Grant Diggles

Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners – What’s the difference?

// September 30th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Business // Business

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to the difference between Entrepreneurs (ENTS) and Small Business Owners (SBOS). Everyone seems to believe that, as a default, SBOS are ENTS because they were courageous enough to start a business in the first place. Unfortunetly, this is a common misperception and one that should be cleared up. Here is a comparison to consider:

SBOS: Love of craft and the desire to do things their way drives the desire to be in business.

For example, a person who enjoys gardening may decide to start a small gardening business selling flower arrangements, literature on gardens and seedlings to their local community. An SBO can think of nothing more inspiring than combining personal passion with income to create a lifestyle based on joy and fulfillment.

ENTS: The business of business and financial success are the driving forces of the enterprise.

ENTS are people who leverage. They leverage money,  resources and people to create, build and, many times replace themselves. Using the same example from above, an ENT may identify a social environment that is experiencing a growing awareness for community gardens. An ENT may then use financial leverage to recruit gardening specialists to build a pilot program for a community garden in the area. Through marketing and networking, this ENT would eventually grow a self-sustaining program that would allow funding for a permanent replacement to maintain and grow the business out of passion and expertise, more commonly known as…  a Small Business Owner.

As an entrepreneur I’ve come to realize that instead of trying to do everything myself, my real strength is identifying individuals who thrive in their giftings; and I bring them together to accomplish a common goal. In essence, I am only as good as the people I hire.

My partner, who is more Small Business minded, loves his craft. His real strength, is derived from being masterful. The more skilled and knowledgeable he is, the more value he adds to the business. In essence, he is only a good as his skill level.

An SBO may become an ENT. No successful ENT becomes, willingly, an SBO. But whether you’re an SBO or ENT is not important, being able to identify with and embrace the driving forces in your life, is.

Top 4 Restaurants in Portland, Oregon

// September 28th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Personal Views // Personal Views

My wife and I are fans of the culinary world. When we look for restaurants in the Portland Metro area we are not only looking for great tasting food, but also a great experience. The ambiance, waiter, food presentation, location and vibe are all part of what this article is about. Listed below are our current top 4 restaurants in the Portland area:

1. The Painted Lady – Newberg, OR

The Painted Lady, one of the finest restaurants you'll find anywhere.

Yup, you heard me… Newberg, Oregon. The Painted Lady is, without a doubt, going to be one of finest culinary experiences you’ll have in your life. It is a little ways outside of Portland, but is worth the extra driving. It is owned by a wonderful couple who have studied in the culinary arts for years and decided to open their own restaurant. The name, The Painted Lady, comes from the restaurant’s actual building, as it is a restored Victorian home.

If you plan on dining at The Painted Lady, plan on calling ahead and making reservations days in advance. Once you’ve reserved a table, the table is yours for the night as they serve you multiple courses throughout the evening.

The food is creative and exquisite in every way. I’ve never had anything at The Painted Lady that wasn’t absolutely life changing. Be prepared for an experience that will be memorable, but has the potential of ruining regular restaurant food forever.

NOTE – TPL is a very expensive restaurant, so plan on spending, spending, spending. With a bottle of wine, my wife and I have easily spent anywhere from $200 to $300 a night. If you’re concerned about cost, you may want to save up, as you will be cheating yourself out of the whole experience by trying to be cheap.

2. Five-O-Three – West Linn, OR

Five-O-Three Restaurant

Five-O-Three is a spectacular restaurant tucked away in West Linn. It may be easily missed as its built into the corner of a larger commercial development, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that this restaurant is anything less than spectacular.

Like other restaurants in our Top 4 list, Five-O-Three changes its menu regularly to give its returning dinner guests something new every time.

From their soups and entrees to their service and entertainment, Five-O-Three should not be missed. It has all of the upper-class amenities one would expect at a high-end restaurant in Portland such as classy ambience, extremely competent waiters and tasteful decor and dinnerware, but remains accessible to the “average Joe” in location, price and attitude.

If you’re looking for an enjoyable dining experience without driving all the way into Portland, Five-O-Three is certainly worth a visit. I’m confident you won’t be disappointed.

NOTE – FOT is still a little pricey than most. Last time my wife and I were there a week ago we spent $110 with tip. This included drinks, appetizer and entrees. If you have kids, I would recommend the Mac-and-Cheese. Have them bring it out with your entrees though, otherwise you’ll end up helping your kids eat it all.

3. Jake’s Grill – Portland, OR

Jake's Grill - A great Portland restaurant with a classy Portland vibe.

Jakes Grill is a personal favorite of mine for three reasons:

1. Its a hip, upper-class restaurant that gives off a great Portland “vibe”.

2. Its menu is large but still boasts a tasteful culinary art similar to smaller “niche” restaurants.

3. Solid bang-for-your-buck for the total experience.

I have to admit, the one thing I don’t like about Jake’s Grill is that its part of the McCormick and Schmick’s restaurant line. Many of their other restaurants tend to be bland and uneventful. With that said, I love this place.

