Q&A with Gary Hoover

Jess Flynn over at Red Sky PR and primary author of the PR Musings Weblog has conducted a short Q&A with IdaVation Keynote Gary Hoover. If you haven’t registered yet, head over to the IdaVation site and sign up. You should at least show up for the breakfast or lunch keynote.

What are some of the key points attendees will take away from your session?

I will talk about the eight characteristics of successful enterprises and the people who build them. Hopefully I will motivate people to look for answers in new places and think in new ways.

What must Idaho offer to ensure the business climate is welcoming to entrepreneurs?

The primary thing is to get children and young people interested in and open to the power of entrepreneurship to improve people’s lives and to serve the public good. Key is finding local role models, entrepreneurs who have made the world a better place while creating jobs. Otherwise, even the future entrepreneurs now living in Idaho will pack up and move to places where they are more welcome. Having attorneys, bankers, and accountants who know their way around the entrepreneurial world and creating entrepreneurial support groups are also important. Of course low taxes and low regulation are important to entrepreneurs, but it often is not easy to differentiate your state or region from others in these regards. Ultimately a well-educated workforce, affordable housing, and other broad economic variables also play an important role.

What are some of the common missteps you see entrepreneurs making as they try to go from vision to innovation?

I fear that would fill a very fat book. Often being too narrow, being too focused on the short term or the immediate bottom line, not looking around or outside their home geography or outside their own industry for new ideas. And later in an enterprise’s evolution, most failure comes from success. Look at US Steel, Sears, and General Motors – they all got so successful that they thought they had all the answers. They ignored the Toyota’s of the world. This same kind of arrogance can even infect the neighborhood store or service business. You have to really want to be the best, you have to really work at it, all the time. There is no resting on your laurels. There is no “now we have it made.” You have to stay hungry.

You have to be obsessed with your customer. Everything else you do is secondary. Having a great team and learning how to share power and delegate would certainly be at the top of the list for failed entrepreneurs. At the same time, you have to know when NOT to delegate, when to go with your instinct and be the leader. It can be like walking a tightrope.

What must a mid-sized community like the Boise Valley do to compete at the same level with larger cities like Seattle, Portland and the Bay Area?

I do not know that you can compete with those big cities. There are plenty of people who would rather live and raise their families in a smaller community. People are leaving Southern California and Northern California every day because the cost of living is out of control, crime issues, etc. The fastest growing cities in the US are not usually the giant ones. Look at North Carolina, which had no really giant cities, but has really prospered. Charlotte is now pretty big, but that was not always the case, it used to be in Atlanta’s shadow. Smaller cities, especially those with colleges and universities, can offer big city cultural attractions, at least to some degree. And smaller cities often benefit by working with other cities in their region to build regional strength – again look at North Carolina, where the “research triangle” is not just one city, but a bunch of smaller cities who work together, market themselves together, etc. Each community must define what is really special about itself, make it clear what it is NOT, and then go long with the strengths it has. The same is true of every successful enterprise.

The Boise Valley is blessed with some of the most beautiful scenery and nicest weather in the United States, these are natural blessings that money cannot buy. Austin, where I live, talks all the time about the technology boom but let’s face it, the town would never have been the most dynamic in Texas were it not for our lakes and hills which were put here by Congress and the Creator, respectively. You take your strengths and make the most of them. Nobody down here talks much about the summer heat.

Any particular business you’ve helped go from vision to innovation that you would like to share as great success stories?

I have started three businesses and am now working on my 4th. It is always an adventure, never the same journey twice. I will touch on a few high points during my talk on Thursday morning.

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