I'm sure you've thought about this question before during the middle of a conversation. You may or may not have said it out loud as well. Being believable is important when presenting to any group of people, but we aren't going to focus on you or your business venture being believable. We are going to focus on the believability of others in your circles of influence.

Influence is a key word, because it can be a positive or toxic. It is important to understand how those surrounding you impact you on a short-term and long-term basis.

As entrepreneurs and new business ventures we believe in our ideas so strongly we start avoiding naysayers (it's okay to admit). The issue is when you keep that mindset on an ongoing basis. You may directly or indirectly burn some bridges with that approach. The goal is understanding your bias and surrounding yourself with people you do trust.

When your customers talk to you, do you hear them or listen to them? There are subtle differences to look for between hearing and listening to your customers.

I will use a tongue-twister I came up with a while back as a great example.

Tai Chi, Chai Tea

The phrases when said quickly sound very familiar, but have very different meanings. If you are only hearing your customer you may incorrectly interpret what they say.

Are you ready for the ultimate one test quiz to find out if you are hearing or listening to your customers?

1. Are you tracking and taking action on feedback from your customer base?

If you answered, "No", do you understand why things are falling through the cracks? Hearing is a passive activity. You don't have to actively be paying attention to hear what someone is saying. This behavior can create several potential customer service related issues.

• Customers may think you are actively ignoring them, and that leads to customer frustration and potentially losing loyal customers. This could…

Have you ever heard a startup or entrepreneur say that their idea, product, or service has no competition? Hopefully you were not the one making such a statement.

Thinking you have no competition is harmful in several ways. The first issue is that you may be blindsided by competition you initially did not identify. The second issue is other entrepreneurs and potential investors will react with skepticism thinking your research is incomplete, or that you are naive.

Before we get into ways of identifying competition, I want to open your mind. Have you ever heard, "You can't compare apples and oranges" or some variant of that? Let's examine why using this logic causes blind spots in competition recognition.

Apples & Oranges Both:

• Grow on trees
• Come in many varieties
• Have an outer skin protecting the fruit
• Have seeds
• Have many uses (whole fruit, juice, cooking, etc)

What are Apples and Oranges considered in business terms? Indirect Competition.

Different varieties of apples such as Granny Smith and Red…

Are you an Honestrepreneur? What exactly is a honestrepreneur and what does being one mean?

First an Honestrepreneur is honest with themself. Once an entrepreneur can be honest with themself they should carry that forward with their team and customers. This is not to say that being an Honestrepreneur is a realist or a pessamist. It means that they understand the value in honesty and transparency.

An honest entrepreneur quickly builds credibility and trust.

• Be honest with yourself. What are you trying to accomplish with the venture. Set realistic but challenging goals for yourself. You must leave room for hope, but not at the cost of denial. If you are honest with yourself you will know whether you are on track or need to refocus your efforts.

• Approach your team with honesty. They may not need to know all the details, but they will appreciate you sharing truthful information with them in a timely manner. If things aren't going well in the venture it will not be a secret to the rest of the team, they will…

How do you know when it is time for your startup to transition? This is not a rhetorical question, but there may be a need to ask a question before answering. What is the goal of your venture? This is a pivotal question in understanding what your transition strategy will become. Your transition strategy is very different if you are scaling to be aquired than if you are growing but plan to maintain a family run business.

Now that you are thinking about the focus of your venture we can move on to the original question about transitioning. You must have a pulse on your venture to know when transitioning makes sense. It is important to keep in mind the type of milestones that can be indicators of transition periods.

Potential Transition Milestones:

• Growing your team - You may need to rely on others to ensure your team is growing properly. This becomes important when your company has grown to the point that individual roles are now teams themselves. During the early days of your venture perhaps everyone met…