Overview
From a very serious corporate career in marketing to creating a business based on fun RedBalloon, this is my journey. In this blog I share what it takes to be an entrepreneur and what I have learned - warts and all. I am also the author of I want what she is having which chronicles the first five years of building of a fast growing business.
Very proud to be awarded National Telstra Business Womens Award for 2008 in the Nokia Innovation Catogory
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My presentations to company events are not listed because those engagements are not open to the public. Contact Kate on +61 2 8755 0034 for more details on speaking.
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- Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today... African Proverb about 1 hour ago from Echofon
- New post: Teaching an Old Dog new tricks. http://naomisimson.com/2010/03/12/teaching-an-old-dog-new-tricks/ about 5 hours ago from Twitter Tools
- New post: Good Old Fashioned Giggle http://naomisimson.com/2010/03/11/good-old-fashioned-giggle/ about 1 day ago from Twitter Tools
- 'You can employ men & hire hands to work for you.. But you must win their hearts to have them work with you.' #quote Tiorio about 1 day ago from Echofon
- 'Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.' #quote Dwight D. Eisenhower about 1 day ago from Echofon
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Which is more critical, the idea or the execution?
I was asked for a magazine interview whether the idea or execution were more important.- It is execution everytime.
I have a personal motto 'If it's meant to be it's up to me.' This does not mean that I have to do all the work but it does mean that I have to stay focused on the out come and never ever, ever give up until it get's done.
At RedBalloon we have hundreds of ideas 'daily' we could do this, or that – but success has come through absolute focus. An idea is useless without delivery… execution is everything. We recently had a full day off site which we called the 'white space day' because we were working on ideas for dramatic growth in 2011. That day would be a complete waste of time and resources unless a program of execution was also developed to support it.
The proof of course will be in the 2011 deliver of these projects - but knowing which investment and initiatives need to be undertaken now to get ready for those is the first step.
In the same article I was asked 'Is it better to be passionate or objective?'
One word that I hear regularly from people is 'she is so amazingly passionate'. Even in a one minute conversation with someone, they will often comment 'you clearly love what you do'. Passion cannot be manufactured – it comes from having a clear purpose and seeing the results of what you're doing. But passion is not enough a great team to be objective is important. I am fortunate to have surrounded myself with great people at RedBalloon who can take an objective view of the world. This offers a great balance. People who will keep you focused and look at all the various outcomes of a given idea. I definitely would never want to be a leader - such as the emperor with new clothes where no one gave him and objective opinion about what he was really doing.
Passion is infections, which needs to be supported by objectivity so that one does not get lost on a tangent.