BizTechDay Star - Michael Gerber - Part 1

Of everything I attended at BizTechDay, Michael Gerber’s presentations stood out as the best of the best. Why? Because everything else was about using technology as an entrepreneur, and Michael’s was about the entrepreneur, the person behind the technology. All the technology in the world will not help an entrepreneur who lacks the appropriate mindset, or who lacks the insights required to succeed.

Michael gave us all this and more. And the most inspiring thing to me is that Michael is 73 years old and still going strong and contributing his gifts to the world. That inspires me because my vision and mission is to change the meme around aging, change the way people think and feel about aging, and inspire elders to share their wisdom.

Some of the first words out of his mouth were shocking, “If you don’t want to grow your business, pack it up now”. So, in easily digestible nuggets, here are some of the main points Michael made:

• Ask yourself three questions: What is the significant thing my company is here to do? Is it scalable? Is it transformational?
• Work on the model of your scalable, transformational business. Become a Master of Business Design (MBD).
• Create a perfect system that works so you don’t have to.
• This exquisite operating system includes every single component of your business.
• It makes no difference what product or a service you offer. This exquisite system is the key to success.

• Companies are started by Technicians who suffer entrepreneurial seizures; don’t just create a job, pretending to be a business.
• Replicate a company that is transformational.
• The very first system to create is client fulfillment.

Next Michael talked about the Dream and Creativity:

• What is your dream? What is the great result you want to produce?
• It’s about your destiny and you’ve got to know what it is -- the one thing you want to transform.
• Be creative right now in your own personal economy.
• The Dreamer has a Dream, the Thinker has the Vision.
• The Dreamer, Thinker, Storyteller, and the Leader must be present to create and sustain a successful business.
• We must transcend to transform! This is the spiritual work of an entrepreneur.

He said one must absolutely have a blank sheet of paper and a beginners mind, because you can’t fix a broken business, you have to create a new one. Think about this for your own business. I did this about mine, and it propelled me into right action.

I’ll have more juicy tidbits in the next post. Watch for it!