The ADD Business Owner

Successful AD/HD Business Owners Aren't Panicking

In my book, Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD, I make a distinction between those adults with ADD who are happy and successful, and those who are not. I point out the 5 essential ADD management skills that the happy and successful ADDers have worked to build.

Lately, I've made a somewhat similar observation: The happy and successful business owners with ADD are not panicking in this economic slowdown.

Rather, these business owners recognize that:

1. The economy moves in cycles. It slows down, and it will pick up again.
2. A down economy presents different opportunities than we find in a thriving economy.
3. Leaders will emerge amid the turmoil. Now more than ever, your client and customer base need you to take a leadership role and prove to them that you and your company have valuable contributions to offer.

Attention All Professionals in the ADD Field!

The Attention Deficit Disorder Association's 13th Annual Conference is scheduled for July 10-13 in Minneapolis!

If you're a professional in the field, such as a psychiatrist, therapist, coach, author, etc., and you have valuable information to share with the community, then please consider submitting a proposal to present at this year's conference.

The ADDA Conference Committee is specifically seeking proposals on the following topics:

•   Health and wellness
•     Medical management
•     Science and research
•     Basics of AD/HD assessment and treatment
•     Non AD/HD spouses
•     Families with multiple AD/HD members
•     Relationships
•     Career choices
•     Workplace strategies
•     College issues and educational strategies
•     Daily living skills
•     Money and time management
•     Organizational strategies
•     Women's and men's issues
•     Technology tools and tips
•     Coaching
•     National Awareness Day

The deadline for proposals is January 14. More info can be found here.

And if you're not a professional in the field, then mark your calendar for July 10-13! The Annual ADDA Conferences are educational, inspirational, and FUN! I hope to see many of you there.

It's All Business at Kid Nation

I've admitted it many times before and I suppose I need to preface this post by saying that yes, I am a reality TV junkie. And even though reality TV has been losing it's steam, there are still a few good shows that are alive and kicking. Kid Nation is one of them.

The premise of Kid Nation is pretty simple: put a bunch of kids with different ages and backgrounds into their own little old-west-style town, and watch how they live and get along with minimal adult intervention. It's kind of Survivor meets Little House on the Prairie.

The kids compete each week for their class status: upper class, merchants, cooks, and labororers. Each class, of course, is paid based on their status in the society. I particularly enjoyed this week's episode because some of the kids got tired of not having enough money, and spontaneously decided to start their own businesses.

Divad opened up a snack bar and cooked some goodies that she then sold for extra cash. Although she was a smart little cookie and I admire her spirit, she did make one mistake. She thought she deserved the "gold star" for her work, a reward given each week to one kid who the town council thinks is doing the most to keep Kid Nation running smoothly. David was working hard in her snack bar, but that's not exactly socialism--it's capitalism. You can't expect to get a prize for being the kid in town with the most money! Hopefully her skills will make her much more than $20K in the near future.

Jared was both annoyed and inspired by Divad's success, and decided to make some souvenir necklaces. They sold really quickly, and he made a bundle of money. Then he declared himself "The Bill Gates of Kid Nation" and proceded to buy himself a pimped out outfit in which he paraded around town. Seriously. He looked like an 11-year old pimp. I wish I had a screen shot. If I had to put money on  which of these kids has ADD, Jared would be first on my list.

Update: I have something better than a screen shot of the pimped out Jared--a video!

This Kid Nation episode reminded me of my own "entrepreneurial"  childhood. Every time I see a kid with a lemonade stand, I think to myself, I bet that kid has ADD! Just about every ADD business owner can relate. Most of us had entrepreneurial brains from the start, and tons of business ideas long before we were out of grade school.

Personally, I had some good ideas, and some not-so-good ones:

Good idea = Creating about 200 flyers for my babysitting services and putting them in every mailbox in my neighborhood. I was 13 and got 4 regular "clients" from that marketing campaign!

