I used to inadvertently frustrate other people with my verbosity.

A client would ask me a question, and I would give them a 10 sentence background, because I assumed this would be helpful.

“Why do I have 3 printers when there are only 6 staff?” was a question posed to me on my first office setup project by the country manager.

I immediately launched into a technical description of the features of the printers.  A cliche but common mistake.

What I failed to realise back then, is distilled to it’s most base level, he is simply asking “Are you wasting my money here?”

A perfect, succinct response would have been :

“The fax/copier/printer/scanner is for faxing and scanning.  Otherwise, it becomes a dangerous single point of failure. The black and white is for daily printing since it’s cheaper than colour. These printers also support your staff growth forecasts.”

He would have nodded his head, and walked away satisfied about his investment, and feeling better about me as a consultant.

Instead, I was half-way through a long explanation about something he didn’t care about, and my monologue was not addressing his core concern.

After enduring a few roastings, my sense of self-preservation set-in, and I began actively seeking to respond to the core issue.   This improved my relationship with my clients, and built trust since I was communicating directly to their questions or concerns.

The most gifted communicators I’ve seen over the years are masters of this.  There is an incredible amount of power in being able to process a large amount of information, and being able to succinctly communicate complex concepts in a simple fashion.

I had a tendency built up over years in IT to make the point fuzzier to try to cover every possible scenario.  This wall of ‘fuzzy’ can give you a buffer of error.  It’s comforting, but it’s a safety blanket barrier between you and the point.

Client : “Will this USB drive be compatible with my 4 year old Dell computer?”

X “Well, most of the time USB drives use a standard set of drivers, so even without drivers you should be able to use it.  If you try to plug it in and you get an error, there might be a problem with the drive. Or maybe, you might be using an older operating system, which might not have drivers for that drive.  If theres an error, I recommend checking the manufacture website to see if you can download suitable drivers.”

O “Yes.”

Client : “Are you able to provide project management services?”

X “Well, it depends on the type of project.  We don’t do much software project management, of course, but we’ve got much more experience in doing things like IT infrastructure projects, or server projects.  We’re pretty skilled at most kinds of projects for a wide range of company sizes.  We can manage general office IT projects.”

O “We’re experts on IT infrastructure and new office and office move projects.”

Throw away the fuzziness.

Harness the power of simple and direct communication. Don’t make people wait through a speech.  Get to the point first.

We’re offering a new Email Hosting service at Webnet IT.

For more details on the benefits, check our Email Hosting page.  For pricing information, check the new Hosted Email in Japan page.

We hope you can take advantage of our new service.

I can’t think of a single more important thing I’ve done over the past several years than finding excellent mentors.  With their guidance and help, I’ve managed to change Webnet IT from just me running around Tokyo, to a bustling team of bilingual IT professionals servicing companies Japan-wide. Without their help, this would have been either much more difficult, or maybe even impossible.

In this post, I’d like to briefly discuss how to find mentors, how to keep them, and how to give back to them.

If you’re setting up a new business, or starting a new project, the amount of new skills to learn are seemingly endless. All of the problems you’ll encounter are new, and you’ll often find yourself completely lost and confused. Something as common as creating and negotiating your first contract, or hiring your first employee can seem like huge and insurmountable obstacles.

To give you some perspective; you can spend hours, days or weeks trying to figure out what to do in a situation, and you’ll still make mistakes.  Someone with the right experience could identify the correct strategy within 5 minutes. At these times, it can be invaluable to have a mentor to ask for advice.

The Mentor ‘Profile’

The first step is to understand the typical mentor profile.

Anyone who has the experience and knowledge to be your mentor will likely be very, very busy. They will likely be running a company (or several), or be working in a senior position. There will already be a number of people clawing for their time, and they’re going to be naturally suspicious of people asking for meetings.

You’re going to be asking them to take time away from their business to help you.  This time is worth money to your mentor.

Most successful people in business are natural problem solvers.  Much like you probably do, they love to take apart a problem, analyse it, and solve it.

It’s very rewarding for a mentor to help someone who is self-motivated, and who is doing their best to accomplish an objective.  It’s even more rewarding for a mentor when that person goes away, implements a solution suggested by them, and returns and shares the story of the successful result.

With this in mind, here is a complete guide for interacting with your mentor.

