Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain

by Ryan Blair

  In jail the guy who rises to power is never the strongest or the smartest, he’s the person who adapts to the ever-changing environment and influences the right people as prisoners come and go. Put plainly and simply, adaptation is key to survival. Keep abreast of market trends, and know when it is better to go with them and when it is better to radically depart from them. You need to be able—and willing—to change your game plan when conditions—such as demand, the market, or technology—shift. When PathConnect’s business model looked like a failure, we realized that we had to shift our focus from white-label social networks to tools creation for brands that are sold directly to consumers. We took our company from a sure failure to a great return for investors in a matter of six months, because we adapted to our strongest competitive advantages. Darwin was absolutely right—in the wild world of the jungle (or of business), it really is survival of the most adaptive.

  Compensation drives behavior.

  Anytime I see a company struggling, I take a look at its compensation system. Almost inevitably, the rewards are not in place for hard work and aggressive, profitable sales strategies. Everyone in the company needs to feel connected to the company’s success, either through profit sharing, recognition, or another type of compensation that motivates and honors dedication to the job and to the company’s goals. In later chapters, we will discuss how to structure just such a plan for your company to take care of your employees and to bring out the best of their abilities for the benefit of everyone.

  Customer Rules

  Service is the greatest opportunity to differentiate.

  This statement is self-explanatory, but that doesn’t make it any less important. I have found, time and time again, that the best way to separate your business from the pack is to provide customer service at a level that is unmatched by your competitors’ services. If you put people instead of profit first, the difference will be apparent to everyone and will increase your sales and your customer loyalty better than any advertising or branding campaign you could imagine.

  Being people oriented is not an acquired skill.

  Related to the rule above, either you are people oriented or you’re not. It’s not something your business can “work on.” You don’t have time for that. It’s something you have to have from the get-go and something you have to maintain consistently to build up the kind of reputation you want for your company. Make sure your employees understand this rule from the start; it’s much easier to keep something great going than to try to rebuild yourself later to win customers back.

  “Don’t fear your competitor; they’ll never send you money. Fear your customer.”—Jeff Bezos

  This rule from the founder, president, and CEO of Amazon.com is a profound piece of advice. Worry about your loyalty to your customer, not your customer’s loyalty to you. This is an opposite approach to the common practice in which management spends time attempting to look through the customer’s eyes back at the company. I prefer to ask these questions: How loyal are we being to our customers? What decisions are we making in the short term and long term that might make our customers feel we are disloyal? How do we treat them in our customer service group? If we outsource customer service, will they feel that we don’t care about them? How are we giving more to our most valued customers—the ones who have been with us the longest, spent the most, and given the most feedback? These are the questions to focus on first. If you take care of your customers first, everything else will fall into place.

  Strategy Rules

  “An army everywhere is an army nowhere.” —Sun Tzu

  Sun Tzu’s masterwork is entitled The Art of War, but many of his lessons are no less applicable to the marketplace than they are to the battlefield. An army that is spread out widely may cover a lot of ground, but it loses its effectiveness and its potency because its force is too diluted. I learned this one because when I ran my gang I had to be careful if I started wars with too many rival gangs at once. I didn’t want ten armies pointed back at my one.

  The same is true of a company that tries to do too many things instead of concentrating its energy on developing one area in which to be superior to anything else out there.

  A business needs to have a focus. I have found that without a clearly defined specialty (ViSalus is a weight-loss and weight-management company), it becomes harder and harder to develop a top-notch product because our vision and our resources are so scattered. This is, in essence, the “do one thing and do it well” philosophy.

  “One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows slowly endures.”—J. G. Hubbard

  I love this quote because it reminds me that patience is the key. I might not see returns today or tomorrow, but with the right investment of time and effort, my work will flourish and last. Everything has a time and a place, and every process has a proper order. I can’t rush something whose time hasn’t come yet—that only creates instability. Instead, I need to remember that the things that develop over time are the ones that are more likely to reflect timeless ideals rather than brief trends or flash-in-the-pan popularity.

  “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.” —Sun Tzu

  It is a sound philosophy. Abraham Lincoln lived by it. So does Bill Gates. Rather than allowing yourself to get sucked into a perpetual battle with your competitors, see if there isn’t a way to bring them into the fold. Lincoln brought them into his executive cabinet. Gates gave them jobs at Microsoft. If there is someone out there with enough talent to pose a threat to your business, you might want to consider hiring him or her. After all, wouldn’t you rather have that know-how and energy working for you than against you?