Waiters have always been good here. Knowledgeable and opinionated as to what seems to be good and what doesn’t, Jake’s Grill seems to have low turnover which allows you to get to know the waiters over time.

Jake’s Grill is on the lower cost of our Top 5 restaurants coming in somewhere in $70-$90 range for 2 people. My wife and I regularly dine at Jake’s Grill to experience Portland in a comfortable, edgier fashion.

Although not required, I would recommend making a reservation ahead. Jake’s Grill always seems to be busy.

4. The Heathman Hotel – Portland, OR

Known for its beautiful accomodations, The Heathman Hotel is also a culinary delight.

The Heathman Hotel is more commonly known as one of Portland’s premier stays. Located in the heart of Portland, The Heathman is central to nearly every major attraction that someone spending time here, may want to see. What The Heathman is less commonly known for? Its restauarant.

Situated on the ground level, The Heathman Hotel’s restaurant is consistent in the style, class and service that you would expect from one of Portland’s best. The food is as unique in presentation is it is in taste.

You’ll find The Heathman’s menu offers creative couplings of different flavors to surprise your pallet and keep you looking forward to your next visit. And yes, you will come back.

Due to its stellar location in Portland, and only a couple blocks from the Arlene Schnitzer Hall, The Heathman Hotel offers a classy, yet convenient dining experience for those looking to take in some of the finer arts of Portland. Easy to find, The Heathman restaurant also makes a great location for business professional looking to impress a client or to simply find short respite in the middle of the day.

The cost of dinner at The Heathman is reasonable. We spend $70 to $120 for the 2 of us, which can be a bargain on nights we are staying in Portland for events or special occasions. I would highly recommend this restaurant coupled with a stay in their Hotel. Its relaxing, conveniently located and their service is unmatched.

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Short video messaging arrives on iPhone

// September 23rd, 2009 // No Comments » // Technology // Technology

I love Apple’s market slogan for iPhone applications, something along the lines of “there’s an app for everything”. As fascinating as it may be, I wonder sometimes if we’re going to start seeing too much of the world, or the world is going to start seeing too much of us. Sounds like Twitter video is just around the corner.

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3 simple rules to manage your time and promote business success. PART 1

// September 20th, 2009 // No Comments » // Business // Business

RULE #1: Use the power of “NO”

Several years ago, I was out to dinner with a client. We had a longstanding business relationship and had recently began building a more personal one based on common interests and activities. We both knew that we were unable to dine together without mixing business and personal together that night; and my client understood that I had a small agenda for our get together.

As the evening wained on I began to look for gaps in the conversation to change the subject and begin my proposal. My client, as intuitive as he was, sensed the earnest in my voice and stopped me. ”Before you get to far into the business side of our conversation, I must warn you of one thing”, he said “the answer is no, unless you can convince me otherwise.”

Admittedly, I was a little taken back by his comment as I wasn’t expecting such a hard fast answer even before hearing what my proposal was. I carried on however, and by the end of the night his answered never changed. It was still “no”.

I don’t tell this story to focus on my failure in “selling” my client or how to build a better selling strategy in the future, but rather, to bring attention to a valuable lesson I learned that night about saying “no”. Indeed, if my client would have said “yes” simply because he could, or because he thought he should for the sake of our friendship, I in my youth, would have wasted a large amount of both of our time and money in an idea that eventually fell to the wayside.

Many times in business, and in our personal lives, we say “yes” to too many things. The motivation for doing so is different for everyone; fear of looking bad or appearing mean, a desire to be liked or appreciated, a drive to prove you can do anything, etc. At the end of the day, it seems easier to say “yes” than it is to say “no” and we find we are over-extended, over-worked and exhausted, in part, because we didn’t get any of the things we wanted done, done.

If you value your time at the office, at home or wherever you are, take the advice of my long-time friend the next time someone has a great idea to add to your plate:

“THE ANSWER IS NO UNLESS YOU CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE”

Rule # 2 – Coming soon…

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3 simple rules to manage your time and promote business success. PART 2

// September 19th, 2009 // No Comments » // Business // Business

Rule #2 – Start asking “WHY”

Unlike any other time in history, people need to be evaluating, re-evaluating and changing to stay current in today’s market. The old saying “we do it this way because that’s the way its always been done” is all but dead in today’s current economy, and is only spoken of by those resigned to retirement or unwillingness to change one last time. Those people will walk the path of mediocrity or simply fade away.

I’ve been a part of organizations that were brilliantly run years ago. It was exciting, progressive and the growth was startling; we could hardly keep up. Today those same organizations are dwindling. The leadership is tired and the work, monotonous. The same strategies they used to grow the organization years ago, are now slowly putting them to sleep; their clients, leaving.

