Last weekend, I attended an international conference of new technologies and deregulated energy entrepreneurs.
Okay, I didn't exactly go to Paris, but Charlotte, NC is pretty convenient for such a cool opportunity.
So why would an attorney go to such an event? Well, attorneys have felt the recession like everyone else. In fact, while there I met or heard surgeons, other attorneys, corp execs, even a guy who ran a honkingly large division of Virgin Records.
What did I come away with?
A big dose of insight into how to create value for consumers, for one.
Loads of stimulation of ideas as I listened to people who had started companies and businesses in the US, Canada, and Europe.
Shoot! Even the Donald was there, and his appreciation for the smaller entrepreneur was gratifying.
THE SMALLER ENTREPRENEUR!!! Shoot, that may have been the biggest thing I got from the three days of this conference.
In a microchip world, the smaller entrpreneur can now - regularly does - achieve financial results that thirty years ago required boatloads of financing and a big physical footprint.
Begrudgingly, the President even gets a little credit.
Yes, hard to believe, isn't it? I am giving credit to the President.
He has been pushing the States to deregulate electricity and natural gas marketing by a 2015 target date.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet both see this as the next big thing.
A huge number of the attendees at this conference were already achieving some great value creation in the US, Canada and Western Europe in that economic segment alone.
And yes, I went to the conference already committed to that concept.
What is so amazing is that the ability to enter and participate in that business, even across state, provincial or national borders is great for almost anyone.
No joke.
Showing posts with label microchip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microchip. Show all posts
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Lightening strikes, Microchips, and Dan Sullivan
My law firm has finally gone into the 21st Century.
We were hit with lightning recently. The strike turned the voicemail card on our analog phone system from original to extra crispy, if you catch my drift.
Cost to replace the card, plus service to the system? $750 to $1,250.
We had been pitched replacement analog phone systems two years earlier at $10,000.00 plus.
This year, we were pitched a digital system at $7,500.00.
Both analog and digital were feature rich.
My brilliant law partner did some research, as we had to do something.
What did she find?
Digital phone system, retaining one analog line for fax and security system.
Total acquisition cost?
Try 685 bucks.
Yep.
685 bucks.
Is my partner that smart?
Well, yeah, she is, but that isn't what caused the costs to plummet.
It was microchips.
No, not a snack item from Jenny Craig(r).
The brainy stuff in computers.
Dan Sullivan was right. Dan is a mentor to entrepreneurs around the world. He and his wife, Babs Smith, founded Strategic Coach a number of years ago.
If anyone has insight into microchips - he is the man!
Dan pointed out several years ago, that the microchip revolution was a fourth "Great Cross Over" as he puts it.
A great cross over is a breakthrough in communication and transfer of information. Dan says the first was speech, then writing, and the printing press was the the third.
Dan also points to an interesting effect of the microchip - one that a member of the team credited with the development of the chip has opined on: "Speed doubles/price drops by half every five years."
The guys who pitched us systems that would have taken four to five figures viewed what they were doing as selling a commodity.
Well, they lost.
How could they have gotten our business - or in the case of one company - sold to us again after making the original sale ten years ago?
By creating unique value - doing something for us that we could not have gotten anywhere else.
You see, we are entrepreneurial lawyers. If someone could come in - take the technology and show us how to leverage time and create extra value for clients, we would stay with them forever.
The sad thing is that the guy we bought our first system from knows more than most people in his industry have forgotten. He has ways to take that knowledge and create solutions that companies would gladly pay for, and probably pay him more than his profit on the $10,000 system - the one we just bought.
For $685.
His unique ability, however, stayed in his head, when he could have sold it to us.
For more than
$685.
We were hit with lightning recently. The strike turned the voicemail card on our analog phone system from original to extra crispy, if you catch my drift.
Cost to replace the card, plus service to the system? $750 to $1,250.
We had been pitched replacement analog phone systems two years earlier at $10,000.00 plus.
This year, we were pitched a digital system at $7,500.00.
Both analog and digital were feature rich.
My brilliant law partner did some research, as we had to do something.
What did she find?
Digital phone system, retaining one analog line for fax and security system.
Total acquisition cost?
Try 685 bucks.
Yep.
685 bucks.
Is my partner that smart?
Well, yeah, she is, but that isn't what caused the costs to plummet.
It was microchips.
No, not a snack item from Jenny Craig(r).
The brainy stuff in computers.
Dan Sullivan was right. Dan is a mentor to entrepreneurs around the world. He and his wife, Babs Smith, founded Strategic Coach a number of years ago.
If anyone has insight into microchips - he is the man!
Dan pointed out several years ago, that the microchip revolution was a fourth "Great Cross Over" as he puts it.
A great cross over is a breakthrough in communication and transfer of information. Dan says the first was speech, then writing, and the printing press was the the third.
Dan also points to an interesting effect of the microchip - one that a member of the team credited with the development of the chip has opined on: "Speed doubles/price drops by half every five years."
The guys who pitched us systems that would have taken four to five figures viewed what they were doing as selling a commodity.
Well, they lost.
How could they have gotten our business - or in the case of one company - sold to us again after making the original sale ten years ago?
By creating unique value - doing something for us that we could not have gotten anywhere else.
You see, we are entrepreneurial lawyers. If someone could come in - take the technology and show us how to leverage time and create extra value for clients, we would stay with them forever.
The sad thing is that the guy we bought our first system from knows more than most people in his industry have forgotten. He has ways to take that knowledge and create solutions that companies would gladly pay for, and probably pay him more than his profit on the $10,000 system - the one we just bought.
For $685.
His unique ability, however, stayed in his head, when he could have sold it to us.
For more than
$685.
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