The Canadian Centre for Entrepreneurship Studies was rolling in 1973 and on a suggestion from our guru, Professor Al Shapiro of Ohio State University, we organized the first international conference on Entrepreneurship Research. It would be a dry run for a huge conference planned for 1974 in Manilla.
A dozen authorities from around the world who were the planned key speakers for Manilla, all agreed to come to Toronto. Along with my colleagues from Ryerson, we prepared a two-day event designed to appeal to key people in academia and government. I personally borrowed $10K to help finance the upfront costs and determined we needed 100 participants to break even.
But as the conference drew near, we had only sold 60 tickets and I feared with my personal guarantee of our bank loan, I was going to lose my house. So once again I went to my father and told him my problem. What he did was put the agenda for the conference in one of his two-column ads in the Globe and Mail and as a result,we sold another 50 admissions. Saved again by my father.
I remember as if it was yesterday, Al Shapiro explaining the implications of his research in the United States that showed four of every five new ventures closing their doors after five years. No big surprise there. But, he explained, the majority of those who start the second investment are successful. And what was even more interesting was that the average entrepreneur starts six new ventures in his lifetime.
In thanking Al after his address, I said that from what Al has made clear from his research is that we can define successful entrepreneurs as ST/TSA =1 where ST stands for Scar Tissue and TSA stands for Total Skin Area.
The great benefit from the conference were those who attended, and that included about a dozen top academics from across Canada that all started similar Centres like ours over the next ten years. Another key group was about twenty director level officials concerned with development from the provinces and the federal government. All of these people became my key contacts and sources of strategic information. In effect, I had created a national guru and lobby network for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business without spending a penny of member dues.
Business leaders should always include academics and government officials in their networks. They see things from a different perspective and the overwhelming majority are publicly spirited. My personal network over the years were the Wilford L White Fellows of the International Council on Small Business, a world body of academics specializing in small business and entrepreneurship. Those with Fellowships were the best of the best.