)
• Director of the Swedish Neuroscience Specialists spine fellowship, Seattle, WA
• DOCC Implementation Committee Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA
• Member of Best Doctors of America

His medical degree is from Loma Linda University in 1979. His residency training began with internal medicine in Spokane, WA from 1979-1981. Orthopedic surgery training was at the University of Hawaii from 1981-1984. He did an orthopedic trauma fellowship at UC Davis in Sacramento, CA. His spinal deformity fellowship was completed in Minneapolis, MN at Twin Cities Scoliosis Center in 1986.

Social Media for Dr. Hanscom

“Because who doesn’t want to be great?” -Amy Cosper, Vice President/Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Media Inc
 
 
 

Endorsed by Stephan Melanson, President of Melanson Consulting
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*Book description taken from the personal website of Mr. Jim Collins

“A classic text that any professional should read” -Dan Schawbel, Managing Partner of Millenial BrandingBranding
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

“Great tips to live the entrepreneurial lifestyle without letting work take over your life” -Polina Raygorodskaya, Founder & President of Polina Fashion LLC
 
 
 

“[This guy is a] genius and every online marketer should read [this] book.” -Lewis Howes, co-author of LinkedIn Master Strategies book and LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website

Slingshot SEO is a professional search engine optimization practice whose full-service strategic consulting and Internet marketing services deliver unparalled results for its enterprise caliber clients.

What prompted you to start Slingshot SEO?
It is true that you should ‘stick to what you know’. There were two things that I learned a great deal about growing up that shaped my unique path.

I learned what it is like to be a doctor by spending countless nights as a child in the emergency room. I wasn’t a patient, rather I was following around my father – the director of the emergency room at our county hospital. These experiences made me comfortable around sick people, used to crazy working hours and fostered a curiosity in life sciences.

During my high school years, my current business partners and I were obsessed with this new thing called the Internet. Our company was actually created once before by all of the same founders while we were all in High School. It wasn’t called SEO back then, but we all got some amazing results by optimizing for the first search engines to hit the Internet and generating ad revenue. But we all went off to go to college to ‘get real jobs’ one day, but around 2006 we discovered that optimizing for search was a growing market called search engine optimization. Jeremy was fresh off some huge wins in SEO for his father’s product distribution company, and we were all excited at the prospects of the market and our knowledge of the space, so we threw together $10k and started Slingshot SEO Inc.

What made you take the big leap from working in the life science industry to full time employment as the CSO of an SEO company?
The same year we started Slingshot SEO Inc. was the same year I was accepted into medical school. This posed a difficult decision when time for school rolled around and our 8-month old company was going gangbusters. Even though my MCAT scores were expiring, I chose to stick with the company. I figured this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I could always go back and be the old dude in medical school!

For most successful entrepreneurs, there is no typical day so give us a sample of your schedule from start to finish.
This also changes to which stage of business you are currently occupying. The $0-1M stage is wearing many different hats (programmer, designer, sales, finance, etc). The $1M-$10M stage is a bit more focused but you are many times representative of an entire department. The $10M-$50M phase is currently where I reside, which is much more focused in a certain area (in my case, company strategy) but you still dip in and help with other departments as needed (help close a deal, teach an on-boarding class, etc). So currently, 80% of my day is focused on strategic initiatives and the other 20% is filling in random gaps here and there.

What are your “can’t live without” apps on your desktop/cell phone?

• Desktop – Outlook, MS Office, Photoshop!!
• Mobile – Popular Science, Angry Birds, Books

What are your tricks for time management?
Turn off your automated email checks on all devices & check twice per day at times your colleagues know. The sharp gains in focus is worth missing a few emails and if it’s important enough they’ll call!

Best advice received when you started your career?
The best single piece of advice when we started was to charge a small retainer for a product/service quote. This stopped all the ‘tire-kickers’ that can really waste your precious time as a young entrepreneur and gets you to serious customers faster.

Given the current economic climate, how has your strategy for building awareness of your work changed for the short-term and long-term?
Companies need to save money now more than ever and organic SEO done right can deliver targeted leads at an ROI that is unmatched in marketing. From the short-term or long-term, our strategy has always been to grow through incredible client results.

What’s been your proudest achievement as such an immensely accomplished Entrepreneur?
Haha I don’t think I’m there yet, but so far I am most proud of being a part of such an incredible and huge team at Slingshot SEO Inc!! We have the most brilliant and driven people in SEO and I never could have imagined we could do the things that we are doing.

