Guest Speaker Brian Forth

Brian Forth was our guest speaker for January 30th who was the CEO of Site Crafting, a web design company for the most part. Some of the important topics he taught about where not burning bridges, find mentors, and don't assume people know what you know.

Not burning bridges or what Brian called it is to not dismiss anyone, to me these are pretty similar in terms of thinking. He talked about how when he started working with parents at the school he worked at and starting making websites for them and it became to the point where he could quit and start a business. What made him successful is that he built up this catalog of work that was available for anyone to see and a huge client base already. This makes it easy to get work by showing people that he had a track record of good work and that he also was able to get people to spread word about his work. This philosophy he kept in his current company right now as they have no sales people, its all mostly done by word of mouth and their quality of work. I found this interesting since I always thought this was the most important thing to focus on when doing work or building a product.

Finding mentors was a really good piece of advice he offered, because he struggled without it before. When Brian started his business he did it mostly by himself and didn't have some kind of support network or person to call when he got in trouble. By finding people who have already done the work that you are currently doing you get more advice and guidance on how to run and create your business more effectively. This also builds up your network of people that you can contact for help, work, or anything else you might need. So I found this piece of advice really good for anyone starting a business with little or no experience.

Assuming people know what you know is something I know a lot of  people struggle with. I have worked with people who are usually pretty good at that and know that they have to educate people on how it works and not just assume things. I think that I sometimes as well do that too, where I might just assume someone knows what I am thinking or know, but never fully commit to asking them if they actually know.

Those where the three main things I took from the guest speaker this morning and thought where important to keep in mind when starting a business.