| For an entrepreneur the hardest thing to do is to get | | | | hours. For some reason, my professional inadequacy |
| started. In Part 2 of this series of three articles I | | | | triggered an enormous desire to do my own thing. |
| describe my search for the key to entrepreneurship. | | | | So I did. I resigned. I registered a business partnership |
| That first, wonderful, entrepreneurial, childhood | | | | with my wife. I purchased one of the first personal |
| venture lasted three years. Then life changed. On 22 | | | | computers in New Zealand. Instinctively I knew that |
| November 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated | | | | the partnership would succeed if it could make sales. |
| and my family moved. We shifted our few belongings | | | | So I enrolled in an MBA programme. Too late, one |
| from the genteel environment of Alexandra Park and | | | | month into the programme, I realised that the MBA |
| Epsom to the stark, flat lands, of a new South | | | | marketing papers would not train me in sales. But I |
| Auckland suburban development called Otara. We | | | | finished the programme anyway and use the personal |
| swapped SE3, one of Auckland's, then, most | | | | to apply for sales jobs in many New Zealand |
| desirable post codes, for no postcode. Suddenly the | | | | companies -- so as to develop my sales skills, albeit, |
| difference between my family and my friends' | | | | on someone else's payroll. I also used the personal |
| families was clear. Our friends lived in old, established, | | | | computer to write reports for our partnership's first |
| areas of Auckland and could walk or cycle to school. | | | | clients. I sold them my analysis skills. |
| We lived in cheap housing in a new dormitory suburb. | | | | I landed a job with one of New Zealand's most |
| It was 25 kilometers distant and we would always be | | | | recognised manufacturing companies. But I was |
| getting up early to catch the bus to our old school. | | | | restless because the job was not a sales job. After |
| And we would never get home until after 5:00 p.m. | | | | 12 months months, I began buying sales |
| once we completed the reverse trip. | | | | professionalism books from a local bookstore. Six |
| School life progressed from primary school to | | | | months later I quit the job and got serious about |
| intermediate school; then secondary school. Would I | | | | building our partnership business. From the books, I |
| become a doctor or a lawyer? My stern, and much | | | | copied all the sales scripts that suited my personality. |
| loved, father was a freezing worker because it was | | | | I adapted the scripts to the consultancy services, |
| the highest paid unskilled job he could secure without | | | | software and hardware that I planned to sell. Then, |
| years of prior service. Most of my friends had | | | | stuttering and stammering I got on the phone and |
| fathers who were doctors, or lawyers or | | | | rang the companies and people I had put onto my |
| accountants or architects or teachers. One of my | | | | cold calling list. |
| friends was Chinese and his father was a | | | | That was the beginning of lasting entrepreneurial |
| businessman who owned a thriving green grocery | | | | success. Trying to develop sales skills on somebody |
| store. It could have been more than one store. | | | | else's payroll was never going to work. It was a |
| Another friend had a father who was a commercial | | | | sham. Doing an MBA degree was never going to |
| property investor. None of us understood how | | | | work. It taught me how to run businesses for other |
| commercial property worked. But we understood | | | | people and other companies. Not for myself. |
| that it paid for a big house, expensive cars, ski club | | | | But getting the books from the local book store, |
| memberships and overseas holidays. | | | | exercising my judgement about what parts of those |
| I was sure of one thing: I wanted to be financially | | | | books would be useful to me in building a business, |
| independent. But how? Would I be a doctor in general | | | | modifying the necessary parts, and picking up the |
| practice? And somehow become financially | | | | phone to make cold calls worked. |
| independent through medicine? Or through law? | | | | Getting started works because preparation does not |
| It was bewildering to see so many adults, apart from | | | | remove the same obstacles as getting started. |
| my parents, who had houses, cars, children, pets, | | | | Preparation reduces the lack of knowledge obstacle. |
| holidays, sea side holiday homes, ski chalets and | | | | But getting started reduces the fear obstacle enough |
| regular overseas travel without understanding how | | | | to make progress. Progress requires action (getting |
| the adults made the money to pay for all those | | | | started). Only action changes current reality to future |
| things. | | | | reality. That's why Nike's motto, "Just do it," |
| Today I smile at the simplicity of the deterministic | | | | resounds with the simple truth of cause and effect. |
| answer to that teenage bewilderment. | | | | Do it. Just do it. Preparation and research is not |
| In my undergraduate studies I majored in Computer | | | | "doing it." If you want it to happen then just do it |
| Science. BY the time I graduated I had got myself a | | | | and keep on 'just doing it'. Don't make it complicated. |
| job as a junior software programmer. But I couldn't | | | | Just do it. |
| stop seeing the obvious difference between my pay, | | | | I didn't know it at the time, but the MBA degree and |
| terms and conditions and those of my boss who did | | | | the manufacturing job were elements in my search |
| a fraction of the work I laboured under. So I found a | | | | for the key to entrepreneurship. |
| new job working for fantastic boss in one of New | | | | Getting started proved to be the key. |
| Zealand's local authorities. That boss asked me to | | | | In the next, third, and final, article in this series, I |
| evaluate the feasibility of so many maintenance, and | | | | explain how I have seen others find the same key to |
| capital, projects that I was forced to hit the books | | | | entrepreneurship. |
| and learn the necessary analytical methods after | | | | |