Bikram Yoga, for those not familiar with forms of water torture, is a series of 26 yoga positions performed in a room heated to over 140 degrees F with extreme humidity. I’m sitting in our office in Delray Beach, Fl, guzzling a vat of blueberry and kelp iced tea and wondering why oh why would anyone choose to start their working day with a process that’s used for drying fruit? Ah, well, when in Rome….
Today we begin a series of strategy meetings on how best to target the Florida and south eastern states. We’ve been skyping, blogging and running virtual task and finish groups between the UK and US teams for the last fifteen days. The ideas, experience and enthusiasm traded across the pond have blown me away. We now have ‘e-sphere - global learning solutions’, our Anglo-American company, fully set up, UKTI are standing by with an OMIS, we’ve agreed our research and marketing budgets for launch and the US government has just announced another $500 million fiscal stimulus for energy – one of our target markets. So life in the Sunshine State feels pretty good.
Our company has always thrived on collaborative working and we actively seek out potential partners wherever we can. Of course, not all partnerships are as formal as setting up a joint company together. Sometimes we work with an organization on a single project where there’s mutual benefit. Partners come in all sizes, hues and packages. From suppliers and distributors to shareholders and clients, “multi-hued collaboration is the new black”.
There are formal ways to find international business partners, suppliers, agents and distributors and an International Trade Advisor can certainly help with that. And then there’s the informal route….
I’ve known our two US partners for a number of years, (collectively known as “The Toms”). They’re a couple of New York boys who started their first business together when they were eighteen, breeding and training race horses. Now in their mid forties they trade gold and silver and run a number of financial education and management companies.
I first met Tom K on the tiny island of Bimini in the Bahamas whilst swimming with wild dolphins. Our fellow participants were in it for the health kick, so it was early nights and meditation at sunrise. Tom and I would sit at the end of the dock, in an open air shack masquerading as a bar, and trade entrepreneurial war stories over dark rum cocktails. So began an international friendship and business relationship.
I’ve sat on the board of “The Toms’” not for profit credit counseling corp. for the last three years, advising them on skills and education. In turn, Tom E, the financial wizard, has helped us find better ways to count beans. We’re all serial entrepreneurs, having run our own businesses since our twenties, multi-skilled and pretty fearless.
We always said, “if we could just find the right project at the right time…” and there it was, a confluence of events that provided the right technology, an international demand for skills and a global recession.
Our e-sphere global e-learning project is one of the most exciting ventures I have ever embarked upon and I love working on two continents. When the lawyers have done their work and the papers are filed away, what really matters is finding like minded entrepreneurs who compliment your skills and share your vision.
Not so much the yoga….
1 comment
Comment by Sue Faulkner posted on
You did good Sam!