About 8 years ago I received some of the best business advice I’ve ever been given.

I had just raised $10 million from Venture Capitalists. My attorney and I were preparing for my first board meeting as Chairman and CEO. I had 4 demanding VC’s on the board, and we didn’t have much margin for error. (By the way, one of the best ways to avoid getting slammed by investors is to make sure you’ve set yourself up to Beat Projections–go read that link!)

As we finished our preparation, she said to me, “I have one piece of advice for you as you manage this Board. No surprises, Jeff.”

She went on to explain that most entrepreneurs, and almost every human being for that matter, have a terrible tendency to delay the delivery of bad news. Until it’s too late. Until everyone is shocked, surprised, and sour.

She said, “Jeff, if things aren’t going well, if you see problems on the horizon, then you must let your investors know about it as soon as possible. I promise that you’ll earn their support and gain credibility with them. And you’ll uncover solutions from them….before the problems are too large to fix.”

I’ve taken that advice and it’s served me well on many levels. In every possible area I try to uncover the truth about what’s not working (or what really is working) and expose it immediately. That goes for key personnel, with marketing projects, business plans, financial processes, and on and on.

Successful entrepreneurs see the wisdom in acknowledging what’s not working and doing so as quickly as possible. Then, disclosing it to those who are involved. Even at the expense of discomfort, disappointment or embarrassment.

This approach puts the pain front-and-center and gets everyone in the “real world”. Knowing the hard truth about where your business really stands at any given moment is crucial.

Most failed companies or programs can trace their failure back to a critical point where some painful reality about their business departed from view. Bad news was muzzled and instead, positive reports, feel-good optimism, and all-comforting hope carried the day.

They say “hind-sight’s 20/20″. That’s true, but it’s also a cop-out. An honest evaluation of real time results is close to 20/20 also. And operating effectively in the here and now is where great entrepreneurs rise to the top. The problem is, most entrepreneurs don’t have the stomach to face the hard truth at the very moment it comes to light.

The sooner you can learn to embrace and communicate the truth about your business…and that means the good, the bad, and the ugly, the sooner you’ll ensure a higher likelihood that your business will become a success.

Remember, “No Surprises.”

Check out these great posts to find out more about this topic:

Honesty in Business - Does It Pay?

Honesty and Business - The Way I Like To Do It

Truth: How Great a Virtue Is It In Business?

Entrepreneurship is great because there are no limits.

Ashley Qualls, just 17, has built one of the top websites in the world, attracting over 7 million unique visitors each month. That’s better than CBS.com, Britannica.com, and AmericanIdol.com!

Even better, she’s already earning about $100,000 per month!

In a classic case of providing a useful solution to a problem experienced by millions, Ashley has figured out how to cash-in on the Internet. This month, Ashley’s story was featured in Fast Company. That’s just the beginning of the publicity that she’s sure to get as her trendy site, www.whateverlife.com continues to take flight.

She had the right idea at the right time. Chuck Salter of Fast Company explains what the site is all about, “Eager to customize their MySpace profiles, girls cut and past the HTML code for whateverlife layouts featuring hearts, flowers, celebrities, and so on onto their personal page and–presto– a new look. Think of it as MySpace clothes; some kids change their clothes nearly as frequently. ‘It’s all about giving girls what they want,’ Ashley says.”

Timing, a great idea and a focused marketplace (12 to 19 year old girls with an estimated buying power of $87 billion) layed the foundation for this site to succeed. Add in the necessary ingredients of a well designed and tightly packaged website with a smart, determined young entrepreneur, and voila! another great company is born.

Check out these great posts for more information about this topic:

Being a Young Entrepreneur

Diary of a Young Entrepreneur - Filaments and Fame

“rel=”nofollow”Teenager Let The Internet help You Become A Young Entrepreneur”

Today’s guest author Brian Rutledge, is Managing Partner at Search Marketing firm Get Page One, LLC., which he founded in 1998. Get Page One specializes in helping small to medium sized business grow and manage their online presence through organic search engine optimization, social media optimization and paid search marketing campaigns. Based in Austin, Texas, Get Page One helps clients worldwide with holistic internet marketing campaigns focused on sales, brand awareness, and reputation management.

Jeff Chavez Discusses Killer Entrepreneurship

Jeff Chavez runs one of the most successful small business coaching companies in the United States. In addition to his duties as CEO of Northstar Ventures, he’s active in the professional speaking industry.  At his latest event in Austin, which also featured his friend Tito Beveridge, Jeff discussed the 11 Killer Instinct of Entrepreneurship, a topic which had the audience deeply engaged.  There was so much feedback from the event that Jeff is now writing a book entitled, The 11 Killer Instincts of Entrepreneurship.