What are some of the ways that you achieve balance in your life?
I am always working and always playing! You have to follow your own cycles and not try to adhere to a specific balance.

Your top 3 book recommendations for our readers (and why?)

• ‘Ishmael‘ by Daniel Quinn – Everyone needs to be aware of the concept of sustainability of life on Earth
• ‘The Singularity is Near‘ by Ray Kurzweil – This is what the future is going to look like
• ‘The Visual Display of Quantitative Information‘ by Edward R. Tufte – visualizing concepts in different forms/medium exponentially enhances understanding.

If you had an exceptional month and earned double of your average month, what (if anything) would you spend it on?
It doesn’t really work that way for entrepreneurs, the company always gets the first pick on extra cash!

What are some of your most rewarding charitable involvements and why?
Inspiring high school students who are falling behind has been fun and refreshing. Also working with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful on community environmental projects has been awesome since we provide immediate environmental improvements in our local community.

Who has been the most influential person to you as you’ve advanced in your career?
There have been so many different stages I have experienced while growing my business that I have had multiple influential people help me throughout my career. As an entrepreneur you have to listen very well and process the advice into something useful to you when possible. In reality, the most influential people have been the leadership team here at Slingshot SEO Inc.

What’s your advice to someone interested in entrepreneurship?
Stick to what you know. Choose your partners wisely. Find solid mentors. Learn how to handle the entrepreneur’s emotional roller coaster between negative depressive state and positive manic state. When you are in the positive manic state – this is when you do the best marketing/PR, inspiring employees, courting investors. When you are in the low depression state – this is when you work on your budgets, make hiring decisions and don’t talk to anyone. Don’t mix these up and talk to the press when you are depressed or make budget decisions when you are manic!

BIO FOR AARON ADERS
Aaron is a co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Slingshot SEO. Building on more than a decade of Internet marketing experience, Aaron has contributed in many roles including Graphic Designer, Project Manager, Systems Analyst and Chief Operations Officer. Creating and managing proprietary software and processes is at the core of his contributions at Slingshot SEO. As Chief Strategy Officer, Aaron will continue to steer the strategic vision behind Slingshot SEO software and business processes.

SOCIAL MEDIA FOR SLINGSHOT SEO

Annalie Killian is a self described ‘intrapreneur’ at AMP Financial. She created the Amplify Festival in 2005 which draws the biggest brains-trust of thinkers, business innovators, and thought leaders from all over the world to Australia for one week of exploring the edge of business innovation and ideas.

What prompted you to start your business? 
I am not strictly speaking an entrepreneur in the sense of risking my own capital although I occasionally self-fund my own experiments….I’m what some call an Intrapreneur- a person who nurtures an entrepreneurial spirit inside corporations and creates / sponsors start-up ventures on the inside. One of my recent successes is the Amplify Festival which I created in 2005 and which has been a catalyst for many spin-off ventures ever since.

For most successful entrepreneurs, there is no typical day so give us a sample of your schedule from start to finish.  
My days are a-typical too. I confess to being one of those people whose first stop out of bed in the morning is checking Twitter and my social media feeds for news updates from my global network of friends, acquaintances and thought leaders I follow. While Australia is asleep, it’s daytime in North America and Europe so early mornings before I go to the office, my social media feeds get me thinking/ taking action on stuff I want to follow-up for the day. (Whilst at work, I am often too busy to get to deep thinking time again until late at night after the kids have gone to bed.) I also deal with the usual parenting stuff like wrestling teenagers out of bed and off to school and I usually allow the first hour of my day at the office (where possible) for dealing with email or catching up with colleagues face to face on anything that needs fast attention and action. ( I very seldom rely on email as communication medium for urgent and important stuff…) In a typical day, I would have around two face to face interactions with something new – either attending an event to learn something, meeting new people or a face to face meeting around a new concept/ idea that could be useful to our business. I would also spend around 2-3 hours a day progressing work on a project or innovation in the form of creating IP or moving actions along, and probably an hour all up on relationship building….that could include anything from a chit-chat in the office kitchen with who-ever is there, a coffee with a colleague or team member or participating in staff conversations on Yammer or commenting on ideas in our Innovation Management System. I aim to leave the office by around 6:15pm and make a short stop at the shops to get something for dinner. I try and get off all screens by 10 pm (usually internet- I watch only about 3 hours of TV in a year!)  and then I would hop into bed with a book….almost always non-fiction except when I am on holidays when I might read the occasional novel. I also enjoy poetry and have a daily poem app which I am usually reserve for commuting time.