As you look at your business and your market, begin to ask yourself “why” you do the things you do. It may be because someone taught you to do it that way, or you found a way to get by and stopped trying at that point, or worse yet, its what everyone else is doing. You may find that you are part of an organization that has a culture that doesn’t condone this type of thinking.

“Movers and shakers” in any industry are not defined by their industry, but rather, they take the time to ask “why” and begin the process of redefining, first themselves, then their industry or environment. As you look at your daily tasks, begin to scrutinize everything you are doing by holding each task accountable to the “why” standard; you may find that you are simply a puppet and not the puppet master.

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3 simple rules to manage your time and promote business success. PART 3

// September 18th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Business // Business

Rule #3 – Always finish with a “WHAT NOW”…

We’ve all had them, meetings that you leave wondering, “why did we meet in the first place?” Nothing is more discouraging than sitting in long meetings that seem to be a waste of time for everyone involved, many things are said and nothing is accomplished. I have, to the best of my ability, done away with these types of meetings.

I’ve spoken with numerous people over the last several years that echo my concern in maximizing the use of their time. Meetings and conversations that seem to go nowhere, and many times, don’t seem to ever end. Painful moments in time where, to keep pointless conversations going, you begin to say things like “we need to get together sometime soon!” when you really know you have no intention of really wanting to connect with them.

Complete each of your meetings with a “WHAT NOW” statement. Is there an action plan in place to establish forward progress? Who is doing what, and when? You’ll find that if a “WHAT NOW” statement does not conclude most of your meetings, you’ll find that the meeting attendees will dissolve from the table and wander into their respective corners like lost sheep. You’ll lose any trackable progress and worse yet, your valuable time.

There are, of course, exceptions to this rule such as building relational equity with a client by taking them to lunch and talking about your families, or sharing information throughout the office in a staff meeting to make sure everyone is on the same page. In these circumstances, the meeting itself is the point and does not require a “WHAT NOW” conclusion.

As a rule of thumb, and as time management is concerned, if you cannot conclude most of your meetings with a “WHAT NOW” statement, you very well may have wasted you time.

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Converting to MAC from PC – My experience

// September 9th, 2009 // No Comments » // Technology // Technology

My brother had recently been harassing me about making the switch from the PC world over to Mac. Well, I bit the bullet and have made the switch and here are my thoughts on the process. (I will continue to add to this as I gain experience):

COMPARISONS

OPERATING SYSTEM:

PC :: Windows Vista – Windows Vista is horrrrrrible. I was part of the original testing group before Vista originally came out, and if I wasn’t completely lost in the new layout of Vista, I was busy rebooting my computer from all of the freeze-ups.

There are also several different versions of Vista as well. I was stuck with buying an out-of-the-box Gateway that came with Vista Home installed on it. I then had to upgrade Vista Home to Vista Business in order to access some of the networking features needed to use it within the office intranet. After installing Vista Business, I connected the computer to a wireless usb adapter only to find out that I needed Vista Enterprise to access the specific wireless networking features needed to work in tandem with my firewall and server.

I would recommend that you stick with Windows XP, as that systems has been relatively reliable for me from the beginning. XP still crashes from time to time, but is something I’ve come to expect using Microsoft products.

MAC :: OS X – Mac did a great job creating an operating system that is sleek and efficient. The computer starts up quickly each time and rarely bogs down or crashes. A huge selling point to MAC OS X is that there is only one version of it. After years of being taken to the “cleaners” with high prices Microsoft products, I was shocked to find out that MACs operating system, Leopard, was only about $89! Their newest operating system, Snow Leopard, is only $29 (I would recommend NOT upgrading until you make sure that all of your current programs will work correctly with Snow Leopard ( i.e. Digidesign’s Pro Tools 8 currently does not)).

OS X is intuitive, but to a seasoned Windows XP user, I still had a difficult time getting used to it for awhile. In part, because some things were so simple to do that they couldn’t be that easy. For instance, if you want to uninstall a program you simple need to drag the application from your applications folder to the Trash. Easy.

SOFTWARE:

PC – From what I can tell, PCs still have the market on software applications. Although PC software doesn’t seem to be as intuitive, the market still hugely favors PC users and most developers will simply sell to the largest market. Also, for that same reason, the market is very competitive which keeps the price of most of the software pretty low, very easy to find and many options available.

MAC – Software exclusively designed for MAC runs like a dream. It follows in the same fashion as Apple’s internal developers in that it is sleek, efficient and extremely intuitive. Unfortunately, I have found that this type of software is typically expensive. A small price to pay however for excellence.

***Running Windows on a MAC*** – There are times that, in the business world, I run across tasks that can only be accomplished with PC software (i.e. medical billing). My personal recommendation is VMware Fusion. Its has proven to be extremely stable while running both Windows XP and MAC OS X together. Several of my employees are using both operating systems in tandem on a daily business using VMware. Its worth a look.