Jeff Chavez: Serial Entrepreneur

As founder and CEO of Northstar Ventures, Jeff is able to apply the lessons that he has learned while starting each business, whether successful or not.  He explains in his blog that some of the best lessons he’s learned was from failure, and not from the success some of his companies realized. With each failure, he grew stronger, and was able to pick up the pieces and move in a new direction; with more resolve, experience and commitment to making his next business more successful.

Jeff Chavez began his entrepreneurial career in 1992, as the Founder of Foothill Fire Safety Co. He continued to manage FFSC while forming a second company, Home Healthcare Direct, which distributed medical supplies to assisted living facilities. Both companies were successfully acquired in 1997.

From 1999 to 2002, Jeff Chavez served as Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of DispenseSource, Inc. (now Nexiant, Inc.) where he established it as one of the leading providers of automated inventory systems within the industrial and manufacturing industries. The company has emerged as the world’s leading provider of automated inventory systems.

Jeff Chavez Launches Northstar Thinktank

Northstar Thinktank is the newest edition to his business repertoire. Acting as a resource center for entrepreneurs, his team of researchers scour the internet, magazines, books, newspapers, and blogs searching for the most relevant insight that any small business owner would appreciate.  Updated nearly daily, this concept allows for professionals to select any helpful tip which is divided into the three categories of the business cycle: research and planning, marketing and sales, and growth and execution.  This site is especially helpful to those just starting their entrepreneurial journey.

Jeff Chavez: Expert Business Coach

Jeff Chavez is also writing another book called Survive-olution: How successful companies survive and thrive through innovation and evolution. The book focuses on how the success of business hinges on the ability to be flexible and change as needed.  Jeff hopes the book will be published by early 2009, where he will start his book tour and speak on this topic around the country.

Jeff Chavez also appears on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch as an expert business coach for struggling entrepreneurs. His role requires him to become familiar with each business plan, uncover the problems, and then suggests several ways to improve their concept, brand, finances, and focus.

Over the last 5 years, our business training team has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs throughout the world as they strive to make huge breakthroughs in their business.

One of the areas that has had the most impact on the entrepreneurs we have worked with, one-on-one, is how they Think. Their mindset…

We’ve witnessed some incredible successes directly related to a Successful Business Mindset–we’re talking about some really big breakthroughs for these entrepreneurs. There is a distinct correlation between business success and the ability of an entrepreneur to maintain a positive mindset about their business.

Right now, our Northstar Thinktank marketing team is working steadily on a new resource to help you develop a Successful Business Mindset.

As part of our preparation, I wondered if you would be willing to contribute by answering one simple question for me?

We really want to make sure we get this just right, and your insight will help us do that.

Here’s the question: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to your business mindset?

Check out these great posts for more information about this topic:

The Business Mindset

Positive Mindset for Successful Life

In the October 2006 edition of Business 2.0, Katherine Heires outlined 9 great tips on how to profit by giving your products or services to your future customers:

Once upon a time, in the bad old days of business, giving away a product without charge was unheard of.

Adobe did it with its PDF reader in 1994, Macromedia with its Shockwave Player in 1995. Both became the industry standard, and those companies were able to make money by selling the products’ authoring software.

In these days of Web 2.0 services that rely on quick customer adoption, the strategy has become so common that VCs have coined a term for it: freemium.

The lucrative flipping of the companies behind Blogger, Flickr, MySpace, and Skype—all of them free services that offer a premium component—has led to hundreds of imitators….we’re talking about companies like Six Apart, which offers its LiveJournal blogging platform for free and has sold 2 million of its customers a premium version, which costs $20 for a one-year subscription…

How can you make a premium service soar? Here are nine tips from the venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

1. Have a product or service that truly stands out. Its performance, ease of use, and reliability should be superior to those of current offerings.

2. Know your upselling plan from the beginning. Make sure you have at least one paid, add-on premium service up your sleeve. Better yet, have more than one.

3. Once you’ve decided that a product will be given away for free, don’t change your mind. If you make changes you risk alienating customers accustomed to getting your product for free.

4. Access to your product should be just one click away. The fewer time-consuming plugins, downloads…the better.

5. Make sure the major bugs have been exterminated.

6. Harness the collective intelligence of your users…customer suggestions can help speed up product improvements or inspire ideas for premium services.

7. Keep improving the product to give users more reasons to stick with it.

8. Identify a range of revenue sources…MySQL makes money from customer service as well as from fees charged to firms that redistribute the software.

9. Timing is everything. Make sure that the revenue from your premium service soon covers the cost of your free service. Otherwise, cut your losses and move on to the next startup.

Check out these great blogs for more information on this topic:

Offers that Increase Profit and Generate Inquiries

Music Test: Can a Firm Profit from Free Music?

Why Giving Away Your Services for Free Will Get You Business

3 Tips to Make Viral Marketing Work for You