What are your “can’t live without” apps on your desktop/cell phone?

• Dropbox: it has been the best productivity invention since  the advent of the internet and all my stuff now lives in the cloud, accessible from anywhere on any device…its been the answer to years of prayer!.
• TripIt: I love Tripit for all my travel arrangements converged in a single place in the cloud.
• Kindle:  I use Kindle for reading books when I travel. I still like reading the physical paper book when I am in bed….it’s a different experience.

What are your tricks for time management?
I am hopeless at time management….I can be seduced by life’s pleasures any minute and trade priorities in the blink of an eye….but I don’t like to miss deadlines or let people down so if I allow myself to be seduced away from a task, I punish myself by long hours and working till the wee hours of the morning to get something done.  Hmmm….dont use me as a role model…but hey…I can claim to have a rich and varied life!

Best advice received when you started your career?

1. The art of the one-page memo. If you can’t get an idea across in a page, don’t bother.
2. The art of corporate survival without playing politics. In times of conflict and decision making, let the best interest of the company and it’s stakeholders guide your decisions. You cannot go wrong that way.
3. Work only for people who will help you grow. If you work for a jerk, find a way out and pick the boss you want to work for.
4. Helping others achieve success and making others look good is a far greater career builder than focussing on how you can look good. Your own success will follow.
5. You don’t have to compromise on your values to be successful, but it helps to first understand the rules and build success within them before you can break them. It’s the recipe of mastery in any discipline.

Given the current economic climate, how has your strategy for building awareness of your work changed for the short-term and long-term?
I don’t think the current economic climate has had a significant impact on my work. Changing corporate culture and driving innovation is a long-term thing and success is often only noticeable after 5 years of sustained effort. Many programmes with inpatient and unrealistic goals have folded in under three years because of a failure of understanding sustainable large-scale change.

What’s been your proudest achievement as such an immensely accomplished Entrepreneur?
The Zululand Community Foundation and Community Park that we created whilst I worked for BHP Billiton in South Africa and The Amplify Festival that we created in AMP in Australia

What are some of the ways that you achieve balance in your life?
Kids force balance…if they weren’t there, I’d probably work much longer hours. I also believe in long holidays in far-flung places where I can escape from ubiquitous connectivity.

Your top 3 book recommendations for our readers (and why?)

• ‘What Technology Wants’ by Kevin Kelly: It’s a fascinating insight on the role of information technology by someone whose been at the forefront of much of the technological revolution
• ‘Drive‘ by Dan Pink: He makes human motivational theory very accessible to the average reader and he is a great storyteller
• ‘The Courage To Create‘ by Rollo May: For personal development and reflection….anything by Rollo May, but especially this book.

If you had an exceptional month and earned double of your average month, what (if anything) would you spend it on?
A holiday with my kids doing something wild like the dog-sledding mushing trail across the Yukon or trekking by camel through Morocco.

What are some of your most rewarding charitable involvements and why?
The work we did in South Africa will always be very close to my heart and its still going strong 14 years after I left…I was very pleased about building a solid foundation for sustainability. In Australia, my team created a crowd-based project called IT makes a difference last year and invited 800 of our IT people to get involved on a self-selection basis and apply their IT expertise to a charity of their own choosing to show how technology can transform outcomes. The participation, creativity, passion and impact blew me away and this project has continued to spiral out in ever expanding circles without any further “official” management….

Who has been the most influential person to you as you’ve advanced in your career?
Probably my current boss, our CIO Lee Barnett. She has a passion for developing people, a moral compass that I really respect and a humility about her that helps keep my own ego intact and which has been very helpful!

What’s your advice to my someone interested in entrepreneurship?
I see entrepreneurship as the art of the start. These are people that just start and work it out as they go along…they don’t let the grass grow under their feet or opportunities slip away through perfectionism and over-analysis, but this doesn’t mean they are reckless…they are just flexible and agile to change in mid-air as the circumstances dictate. I also think that whilst there is probably a touch of narcissism in many entrepreneurs, that the most successful ones can keep their ego and greed in check.

Social Media for Annalie Killian

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That’s all for now entrepreneurs! Keep moving and keep being awesome!