  “Most things wired will become wireless, and most things wireless will become wired.” —Nicholas Negroponte

  In what has come to be known as the Negroponte Switch, Nicholas Negroponte, cofounder of the MIT Media Lab, made a startling and prophetic prediction that the technology industry would undergo a tremendous change as advances, functions, and needs developed.

  When he first made this pronouncement, people thought it was absurd, but he was quickly proved correct. To me, this characterizes a man who was so intimately involved in the industry and so deeply ingrained in its inner workings that nothing escaped his notice, including inevitable (if seemingly unlikely) future trends.

  Drive your potential customers toward you with a compelling offer to take action now.

  You have to spark interest in your product offering. The first step toward making a sale is to reach out and attract attention. Create within your potential consumer a need to know. Try to get the potential customer to ask: Why is this product important for my life? Is it worth my time and money to learn more?

  Of course it’s better if customers are able to recognize right away how your product or service will be of value to them—and it’s in this stage that you ultimately want to reach them anyway—so take the time to make your advantages and unique offerings clear, recognizable, and prominent. This can help propel the consumer to buy, often bypassing the need for further questions or a longer sales pitch.

  Personal Rules

  “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always try to do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, are great.” —Mark Twain

  More wisdom from Mark Twain—priceless. When I was first coming up, I had a lot of haters. Friends, family, and just about everyone who knew I was trying to be something would try to squash my ambitions. It would drive me crazy. And then I read the aforementioned quote given to me by Dr. Jerry Fecht, my professor of humanities at Moorepark Community College.

  There will always be people who will hate on you and stand in the way as you try to pursue your goals. Whether it is from spite, ignorance, or jealousy, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that you need to steer clear of people who are too shortsighted to recognize your potential—or too bitter to be willing to encourage it.

  “If you look for the bad in people,
you shall surely find it.” —Abraham Lincoln

  This is another truism that Lincoln embodied, and I think it’s applicable to what I believe about viewing the world, which necessarily affects how I run my companies.

  I want my employees to have a positive outlook, and I want them to trust the customer. Any consumer knows when he or she is being treated with respect rather than contempt, suspicion, or apathy. The key to building and maintaining a loyal customer base is to treat customers in a way that demonstrates their value to the company. Listen to their concerns, be generous with your return policy or follow-up visits, and always keep their best interests at the heart of your business.

  “There is no finish line.”—Bob Goergen

  If you are focused only on the day when the hard work ends, you’ll never reach it. You’re never finished; there’s no end, only new races and new beginnings.

  “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” —Jay-Z

  Spoken from a guy who, like me, came from nothing and took his entrepreneurial game to the next level. You are the business when you’re the CEO of your own company. You’re the brand, so you should build your brand as a business.

  I don’t buy stocks, I make stocks.

  People often ask me what stocks I invest in, and because I take significant risk in the start-ups I’m affiliated with, I don’t buy stocks in the stock market, unless I have the direct ability or control to build value for the stock. Stockbrokers need not call me.

  Honor your deals with God.

  I used to beg God to help me through the tough times during my youth, and he did. When I was in trouble and looking at some serious time, I made a deal with God that if he saved me, I would spend the rest of my life leading people to his kingdom and not my own. I said I would serve. He did save me and I have done my best to honor the deal I made in that jail cell. We all make deals with God. Honor them.

  Efforts don’t pay the rent.

  When an employee tells me how hard he or she is trying, I usually respond with this thought. I deal in results, not efforts. Results pay the rent.

  You’re either in control or out of control.

  I coined this quote when I was going through a tough time in a relationship. Then I applied it to business. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a control freak. Sometimes it feels good to put control in another person’s hands, just not your bank account or your business.

  I make money; it doesn’t make me.

  Own your relationship with money.

  It’s a very bad idea to pursue too many good ideas.

  This is my mantra around ViSalus and all my companies. I get pitched about so many good ideas, but it would be a bad decision to chase them all. Make sure to be very selective in the projects you take on.

  “If you spend too much time polishing your image you’ll tarnish your character.” —Dale Brown, Man in the Glass

  I am the executive producer of Coach Brown’s documentary and this is one of the most powerful quotes from the movie. I’ve been slammed in the media, I’ve been criticized by my friends, and I’ve been accused of everything from being a fraud to a drug dealer. My first instinct was to work on my image, but after I talked with Dale Brown about the subject, he told me to work on my character because it’s the only thing I can control. People will give you a reputation; you give yourself character.

  “Throw dirt on me and grow a wildflower.” —Lil Wayne

  When they throw dirt on you, they’re going to see something they didn’t expect. Adopt this belief system.

