The Difference Between People Who Talk The Talk and Those Who Execute?

Another member of Michael’s Super Friends group (see last post) is a guy by the name of Cal Newport. Cal is a Ph.D candidate in Computer Science at MIT as well as a published author. I received a question from a friend Cal yesterday that he asked me to share my response to. Here was Cal’s original email.

Hi Ryan,

We met once, in New York, many years back with Mike Simmons. But after receiving this e-mail from Michael I thought I might try to re-connect. I see from your blog that things are going quite well with your company. Congrats on all of that!

I actually had a semi-related note that I wanted to ask you about. Recently I’ve been having a lot of discussions—with Mike among others—about what separates doers from dreamers. That is, given two ambitious, intelligent people, who both have big ideas, why does one manage to start getting things done while the other stays stuck? In other words, I’ve been trying to explore what constitutes the "action habit" that seems to underlie many successful personalities.

Given your famed skill for execution, I thought you might be a good source of insight into this discussion. Specifically:

(1) From a general perspective, what do you think explains the difference between people who talk the talk and those whose execute?

(2) From a specific perspective, what’s your mindset/strategy/physiological states that fuel your day to day work? Think about an onerous project you started recently, what specifically got you going?

Talk to you soon,
Cal

Here was my response to Cal’s questions:

(1) From a general perspective, what do you think explains the difference between people who talk the talk and those who execute?

Well, I don’t know if I have a complete answer, but here are a few tips from my experience.

1. Don’t bullshit, don’t hype. Sometimes you do need to get certain people like VCs or the media excited about your company or product, but do it with real substance whenever possible.
2. Be brutally honest with yourself.
3. Surround yourself with really smart, hard working people.
4. Work hard and intelligently consistently for multiple years.
5. Set goals and write them down.
6. Track the actual results versus the projected results and write down why you did better or worse than expected on at least an annual if not quarterly basis. (very key)
7. Don’t jump from project to project. Stick with something dammit. It’s almost always going to take 5 years to build anything of significant value. So find a good idea and then run with it. If it doesn’t work out initially, if the core idea is good, keep at it. It took us 27 months to get Broadwick to $1 million in sales and just 7 months to make the next $1 million.
8. Read about how the world works. Read books like Lexus and the Olive Tree, Political Ideologies & the Democratic Ideal, Reinventing the Bazaar, The Commanding Heights, The Worldly Philosophers, The World is Flat, and The Tipping Point.

(2) From a specific perspective, what’s your mindset/strategy/physiological states that fuel your day to day work?

I just want build a lot of strong relationships and make some money so I can have influence to be able to change the world significantly through entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, and politics to reduce human suffering in our world and one day be able to give back to the world and this country by being able to be elected as a U.S. Senator, or in some other yet to be defined way. It all comes back to the long term motivation, which has to be thought out and very strong. My personal mission statement (printed on the right side of ryanallis.com) has been extremely helpful and given me clarity in this regard.

Super Friends Introductions

Last month, my good friend Michael Simmons sent out an email to eight of what he called "Super Friends" in order to connect us with each other, with a description and bio of each person. Each of the eight people had a quality that Michael noted that made them unique. Michael, very nicely, described me with the following passage:

Ryan Allis - Execution - allisr[at]broadwick.com - Ryan is 22 years old and has taken three companies to over $2 million in revenue. I first met him at a restaurant with Cal a few years ago, before the companies had taken off. He stated with absolute confidence that he would take his company to $1 million in revenue by his 21st birthday. He missed the mark by a few days. Ryan has an ability to set an extremely clear vision, know with 100% confidence that he will achieve it, and make any necessary changes to himself to make it happen.

The descriptive traits listed for the other seven individuals were: Sincerity, Intrepidness, Discipline, Integrity, Sharing, All Around, and Passion.

From this introduction, I came to know Devi Sridhar (who happened to be the youngest Rhodes Scholar in American history) who connected me with a 2001 UNC alumnus by the name of Rye Barcott. Rye was a Morehead Scholar at UNC, started an amazing program called Carolina for Kibera, just got out of a four year tour of duty as a Marine Officer in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now is starting this fall at Harvard doing a joint MPP/MBA degree at the Kennedy School of Government and HBS. Rye proceeded to connect me with Kim Chapman, the Co-Chair of Carolina for Kibera here at UNC, who I had lunch with at the local entrepreneurial hangout Doce two weeks ago. Kim has an amazing story herself, and is working on her Masters in Public Health degree at UNC. Since, I’ve found myself on a Steering Committee for a Ugandan Internship program with Kim.

Long story short, the amount of good that came from Michael taking the time to send the one Super Friends email was tremendous. Perhaps there are a few friends or associates you know working in various fields that are remarkable or outstanding in some way that may not all know each other. Well, if so, send out an email connecting them and see what happens!

When I Was 21

Tomorrow I turn 22. While the difference between today and tomorrow is negligible, I find meaning and opportunity in the new denotation. These past twelve months have been extraordinary—full of learning, happiness, and challenge. There were moments of sublime contentment, overwhelming joy, and maddening disappointment. Thank you so very much to the countless people who have helped me over the past few years get to the point I am today.