Not-so-good idea = Catching crickets in the back yard and setting up a sales stand at the end of the driveway. I was 8 and I really, truly thought that people on their evening walks would want to buy some crickets for their kids. For pets. Really. And not only that, but I was pissed when my neighbor suggested no one would buy them. (Ah, she was a bitch, anyway. Who deflates an 8-year-old's dream of cricket riches?)

What kind of business ideas did you have as a kid? Good ideas, not-so-good ideas, profitable ideas, or crazy ideas, let's hear 'em! Please post your stories in the comments field.

                                                                   

BIG NEWS: My New Book!

My long-awaited book, Odd One Out: The Maverick's Guide to Adult ADD, is coming out next month!

I've been working on the book for a long time now, and am so pleased that we're in the final stages of development and almost ready to begin selling it. The book is based on my ADD coaching model and teaches how to be happy and successful by breaking the rules.

We'll be announcing a pre-order sale this week. Stay tuned!

 

Everybody Just Wants to be Loved

As I write this, I am sipping my coffee and having the misfortune of watching President Bush give a news conference. There's nothing else on - he's taken over all the channels.

I'll try to hold back my bitter pissed-off-edness here and just connect his speech to business, but forgive me if some of the rage bleeds through.

Regarding Iraq, he just made a comment that he, as the president, just wants to be loved like everyone else. Well, it's nice to know what's guiding our President's decisions. But anyway...

This childish, ignorant, unbelievable and soooooooo un-presidential comment got me thinking about business owners who want to be loved.

The people that I look up to have always preached the idea that when you put yourself out there in business, not everyone will like you. In fact, a few of them will likely hate you as much as I hate President Bush.

But just like Bush hasn't allowed the mass hatred of millions of Americans - not to mention the rest of the globe - stop him from following his convictions, you shouldn't be slowed down by the occasional pissed off customer or scornful email.

My friend Chris Barrow calls these incidents "icicles in the heart." They hurt like hell at first, but they  do melt away.

ADD business owners, who are already highly sensitive to criticism, often let these comments and complaints kill their work day.  Think about it: it probably hasn't been too long since you spent a day ruminating over what someone thought about you.

For me, I get the occasional email that is e-yelling at me about how ADD Management Group services are overpriced and all we care about is making money. Not true, but still an icicle.

My favorite emails, however, are the ones that accuse me of being in bed with the drug companies and pushing their agenda. These emails just make me laugh, if only because the drug companies could care less about coaches who can't prescribe medicine. (And in actuality I don't hate the drug companies. Many of them actually do give a lot back to our community.)

The best way to deal with icicles is to feel the pain, and then move on. The worst way to deal with them is to remind people that you just want to be loved. In other words, whatever President Bush does, do the opposite.

How do you deal with criticism and complaints in your business? How do these experiences affect you? Please share your experiences in the comments field!

Office-wide Ban on Showtunes Announced

Erin has her own thoughts about working with me full time. Namely, she's concerned about the music that I play while I'm working.

This reminds me of the time we first discussed moving in together years ago. I wanted to have a serious conversation about the pros and cons of taking our relationship to the next level. She wanted to discuss getting new rugs.

Check out So I Married an ADDer to get Erin's take on our new working arrangement...

                        

AMG Has a New Operations Director

I have an exciting announcement today:

My (life) partner Erin will be joining the ADD Management Group full time in exactly 1 week.

We've been waiting for this day for a long time. Erin quit her corporate job today and gave  a week's notice. She was actually going to stay longer to see the company through a merger this summer, and she was going to give 2 weeks notice...

...but then she got her bonus for the fiscal year 2007. It was absolute crap. Not to mention that her "big raise" was played up and what was played down was the fact that if she stayed on through the merger, she'd be working more hours and not getting overtime. That means a lower hourly wage despite a raise.

(Why do big companies do that? Do they think people are stupid and won't realize that they are losing out in the deal?)

So Erin gave her resignation today and her boss understood. He's a nice guy and very supportive of her.