  “Go Pro!” —Coach John Wooden

  This is why I’m writing this book. Coach Wooden told me it was time to elevate my game to the professional level. He inscribed a book to me before he died; the inscription read “Dear Ryan, Go Pro!” When Coach passed on, I lost one of the few father figures I have ever known, and I plan to honor him by living my life at the professional level. RIP Coach Wooden.

  The only differences between you today and a year from now are the people you know and what you have learned.

  This has been one of the most important rules for my professional life. It reminds me to take advantage of every learning opportunity I possibly can. If I don’t, I will never grow as a person or as a business leader.

  It is each entrepreneur’s responsibility to focus on development, maturity, perspective, and all the other things that go along with becoming a better manager and business owner. As another famous saying goes, “We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond to it.” I believe this with every fiber of my being—what we make of our circumstances defines who we truly are.

  Where will you be in one year? What will you have done with the opportunities put in your path? As the tattoo inscribed on my inner left bicep says, carpe diem.

  5

  SEIZE THE DAY

  There were a few times in my life when I saw into the future. One of the earliest examples is a vision I had from inside a jail cell about becoming a public speaker. I was reading the Bible out loud in solitary confinement and I had a vision of my doing that in front of thousands of people. Chills rushed over me and I knew right then and there that somehow I would do just that. It was as though God himself had given me confirmation. That dream came true when I was invited to speak at several churches in the Detroit, Michigan, area one very cold winter fifteen years after my jail cell premonition. The churches were filled with thousands of people and I addressed them from the same pulpit that Martin Luther King Jr., President Bill Clinton, President Barack Obama, and many others whom I admire have spoken from. The dream had come true.

  We all have dreams, and confirmations like the one I received; we just don’t listen to them. I did because all I had growing up were dreams. My reality was too terrible to think about. Dreams were my only hope in life, and so I learned to believe in them. I actually became a millionaire because I believed in a dream. I connected my dreams as one would connect dots. My dots are memories and dreams that I connect with faith.

  The following dream is the one that made me a millionaire. It was my second major premonition, but the first that I would see come true. At this point I was twenty-one years old, living in the first house I owned, in Simi Valley, California. I’d raised venture capital and hired about thirty employees, I was in the media, and I’d earned my place among the who’s who of the 40 Under 40 on the Pacific coast. To everyone, I was the whiz kid genius, stepson to the wealthy Mr. Robert Hunt, and a kid who was taking off. But inside it was a different story.

  I remember nights when I’d lie in bed wide awake because I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make payroll the next day. I would get phone calls from my venture capitalist at all hours. One Sunday night I got a call from my lead investor and the chairman of my company, Fred Warren, telling me that I needed to fire my sales manager. Because I needed money from Fred to make payroll, I had to pick my battles wisely or lose everything. In this case I spent the rest of Sunday worrying about how I was going to fire my friend the next morning.

  The war of internal dialogue would go on in my mind for hours—I’m not going to do it. But Fred said I should do it, and he’s right. And he’s holding the company by the purse strings. I don’t want to fire my friend. I’m not going to do it, f that guy. But am I not doing it because I’m afraid? If I can’t man up and do this, then what can I do?

  After the most intense sleepless night of my life, I arrived at work and walked straight past all my employees as though I had something extremely important to attend to in my office, and shut the door. I sat there for hours, wondering how I was going to fire my friend. And then that voice came into my head, “It’s either him or me.” Finally, my fingers punched in my friend’s four-digit extension.

  “Michael, I need to see you.”

  By the time he got to my office after walking past his colleagues who had seen me walk in with an absolute intensity that morning, and the fact that he was the only person within the company I had asked to speak to, in comb
ination with the expression that must have been on my tired face when he walked in, Michael had already put two and two together. He immediately said, “You’re firing me, aren’t you?”

  After a number of incidents like that, I had a dream that I’d sold SkyPipeline. I had designed the company to be sold and it was built to take advantage of a short-term gap in the broadband market, so it was on my mind a lot in those days. I was tossing and turning that night and I fell into a pseudosleep—one of those times when you have an intense dream, but you’re fully awake.

  In my dream I was being called into the boardroom of my attorney’s office. It was a dark room filled with law books, and the walls were covered in symbolic art of law and order. There they were, the members of my board, sitting around a big mahogany table. Titans and millionaires every one of them, private jet–flying world-renowned venture capitalists Fred Warren, Scot Jarvis, Bob Dilworth, Mark Ozur, Joe Nida, Glen Hartman, Jim Chow, and Rob Reagan. I looked around at the proud smirks on their faces. I felt completely in control. Someone reached out and poured a glass of fine red wine and handed it to me. A toast, they said, to the sale of SkyPipeline!