Below is a review of my goals for the past year and my goals for the upcoming year.

My Goals for the Past Year

Here were my goals for age 21 and how I did:

	Get IntelliContact Pro to 5,000 clients (currently 2539) We ended up with 5,265 clients, and changed the name of the product to just IntelliContact, dropping the Pro. It’s amazing to think we’ve more than doubled in size in 12 months.
	Get net new clients above 250 for IntelliContact Pro (currently 172) We ended July with 266 net new clients during the month. With the 4.0 launch on Friday and the expanded marketing campaign, we are on track for August, however, to get 550 new clients with net new around 425!
	Build IntelliContact Sales Force We now have three salespersons—Rick, Jonathan, and Rob and expect to expand our sales team significantly in the next year.
	Launch AntiPovertyCampaign.org Last September I launched antipovertycampaign.org as a blog covering all things related to economic, health, and opportunity poverty. So far there have been 73 posts from myself and team members Jen Monroe, Joel Thomas, Moffat Thomas, and Joan Maina reporting from the United States, Argentina, Mali, Uganda, Botswana, and Kenya. We’ve also posted a mission and our 13 beliefs.
	Get to #1 in Google for "Entrepreneurship" (currently 3rd) My web site on entrepreneurship, www.zeromillion.com, is now #1 in Google when you search for entrepreneurship, allowing it to grow to have 160,000 unique visitors per month, 6,254 members, and 3,315 individual articles on business, entrepreneurship, and marketing. Let’s hope it stays there!
	Raise $1.5 million of VC for Broadwick Broadwick ended up raising $500,000 in convertible debt from the Durham VC firm NC IDEA in May—which is all we needed at the time. We may choose to raise additional funds in the future, but have no need to presently.
	Pay off house by December 31, 2005 I decided to not pay off the house, after learning of the advantages of continuing a mortgage payment (if you can make more than your interest rate in your own investments then it often makes more sense to not pay off the mortgage). I probably still will when able just for an added layer of security, or perhaps instead purchase another property in D.C., England, or Boston.
	Build UNCstudent.com to 6,000 users (current 1173) This was a project that I began back in 2002 when starting as a Freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill that was essentially a web discussion forum for UNC students. In September 2002, the site took off and immediately got a few thousand users. Unfortunately, I did not have access to the technical experience at the time to be able to scale the site with the number of users we had. I also lacked vision in naming the site uncstudent.com instead of unc.student.com. Had I taken a bit of risk and purchased Student.com and figured out a scalable model, it might just have become what Facebook has instead become. In August 2005 my friend Kyle Powers and I decided to relaunch the site with the hope it could still reach its original vision, but the project ended up dead in the water as I quickly realized I had much more important business ventures to focus on and Kyle found out just how much time being a Chemistry major at UNC took.
	Build Virante to $55,000 per month (was $28,000) Virante lost its largest client in December which significantly hurt the company for a few months. We were able to maintain all of our staff and have since added many new clients. We’ve grown from 5 employees to 11 employees and have recently added Bob Misita, Jeff Buechler, and Chris Doran to the team as Virante positions itself to reach its mission of becoming the largest search engine optimization and web marketing firm in the world over the coming years. It looks like we’ll be very close to reaching our $55k sales goal this month.
	Build GHC to $330,000 in monthly sales GHC unfortunately ended up bringing Virante into arbitration. A settlement was reached in March.

My Goals for Age 22

1. Grow IntelliContact
   Get IntelliContact to at least 10,560 clients (Currently 5,265). Double our current client count. This will require 438 net new clients per month.

2. Grow Virante
   Get Virante to $150,000 in monthly sales (Currently $50,000). Utilize the new momentum we have with our new growth strategy to triple the size of the company over the next 12 months.

3. Get Zero to One Million Published.
   Get the new version of my book Zero to One Million: How to Build a Company to $1 Million in Sales published by a top tier business book publisher. I’ve been able to get an agent and we’re in the middle stages of working on a deal to get a “real” publisher to get the book out there and into mainstream bookstores.

4. Continue Education
   Do 2-3 independent studies at UNC to get additional credits toward graduating. I currently have 81 credits. I intend to go back to UNC in 3-4 years after I’m done with what I’m working on currently in order to get my B.A. in Economics. Getting additional credits to knock out some econ requirements will help.

5. Create More Jobs
   Create 43 new jobs (total of 43 so far). I’ve found that one of the most fulfilling aspects of being a business owner is being able to create jobs. Broadwick currently has 32 employees and Virante has 11. I’d like to be able to double the number of jobs the companies have created by this time next year. We currently support 21 babies between the two companies!

6. Travel Outside the Country
   Travel outside the U.S. at least twice. I didn’t get a chance to get out of the country this past year. I’d like to make my first trip to Asia when I go to Japan in March for an Young Entrepreneurs’ Organization conference event. I’d like to also make it to Dubai, China, Nigeria, or Kenya.