And while the bonus was insulting, it did give Erin a reason to quit early and come to work with me sooner. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, and in order to make this work we HAVE to increase the income from the business. Erin made a nice salary and had great health insurance that my company will now have to purchase. It's "sink or swim" at this point. But that's how I work best. I'm not worried.

Still, I do have one concern, and that's working together, in our home, day in and day out. Although we have our own separate offices and will no doubt work at different times of the day, I still worry that we'll fight a lot and be completely sick of each other by the time the weekend comes.

I'd love to hear from all the ADDers out there who work with your spouse or partner. What are the ups and downs? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments field!

Give it Up for Donald Trump

Even though The Apprentice was canceled by NBC (because no one cares anymore) Donald Trump recently told Larry King:

NBC wants to do another season, a seventh season of The Apprentice... And, you know, I've had so much fun. It became the number one show on television. It's been terrific.

But, you know, the problem is NBC... there's such turmoil with the management... they took The Apprentice, which was really a powerful show, and they put it all over the place. They thought it was easily moved because it's so successful that it would, you know, easily follow.

And despite that, it did very well. It won the evening, as you know, recently on the finale.

But I'm so busy doing other things.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Mr. Trump.

I think it's time for The Donald to read The Dip.

Geek Squad: Slow Pokes, Slackers, Sleuths

When we moved from NYC to a very small town in a rural upstate county, we had major problems setting up the home office and creating a network for our computers.  After a lot of aggravation, we decided to just spend the money to have Geek Squad take care of it.

I was a fan of Geek Squad. I love the idea - mobile (or in-store) tech support. What a fantastic business idea! I also love their brand - techie "geeks" who wear geeky uniforms and drive geeky, little black and white VW bugs. Awesome.

However, when we called Geek Squad, we spoke with a rep who was anything but techie, and not very friendly, either. And despite advertising fast service, we were told it would take SIX WEEKS for an appointment with a Geek Squad tech! An "emergency" appointment would be available within the week, but it would cost DOUBLE.  Screw that! The experience really turned me off to Geek Squad.

Now, as if that wasn't bad enough, Geek Squad has recently come under fire for their questionable ethics.

Occasionally The Consumerist runs a "confession" from a former employee who spills the beans about her or his previous company. This post in which a former Geek Squad employee told all caused quite a stir:

"Highlights:

• Wave a magic erase and reinstall wand over a used PC. SHAZAM! Now it's a new PC!

• Geek Squad agents scour your computer for those porn pics you and your girlfriend(s) took, and load it onto their thumb drives. Even the ones you thought you deleted.

• GS used to be great, until they replaced most of the actual techs with salesmen."

WOW. The point of the story is very clear. If you have technology problems in your business, DO NOT USE GEEK SQUAD!

David Neeleman: The Fall of an ADD Role Model

Unfortunately, our favorite ADD business person, JetBlue Founder David Neeleman, was fired from his job as CEO of the company and shifted to a "more strategic role."

From The Consumerist:

The move comes after an embarrassing service meltdown that on Valentine's Day that exposed JetBlue's inability to cope with weather disruptions. A flood of negative PR followed, leading David to publicly apologize for the incident approximately 800 times. We guess it wasn't enough.

How much does that suck?

If a company founder can get demoted, remind me never to take the ADD Management Group public.

David Neeleman got a bad rap here and I've been annoyed about it for months. JetBlue is not the only airline to ever keep passengers stranded on the tarmac. And it certainly wasn't the only airline with troubles during that big storm. And what about the NY airports where all the trouble happened? I fly out of those NY airports and, believe me, they are as much to blame as the airlines.

I really think that David Neeleman publicly apologizing for the trouble was a great move. It showed compassion and genuine concern for customers. The company took responsibility for its errors and vowed to fix them. How can that be a bad thing?

This was JetBlue's first PR debacle and I thought it was handled very well. I'm very disappointed about the fall of David Neeleman.

Your thoughts?