The 10 Step Guide For Getting and Keeping Mentors

1. Contact your mentor with the utmost respect for their time. All communication should be succinct, open and honest. It’s important to be friendly, but above all else strike a tone of politeness and respect.
2. To engage with your mentor and receive relevant advice, it’s important that you are trying to achieve a specific goal, and that you’re able to communicate this goal.
   • Take full personal responsibility for the completion of this goal. Make it clear that whether your mentor is available to help or not, you’ll figure it out. This takes away pressure or obligation from your mentor.
   • This goal could be as simple as “Trying to hire an employee”, or “Trying to win this new deal”.
3. Present your situation in such a way that your problem is clear and easy to understand.  Make it very clear that you do not expect them to do your work for you. A good way to do this is to present them with a thought-out possible solution to your problem.
4. Ask for advice.
5. Once they start talking, take notes.  This improves recall, creates a record, and demonstrates respect.
6. Thank your mentor at least twice – in person and by email.
7. Follow the advice as closely as possible.  Even if it’s difficult, and especially if it’s not what you would normally do.
8. Report back the results to your mentor.
   • If it didn’t go well, take full personal responsibility, and thank them for their time and help.
   • If it did go well, wherever appropriate, attribute full credit to your mentor, and thank them for their time and help.
9. Send a gift in order to show your appreciation.
   • If you’re just starting out, it’s likely that you won’t have anything to offer your mentor in return for years. At the very least, send some chocolates.
   • Of course, most mentors do not provide advice for direct return.  Your growth and development is reward enough.  The gift/chocolates are simply a sign of your gratitude.
   • Bonus points if you can send a gift in direct relation something they said, or something they can give a member of their family.
10. Look for any kind of opportunity to help your mentor in turn.
    • Find ways to introduce them to customers, or look for ways to provide them with free products or services.

When I get a chance, I’ll create another article with some example conversations and meetings demonstrating these principles.

I hope this is helpful and you make plenty of great new relationships.  Thanks for reading. Let me know how you go at jason@webnet-it.co.jp.

A few months ago, a poster on a website I frequent posted a request for mentors and advisors for one of his projects.

I responded and made myself available as an advisor. I still have plenty to learn, but many people have provided me with advice and mentorship over the years, so I’m always happy for an opportunity to pay it forward by returning the favour. I received a reply thanking me for my offer to help, and promising future updates.

A few days later, I received a message sent out to 10 people, saying “Here is a status report, I’d appreciate some comments on…”

I browsed through the site and email briefly, and clicked close. He’s got a whole bunch of people on his list, I thought. He doesn’t really need my assistance, and besides I’ve got plenty of things to be doing.

For better or worse, I simply didn’t feel motivated to reply and provide assistance when the requestor is not making a personal connection to me.

I hadn’t paid much attention to the above thought process until I received an email from a good friend of mine who I have known for years. He’s very smart, and a very technically orientated person.

“Hey guys, I need help moving….”

The email was addressed to himself, and I assume theres a bunch of people in the BCC field.

I would normally reply immediately If the message was addressed to me, but even for a close friend, I feel far less inclined to reply if I’m a face in a crowd of BCC’d people.

When written out, this concept seems very straightforward. However I’ve personally made this mistake a number of times, observed it many times, and based on these two recent examples, there are likely many people out mass-emailing themselves out of assistance.

A couple of days ago, the original poster requesting mentors recently sent me a personal email requesting my advice. I replied with a page of comments and thoughts, which prompted me to write this post.

Mass contact may be the most efficient way to communicate to a group of people, but personal contact and establishing a personal dialogue is hands down the most efficient way to receive replies and assistance from people who are happy to help you.

I’m putting together a new service called : Webnet IT Home Support. We’re experienced with businesses, but providing home services is a new field for us. I’d like to get your feedback so I can create a truly useful and beneficial service for the Tokyo expatriate community.

This IT support could be as simple as “I need some help setting up my internet connection”, “My PC is really slow lately” or “My PC doesn’t work more, and I need to retrieve my files.” We could provide this support remotely, or at your house.

I’d like to provide anyone who responds with comments one free hour of IT service. So if this kind of service might be useful to you, I would be very grateful if you could give me some ideas on the following :

• Pricing that would make sense
• Services that would be useful for you
• Any situation where you had a great experience with this kind of home IT support, in Japan or anywhere else

I can be directly reached for comments and feedback at jason@webnet-it.co.jp

Thank you very much for your time reading this post, and I hope to hear from you.

I’ve been using it for several weeks now, and I’m really enjoying it. Definitely a worthwhile operating system. It even manages to redeem Microsoft after Vista.

The Offer
In one sentence, I’m looking for someone to work with me to build a Software as a Service business in Japan.  I’m experienced at IT sales, running a business and managing people.  I have a large network of contacts in Japan, and Webnet IT has a large ‘built-in’ active customer base that are interested in software that provides value to their operations.  Webnet IT is still my main operation, however I plan to spend a large portion of my time on this project once I find the right technical partner.

