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Saturday, March 11, 2006


This week's featured woman entrepreneur is Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners. (Durham, NH), a firm dedicated to ensuring that public information and public affairs professionals around the world have the information and knowledge they need to measure the success of their efforts.

about KDPaine & Partners
KDPaine & Partners is a firm dedicated to ensuring that public information and public affairs professionals around the world have the information and knowledge they need to measure the success of their efforts. Through its consulting and publishing services, KDPaine & Partners provides clients with the insight and knowledge they need to not just measure the effectiveness of their communications efforts, but to help them make better, more informed decisions for their organizations. Their latest software product, DIY Dashboard, provides an easy, inexpensive way for organizations to measure the effectiveness of their PR efforts.

Katie's Top 10 Tips


1. Have a better reason than -- I'm tired of wearing panty hose and high heels, and want to spend more time at the beach, so I think I'll start a business.
Starting companies is very similar to starting a family, there's never a good time to start -- or rather you can always find a good excuse to put it off. And conversely, if you're an incurable entrepreneur, you can always find a good excuse to do it today. A month before I was scheduled to take a five-week trip to Australia, with no nest egg and no business plan, I quit my job and announced I was starting a company. In general, a little more advanced planning is recommended.

2. Look at your life patterns before taking on a partner.
If you're an only child, divorced and, have never gotten along with a roommate -- partners are not a good idea. I was all three, and learned the hard way that if you've had trouble making relationships work -- business partners are even harder because there's money involved. I not only tried the partner routine, but also brought in good friends. Most of them no longer speak to me. If you have to have a partner, you might want make sure one or the other of you have a good therapist.

3. Be sure you have enough capital and plan for creative financing.
It helps to have enough money in the bank to survive for at least a year. I had enough to buy a computer and a printer. If you don't there's a four-step program for serial entrepreneurs:

Step 1: Beg until your family is sick of you. They'll give you money to go away.
Step 2: Pull the gender card. The SBA has quotas it need to fill for loans to women and minorities.
Step 3: Invite your banker to your parties. I went to a bank that was known for its good attitude towards women and convinced them that my clients were blue chip companies, and I'd be able to pay my bills. They didn't have a clue what I did but that didn't seem to matter. I then invited my banker to all my parties; we've been working together for ten years thru four different mergers and three different banks. He still gives me money when I need it.
Step 4: Be really, really creative. So what's wrong with charging all your long-distance calls on my father's AT&T card? Nothing, as long as you pay it off before he finds out.

4. Don't rely on your friends to give you business.
One reason it took so much longer than I expected to get the business off the ground, was that I just assumed that with my connections I could generate business right away. I'd made a promise to myself in February, that if I had a client by April that would be a sign that the business was viable. I did. A major Public Relations Agency. I was ecstatic and immediately borrowed some money, ordered letterhead, did a major mailing and thought I was in business. I never guessed it would take 120 days to get paid and that it would be the only business I got for another six months. By that time the mortgage was three months late, my friends were getting a bit tired of seeing me show up at meal times, and I'd spent the $700 three times over in marketing materials and promotional efforts.

5. Don't get sidetracked out of desperation.
A local advertising agency was looking to expand its PR offerings. After staring at my stack of bills for awhile, I beat down all those gut instincts that said stick it out, and took the job as Director of their agency's Public Relations Group -- although I refused to be put on their payroll and operated as an independent consultant. The job required my attention for at least eight hours a day. So I worked at the agency until six or so and then worked to serve my own clients from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. The logical flaw in my putting my best, most productive time into someone else's clients didn't occur to me till it was too late. The agency shut its doors, and I was saddled with PR clients and a whole host of clients and personnel that had nothing to do with my business expertise.

6. Don't let someone who hasn't balanced a check book since Nixon was in office write a business plan.
I wanted to work no more than 35 hours a week and figured I'd need $30,000 a year to live. So $65 an hour seemed about right. That was my entire pricing model and business plan for the first two years. Needless to say, I spent most of those first two years very poor. I finally broke down and asked my ex-husband for help, since he was the one who'd been balancing my check book for the prior decade and he'd developed the original pricing model for Hewlett Packard's Services Division. I figured he might be better at it than I was. I've been profitable ever since.

7. Try not to take the "Huck Finn" approach to hiring.
A friend of mine once told me that I didn't really want to work for a living, I just wanted to surround myself with friends and do stuff. And that's what I did at first. My initial hiring strategy was I'd find someone who I liked, and say "You're nice, want to work for me?" I can't pay you but, want to have a really fun time and grow a company together? But then I wanted them to actually do something...and they didn't or couldn't and I had a very hard time managing them. I still occasionally hire friends, but I never, ever have them report to me. The other challenge when you're small is figuring out how you're to reward people for their efforts -- and the more Herculean the efforts, the harder it is to define the reward, especially when there's no money.

8. Stop giving everyone a 22nd chance.
Most small businesses are like families, and the process of getting a "divorce" from a partner or key player is remarkably similar. Since I've gone thru both personal and business divorces I can tell you that the wrong way is to try to make it easy on everyone. Giving someone a second chance is fine. Giving them a 22nd chance is not. All you're doing is prolonging a bad situation. Evaluate everyone based on a simple premise: can they or will they be successful in your company. If the answer is no, get rid of them sooner rather than later.

9. You don't have to do it all.
I began my business with the ultimate "supermom" syndrome and it was a recipe for disaster as well as exhaustion. Repeat after me: Fire the bad apples. Hire good people. Delegate, Delagate, Delegate.

10. But when the time comes, you also don't have to hire a president fresh from a Fortune 500 company.
My biggest mistake was thinking that someone from a Fortune 500 company could run my company better than I could. The person I hired was better suited for secretaries and a sixty page policies and procedures manual -- and they didn't know what it took to keep cash flow coming in. My personal passion and experience served my business better.


Katie's Favorite Marketing Tools

- Google Ad Words (search engine marketing)
- Speakers programs/conferences and seminars (we created the Measurement Summit)
- Blogging


Contact Information

Contact Information:
Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO
KDPaine & Partners, LLC
www.measuresofsuccess.com
http://kdpaine.blogs.com
603-868-1550

A big thanks to Katie for her wise words.


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