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Shark Tank,
Desert Star needed to
know their stuff, to communicate they would negotiate the best prices and serve
as an advocate for the client. They needed numbers, data, and proof they were
exceedingly competent and excessively capable.
But in the end, when pitted against other luxury builders who could claim the
exact same suite of skills, story won the day. Later on, the client specifically
stated there was just something about Jerry’s story, about building the fort as a
kid, that made him feel Jerry’s passion and trust he would deliver.
Often, all it takes is a simple story, a story of the time it all started or of the
first success or the first failure. The beginning of a company is filled with
stories, any number of which are unique and capable of setting you apart from
everyone else. All things considered equal, your founder story will differentiate
you from the competition, connect you in a meaningful way to your customer,
and make you an easy yes.
The Founder Story to Bridge the Talent Gap
In addition to bridging the investor gap and the customer gap, the third gap a
founder must bridge is the one that will inspire others to cross and, in doing so,
become a part of the team. While a few businesses are designed to be a one-man
show, more often for a business to scale and reach its full potential, a founder
must bring others on. But not just any others—the best others. People who share
the dream, who are invested in the outcome, and who are willing to take the wild
ride along with them.
Perhaps you’ve heard the analogy that a draft horse can pull 8,000 pounds of
dead weight, but two draft horses, with their combined power, can pull 24,000
pounds, far more than the single effort of each doubled. Whether or not that is
actually true (the internet is divided on the issue), the principle remains: get the
right team in place and you’ll have exponentially greater success.
The problem is, good talent isn’t always easy to find. And if you do find it,
chances are several of your competitors have also found them. I spent much of
2017 speaking to CEOs and the key leaders of hundreds of companies in various
cities across the country who were members of an exclusive mastermind group.
Thousands of executives, representing companies of all sizes and across all
industries, would gather for a day of networking and keynote presentations,
seeking best practice takeaways and new methods of solving their biggest
problems.
In 2017, no matter the city—from San Diego to Chicago, Pittsburgh to
Seattle—polls showed the big problem plaguing them all was securing talent.
When business is booming, the talent holds the power, and the leaders in the
room all wanted to know how to get talent’s attention, and the best way to
persuade them to join their team and transform them into not just employees but
believers.
A founder story is a great first step to getting them across that gap.
Where to Look for Your Founder Story
Of course, not every business is Airbnb or wants to be. But make no mistake, if
you’ve started a business, you’re a founder. And even though you might not
think you have a founder story, you do. Guaranteed. If you’re feeling insecure,
just watch the stories on Kickstarter. They’re real people telling their founder
stories.
In
chapter 8
we’ll look more closely at the various strategies for finding your
story, but for now I want to give you a few places where founder stories often
hide and where you can find them.
Go Way Back
I was working with a group of high-performing, top-of-their-game female
financial advisors. Each one was an entrepreneur. Each one was responsible for
building their book of business. Each one was dedicated to serving their
customers well by taking care of and helping to grow one of their customers’
most prized possessions: their money. And each one was aware that the
competition was stiff and their potential clients were, by default, slightly
nervous. The success of each advisor was completely dependent on her ability to
effectively communicate how passionate and trustworthy she was while, at the
same time, differentiating herself from the nearly 250,000 other financial
advisors doing the exact same thing.
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The solution? Finding her founder story.
To do that, many of these women went way back to when they first found
their passion for money, like opening their first bank accounts or saving for their
first toy.
For one woman, she remembered loving money since the very beginning. As
a little girl, her favorite toy was money. Despite the fact she had a piggy bank,
the money was rarely in it. The little girl loved holding it and sorting it and
putting it in piles and moving it around. Any chance she got, the little girl played
with her money, much to her mother’s discontent.
“Don’t play with money!” her mom would shout.
“Why not?” the girl would ask.
“Because!” her mother insisted in the way mothers do, as she quickly
searched for a reason that would be satisfactory to a little girl. “It’s dirty!” she
said. “Money is dirty, and you shouldn’t be playing with it.”
The girl was devastated. She loved money so much, couldn’t keep herself
from it, but she didn’t want to upset her mother. Determined, she found a
solution that would satisfy both of them. The little girl went to the backyard,
filled a small bucket with dish soap and warm water, and coin by coin, bill by
bill, gently washed all of her money.
About halfway through the process, her mother appeared on the back stoop.
“What are you doing?!” she yelled. “I thought I told you not to play with
your money!”
“You said money was dirty. But see? I’m washing it!”
At that moment the now-grown financial advisor finished the story, saying,
“Of course, I know now that money laundering is not good, but my love of
money has never changed. And you can be assured I will treat your money with
the love and respect it deserves.”
It was the beginning of the perfect founder story that she found by going all
the way back to her childhood. This is the same strategy we used with the Desert
Star Construction story and a strategy you can use as you begin your quest to tell
your founder story.
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