Photo Credit to Danoots
While at the Entrepreneurial Summit at Radford University in October, I had the chance to meet a group of amazing entrepreneurs who are Radford alum. I also got the opportunity to have dinner with a few of them. As things got going and people started talking, of the people at the table made a comment about having older people as a mentor or on your Board of Advisers. As talk went on, many of the people at the table, some entrepreneurs and some professors continued to go back to this point about having older business people as mentors and providing insight into problems you might not foresee. Now, to me, getting advice from someone older and more experienced in the field or industry that you are in just seemed like the most obvious thing you could do. Whether you needed help, assistance, advice, or just wanted to chat – an older business person who has been through the rungs and been successful (or not) will continue to be a great influence and adviser to you. Listen to what they have to say and their advice will come in handy.
So, anyway…back to the point of the post. One of the people at the table was John Signorello who is the Chairman and CEO of a company called IceWeb which deals in mostly online data storage. At 40 years old, John is the youngest on his companies Board. Anyway, back to the point, again.
John told a story about why he likes having older people or ‘the grey hairs’ on his B.O.A. Now, without actually meeting John, you will have to believe me when I say that he is a very outgoing and charismatic person. Some might even say a little crazy. So one of his board members said to him “John, when are you going to land the plane?” and then continued with something to the effect of how he was great at the business and the marketing and how he is full of ideas, energetic, and excited, yet the plane hasn’t landed.
I absofuckinglutely love this. ‘Land the plane’ is probably one of the simplest lines I have heard in a long time about getting business done and it can be so universal. Land the plan could refer to the next staff meeting you have, the next cold call you make, the next presentation you make to a VC, or over the next week, month, 6 months, or a year. Landing the plane also goes for anything outside of business like your school work or education, the project your working on, the research you have been putting off. ANYTHING that you are working on can be LANDED. It’s just a matter of stopping the bullshit, grabbing the wheel, and landing the plane!
When are you going to land your plane? Now is the time, stop waiting around for someone to guide you in, do it yourself!
For me, it’s not about landing the freaking plane – it was about TAKING OFF!! I was so bogged DOWN with features, research, development and various other topics, I was scared to LAUNCH the site! Though, I get the point of the article and agree, it’s important to get something out there, get traffic, reputation, press, and build ontop of yourself.