From Dan: As a way to honor the individuals who have taught me critical life lessons about people and business, I’ve invited several to write guest columns to run in this space over the next few weeks. Today’s voice of experience once again is Robert L. Brady, the founder of Business and Legal Resources (BLR®). This week, Bob talks about BLR’s early years and lessons for success that apply to all work situations.
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by Robert L. Brady
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how I started BLR with an 8-page newsletter sold by direct mail called the Personnel Manager’s Legal Reporter. For the first 2 years of its existence, I personally wrote, sold, and produced the newsletter.
I did everything myself for one very simple reason: I had no money to pay anyone. Every available penny went into paying the printer and post office, to sell the newsletter, and to fulfill issues to subscribers. PML, as we called the publication, took 2 years to get to a positive cash flow, when renewal revenue was enough to cover basic fulfillment costs.
During those first 2 years, I was finishing law school and studying for the bar exam, in addition to working 7 days a week on the newsletter. My wife, Margaret, also a law student, was studying and working as well. It was a steady grind, but it was exciting and fulfilling as we newlyweds first graduated and then passed the bar, all the while seeing PML grow.
Finally, after 2 years, we got to the point that I could start to draw a (very meager) paycheck. It came just in the nick of time because my VA benefits, earned from my 1968–1971 service in the U.S. Army, were running out.
It also allowed me the freedom to hire some clerical help and begin to think about additional staff to help me grow the company.
How Did I Get There?
I was lucky to get to this point. Over the years, I’ve seen all sorts of statistics about the number of businesses that fail, either immediately or after 2 years or longer. I’ve seen numbers showing 80 percent failure. I beat the odds—and beat them further as we continued the BLR run that now sees us as one of the biggest, most successful companies in our industry.
Why were we successful when others weren’t?
My friend Ed Coburn, long before he had ever heard of me, researched that question for his master’s thesis. Ed, who was editorial director at Harvard Health Publications for many years and is now a senior associate with the Mequoda Group, looked at start-ups that got to the 2-year stage and then again at those that got to 5 years. He was trying to identify the common characteristics of the winners.
When he told me about his research, BLR was about 10 years old, so I was able to match his theories against my experience, and guess what? The match was perfect.
Ed found that businesses that got to 2 years had this in common: When the business was founded, the founder or founders were personally competent in all of the major disciplines required for the business. They didn’t have to go out and hire someone to fill any of the critical roles. They had them covered.
In publishing, the three major disciplines are editorial, marketing, and operations. When I started BLR, although I started as an editor/writer, I was lucky enough to have been exposed to marketing and operations, and I personally filled those roles for the first couple of years.
Ed’s findings sure made sense to me, and as I’ve watched other start-ups over the years, they ring true again and again—not 100 percent, but more often than not. Start-ups that have only a marketer, no matter how good he or she might be, may struggle with product. Even start-ups with great product ideas might fail without good marketing. It’s like a baseball team. To get to the majors, a player has to either hit and field or pitch. To win as a team, you have to have players who can hit, field, and pitch.
Ed’s findings, at one level, are kind of “Duh!” But I’ve seen enough instances when failure came because the bases weren’t covered to prove his thesis, at least to me.
After 2 Years
Ed also looked at companies that got past 2 years and made it to 5. What did they have in common? These findings also coincided with my experience at BLR. In these companies, the founders hired experts to manage parts of the business, BUT they retained responsibility for at least one of the key competencies. That’s just what I did at BLR. My brother, John, came in as a partner. He took over marketing and operations. I retained responsibility for editorial and continued as CEO.
It was important for me to retain one area of responsibility, as Ed’s findings confirm. If I had tried to replace myself as editor and just been CEO, I would have been so removed from the business that we wouldn’t have been as able to develop innovative new products. If I had been on the sidelines, my “game” wouldn’t have been as sharp.
What to Make of This?
Does this have any relevance to real life, as lived by most of you reading this? I think it does. In all work situations, either individual or team, you need to cover the bases. Teams have to be staffed to meet all the business needs of the enterprise, and team members have to respect the roles. Individuals have to think not just about their individual job content but also about how it intersects with the business’s overall mission.
I’ve seen teams make mistakes when they add new members. They hire people like themselves who are great at the team’s core mission, but they ignore key competencies required for overall success. On a personal level, I’ve seen brilliant people sabotage their careers by thinking their product is so great that they don’t have to worry about selling themselves to decision makers.
What I’m trying to say is this: If you want to grow and succeed, you need to identify the competencies in your job or industry. Then you have to figure out how to cover those bases, either by improving your personal skills or allying yourself with teammates who have the skills you’re lacking.
In a future article, I will look at one of BLR’s longest-tenured, most valuable employees against this framework and try to explain why I think she has been successful.