I’ll take you back to my IncentOne days. We created technology that would allow companies to administer all of their reward and incentive programs in one place and to off er every type of reward, including cash and gift certificates. Our solution resonated in the corporate market. Customers liked letting their employees and salespeople select the gift cards of their choice or cash, as opposed to travel or merchandise. They also liked having a single technology platform to run it all. We knew we had arrived when we beat the 800-pound gorilla:

NBC was a multimillion-dollar opportunity. They had incentive programs all over the country. We had been selected as one of two finalists in their vendor selection process. We were going head to head with the largest company in the incentive industry. The day before our finalist presentation, I learned that our competitor was not only bringing twenty people to the meeting, but that one of their senior leaders used to be golfing buddies with the president of an NBC division. We had a total of ten employees at the time. On the day of our four-hour finalist presentation, my head of IT told me that he needed to monitor our platform very closely throughout the demonstration of our product. When I asked him why, he said it was probably better if I didn’t know. Since he was going to be on the phone, we agreed that if he needed to send me a message, he would chime in to the conversation and use a specific word as a clue. We had to pick a word that was distinct enough that I would notice, but common enough that it made sense in the conversation. After passing on ridiculous things like “blue horseshoe loves Endicott Steel” (from the movie Wall Street) and “life is like a box of chocolates” (from the movie Forrest Gump), we decided on “universal.” Our platform was designed to be a “universal” solution for all of NBC’s incentive programs.

The plan was that if I said the word “universal” it was because our demo platform was freezing and I would have to stall to give him about three minutes to do something on the platform. What we didn’t realize was that NBC had just finalized a deal to acquire “Universal Pictures” and to create a new division called “NBC Universal.”

Our competitor had the morning session and we had the afternoon session. There were about ten NBC people in the room and another twenty on the phone from divisions around the country. Our presentation went perfectly. Our solution made sense, the attendees were engaged, and there was a good amount of joking around. Everything lined up with what NBC needed. Then we did our demonstration. Things were going perfectly. But during our demonstration, some of the people from NBC Universal started to ask questions. Both my head of IT and I heard the word “universal.” I was afraid that my head of IT was going to start tinkering with the platform even though it was fine.

I pretended that I didn’t hear her question and asked her to repeat where she was from. I stopped her and asked what NBC Universal was, since we had not seen that name as one of the divisions that had sat in the many meetings during this process. I was stalling. I also asked her a couple of follow-up questions that took her about five minutes to get through. As she was answering, I jotted a note on the notebook of one of my colleagues to tell our head of IT that everything was fine and that the new word was “China.” It was the first thing that came to mind. Then I thought, doesn’t NBC do business in China?

We made it through without an incident. At the end of the presentation, NBC told us that it would take a week or so for them to cull through the scoring of both vendors. We got a call the next day and the head of benefits called to tell me we had been selected the winner. I thought of calling our team into my office when he called, but I was afraid that he would hear us cheering in the background. I hung up, asked everyone to go into the conference room and walked in with a big frown on my face. I paused and said, “NBC picked us. We beat the 800-pound gorilla!”

“Being an entrepreneur is not a job, it’s an identity.” 

You can’t make this stuff up. We have to embrace the journey of being an entrepreneur and the process of entreprenuership, use our creativity to think differently and remember that being an entrepreneur is not a job, it’s an identity.