7. Build Strong Relationships
   Have fun and build quality relationships with many different people. In the past I’ve sometimes focused on business too much (and computer screens) rather than people. I’ve made efforts to grow as a person over the past year and interact as a more full and present human being. I hope to be able to continue to build strong relationships over the next 12 months and make many deposits into the relationship bank accounts I have with the most important people in my business and personal lives.

8. Figure Out What’s Next
   Continue to research what’s next for me after Broadwick and UNC. While I have quite a few more years left doing what I’m doing now, which may turn into many more years depending on how things go, I would like to return to UNC one day to finish the one year left I have to earn my undergrad degree. After UNC, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the possibility of joining the Navy as an Intelligence Officer for 4-5 years. I’ve also considered working for the State Department or doing Americorps or the Peace Corps. I’m currently evaluating what I can do best that will maximize the learning, experience and connections that I can gain while serving the country in some way for a few years during my 20s. After the Navy, I would very much like to do a MPP/MBA joint degree at Harvard’s Business School and Kennedy School of Government for 3 years, and then get back into business for 15 years or so and take my shot at creating a billion dollar company and taking it public. Eventually, around age 45 I’d like to get into politics and perhaps make a run for U.S. Senate.

Thank you very much to the people who have helped me learn and grow over the past 12 months including but not limited to…

Andrew Allis, Sr., Pauline Middleton Allis, Andrew Allis, Jr., Erin Mulfinger, Bonnie Mulfinger, Carl Mulfinger, Mark Mulfinger, Marti Kiely, Steve Kiely, Aaron Houghton, David Roth, David Rasch, Tim Oakley, Brandon Milford, Malcolm Young, Bob Misita, Russ Jones, Jeff Staub, Amber Neill, Robert Plumley, Chuck Hester, Merrette Moore, Jinan Glasgow, Bill Laughlin, Peter Nyberg, Scott Korbin, Sriya Chari, Brett Watkins, Anne-Marie Comeau, Sindhura Citineni, Alex Hardy, Kyle Powers, Phil Gennett, Jen Monroe, Jen Coneski, Nichole Hillstrom, Tiana Lawrence, Jud Bowman, Buck Goldstein, Ted Zoller, David Jones, Jason Caplain, John Glushnik, Scott Heiferman, Merrill Mason, and Robin Merritt.

I’ve been alive 273 months now! Here’s to the next 819.

Official Launch of IntelliContact 4.0

Today we announced the official launch of IntelliContact 4.0. Below is the information from the IntelliContact blog entry.

We began this process back in October of last year–taking in feedback from hundreds of survey responses, forum postings, and support tickets. Today, ten months later, a completely redesigned IntelliContact 4.0 has officially launched. We’re very excited about the launch and feel that we now can say that we have a world-class email marketing application (or more accurately multichannel emarketing application) that is one of the best if not the best in the industry. Today, we are able to stand in unison behind our new mantra: “We Simplify Email Marketing” and behind our new manifesto.

What Does This Mean To You? Well…

1. All new trial users will default to the 4.0 interface. They will still have the option to switch back to the old 3.0 interface for some time.
2. The “Beta” in the logo has been replaced with 4.0.
3. We’ve released the new update from the past month of development work done in response to the over 1000 feedback tickets we received during the beta.
4. We now recommend that you test out and switch to the 4.0 interface at your earliest opportunity by clicking on the switch link at the top in the white bar. (Don’t worry, we’ll still allow switching back and forth to 3.0 for at least a few months).

What’s New In 4.0 Since the Beta

We got loads of feedback from many, many people about IntelliContact 4.0 Beta. We love you all for that; you gave us insight to some pieces of the application that we wouldn’t have seen on our own.

While the biggest changes are the new interface and the addition of RSS Feeds and Public Newsletter Archiving, there are also a number of additional improvements we’ve made in the last 30 days that were released this morning.

Last month, we told you that we were going to do many of the things you suggested. Now, we want to take a few minutes to let you know some of the things we’ve fixed. This list doesn’t cover everything we’ve done in the last 4 weeks; if we did that, this page would go on forever. But some of the coolest, neatest and biggest improvements are:

Less Scolling
The entire header area, from our logo to the tabs, takes up less room. All of our landing pages are now displayed 2×2, putting many more actions “above the fold.” Our fonts are smaller.

More Friendly Tables
The action icons in all of our tables are bigger, making them easier to click on. We’ve accomplished this without making any row take up more vertical space. The tables are now much wider, reducing the clutter and allowing us get a little more infrmation in them.

Improved Help
On many pages, we’ve added a sliding help window. If you see a gray bar on the right side of the application, with the word “Help” emblazoned on it, you’ll know that help isn’t far away. Simply click “Help” and a help window will slide out on top of what you’re working on. When you’re done, click the “X”.

My Contacts Tab
Searching your contacts has been made easier. You can now filter by list and segment on the results page. We’ve put in more contact management options, such as “Move all contacts to …” and “Copy all contacts to …” When you add contacts, you’ll be able to specify values for your custom fields.

Create Tab
The “Compose a New Message” page has been slightly redesigned. We’ve added some new MessageBuilder