Here are some basic guidelines that are important to me :

• Skill Sets.   I am not a coder.  I have plenty of experience on the IT infrastructure side, and I’ve been running an IT business for 7 years, but I have no coding skills beyond basic scripts, basic PHP/MySQL and HTML.  I’m hoping to find someone who is passionate about coding, and has either the experience in creating SaaS systems, or the periphery experience and the ambition and ability to create this level of application.
• The Idea.  I have a number of ideas based on my experience, software I’ve developed and our customers requirements, but I’m open to discussion.  I see this as something we’d work on together.
• Personality and Capability.  I imagine we’ll be spending a lot of time working together, and as a result, personality and attitude (and a sense of humour!) are paramount.  This goes both ways – you need to be comfortable and happy working with me.  I don’t really mind about your background.  I don’t place too much stock in degrees and certificates.  I’d be much more interested to hear about your personal software projects, your personal wins and your work experiences.
• Compensation. I’m open to ideas on compensation structures. If we get as far as discussing compensation, we can work out a fair and reasonable structure based on who you are, what you want, and what you can contribute.  Naturally, “I want a large base and no revenue sharing or company percentages” is a very different conversation from “Give me a place to sleep and X% of the company”.
• How we work together.  I imagine that at the start, we’ll discuss our ideas over Skype.  I’ll show you examples of the software I’ve designed and developed, you’ll do the same for me.  We’ll put together a basic arrangement, and we’ll do a couple of small projects to get an understanding of how we both work.  When this goes well, we’ll see if we can agree on a basic product road-map.  If this goes well, we’ll put together a plan to launch, detailing responsibilities and milestones.  By this stage, we should have an agreement in place.  Work begins.  Within a few months, we’ll need to be spending a good amount of time working together.  As such, I’d like for you to be willing, happy and able to move to Japan.  As we get busier and as we acquire customers, I’d be hiring more developers and support staff, most likely working under you.

Bio
Like any relationship, or perhaps even more so, the co-founder/partner type relationship is based on trust and understanding.  As such, here is a brief biography to give you an understanding of who I am.

My name is Jason Winder, I’m Australian, I’ve been living in Japan for 8 years, and I run a business named Webnet IT that provides IT services to foreign companies in Japan.

Introduction I was lucky enough to get a 2nd hand clunker computer when I was a kid.  For the technically curious, it was a x8086 with a green TV as a monitor, two 5.25 floppy drives, no hard disk and about 128K memory.  I grew up breaking, fixing and learning from this computer. From the experience gained from this PC over the years, I landed a job working for a large company out of high school.  I then found work at a smaller company in Australia, then I moved to Japan.  I worked for various IT companies for a couple of years, then I started my own company, Webnet IT.

Webnet IT I didn’t go to university, but I love learning.  I started from a blank slate in regards to entrepreneurship.  I’ve built up a consulting business by learning incrementally about business, sales and marketing.  During this process, I designed software and systems that automate mundane tasks, and assist us doing things like generating quotes, invoices, sharing information with our customers, and many other things. Through this process, I’ve discovered I have a passion for developing software that helps people perform complex tasks both simply and efficiently.  I’d like to build on this and develop some useful software to sell to people.

Side note My main PC these days is an Apple 15″ MacBook Pro. I built my home PC myself, it’s an Intel Core2Duo 3.06GHz running Windows 7 with 2×24″ monitors.

You Would Be Responsible For
Based on my experience and research:

• The technical and architectural infrastructure
• Initially all coding.  Eventually managing a small team of coders.
• Brainstorming ideas, and creating a product roadmap with me.
• Creation of the product.

I Would Be Responsible For

• Sales
  • Leads
  • Negotiation
  • Closing Deals
• Marketing
  • Market identification
  • Market research
  • Message
• Funding
• General hiring and management
• Accounting
• Brainstorming ideas, and creating a product roadmap with you.
• Assisting in creating the product.

I imagine these responsibilities will evolve over time, however I think it’s important to do some initial general planning on expectations and responsibilities.

If this describes you and your situation, or if you have any comments or thoughts, I would be very happy to hear from you.  Please contact me directly at jason@webnet-it.co.jp.

Thanks for your time reading this.

Jason

tl;dr 95%Biz/5%Tech guy looking for a Tech guy. btw Japan.

I’m endlessly amused by my little Nike+ Avatar at http://blog.webnet-it.co.jp/about, which has been digitally chiding me for not going for runs. Here are a sample of quotes :

• I’ve turned into a couch potato! I need to run.
• (While idly playing paddleball) I’d trade these paddleball skills for a run any day.
• (While idly playing paddleball) If only I practise running like I practice paddleball.
• All this lack of running is making me sluggish.
• …. and more !

I’m tempted to not go for a run for another few weeks, just to see what he says !