Ashley called back.

“We changed our minds. Can
you do it Tuesday?”

It was Friday. I was slated
to speak at a convention half a continent away on Sunday.  I agreed to fly back on Monday and do a
motivational keynote for Ashley’s high technology telecommunications sales
force even though it was on extremely short notice.

His briefing on what he and
the general manager had planned included a copy of the mirror and certificate
that they were awarding to every member of the sales team, a group of
independent contractors.

I was reminded of an ad I’d
prepared and faxed him a copy. We agreed that the ad would serve as the basis
for my talk.

Here, less the close, is the
copy from that ad:

“One skill marks the boundary between success and
failure in the Age of Access.

One ability is the difference between start-ups that
fly and those that die.

One look in the mirror will show you who controls
your fate.

A single glimpse of your true power can make you and
your organization a greater success.

The Power of One is what it takes to build your
business, your career and a life of joy from the ground up.”

Whether you bootstrap it,
find an angel or get plugged into venture capital your success will be governed
by a single restraint.

One.

How good are you at building
business relationships? Can you convince someone to believe in your vision? Can
you persuade them to back you?

Can you win over customers…enough
of them to make a profit?

Profit is what the bottom
line is about.

The top line is about
building your business. It’s about your ability in the clinches. It’s about the
Power of One… the ability to connect with the people that will make you successful.

Businesses are built one
contact at a time. One contact plus another and yet another until you have a
crowd.

“The trick is finding the
right crowd” said Geoff, a physicist friend and founder of one of the most
highly esteemed high-tech start-ups in the Pacific
Northwest. Think about all we’ve been through since we were
working in my garage and you named the company. ”

He had a point. Here’s the
fortune cookie version of what we learned:       

“The
wise man knows his limits…
            A shrewd one his resources…
            But ultimately it’s not who you know that matters…as
much as who you trust.”

Here’s how that played out
for us:

1.      A wise man
knows his limits. You can’t do
everything well. One, yes, even two or three, but not everything. No one can.
And no one expects you to.

It
takes a multitude of talents to build and run a profitable company. Use the
Power of One to be sure that you gather to you all the talent and skills that
your company needs to survive and thrive. Build those relationships. Work at
being sure that all of them see your vision and are actively pursuing it with
you. Ask them to share that vision with the people that are their resources.
Over time you want their network to be intimately connected to yours.

2.      A shrewd
man knows his resources. To succeed,
gather a group of successful resources. Model the behavior of successful
people.

Most
importantly, especially in the early phases, make sure you judge people by what
they do rather than what they say. If you have a good idea all kinds of folks
will want a piece of it. They will tell you virtually anything you want to hear
but when you look at what they’ve accomplished the ledger is blank. Successful
people don’t operate that  way.

Professionals
get that designation by having a talent, developing it and practicing their
skills until they can deliver predictable results. That makes them successful.

Look
for successful people. They move. They act. They get things done. They make a
measurable difference.

3.      It’s not
who you know…it’s who you trust. Ultimately your success will be judged by the
bottom line you deliver to your self, your family, your investors, your
stockholders…all those people who put their faith in you.

That
day I said, “To get to that point you have to reach out; connect and commit to
relationships that can lead to success only if they are based on trust.

You
must make the vision real.
You
have to reach out and find the experts needed.
You
must connect with the backers, the builders and the bankers.
You
have to commit to those relationships.
You
and you alone must get to trust with all of them.
You
must assure that so long as you are part of the company, that trust will
endure.

      At the heart of every
successful business is a single man or woman of integrity.

      One.

      There is nothing more
powerful.”