FROM BATTLE TO BUSINESS
Tis is a time-intensive but necessary pro- cess, with no guarantees. Te process of managing a business is, in simple terms, a process of managing risks, Teamey said. Smaller startup companies can afford to tolerate more risk, whereas larger com- panies have more to lose—in terms of image, reputation, goodwill and brand— and tend to be more risk-averse. “If you’re in a small startup and you have two peo- ple and you crash and burn in a period of six months, that’s OK, because you just start another one.”
If he were a guest on the entrepreneur- ship reality show “Shark Tank” to get a business started, Teamey said he would emphasize the personal aspects of his plan more than the business presentation. “Te first thing to understand is that, at the end of the day, they’re buying you,” he said.
“Seventy percent of your communication is going to be nonverbal, so the way you look and speak and move can matter more than what you actually say.
“Te next thing they’re buying is your vision. And finally, the numbers and data related to the product and the market have to back up that vision.”
So, people skills are paramount, followed closely by communication skills. “You
have to be able to rapidly build trust and rapport with people you’ve never met, and you have to convey yourself as some- one they can trust, because you’re asking a stranger to give you money. Ten, in terms of the actual content, you want to be able to convey your story really well in about 30 seconds, two minutes max, and it has to be something that’s clear and concise and compelling.”
Even with the best people and communi- cation skills, every situation is different, Teamey said. “You could have a pitch that’s perfect for one person and it just falls completely flat with someone else. Tere’s a bit of a challenge there. You can’t be all things to all people, but you can come up with something that, if your grandmother can understand it, probably anyone can.”
Te nature of authority in the business world is different than in the military world, Teamey noted. “Tere is the abil- ity to exert authority within a chain of command and the ability to exert authority across a structure with peers,” Teamey said. “Te ability to influence people outside of the chain of command is definitely something you learn and develop, particularly in the staff orga- nizations. For example, if you have an
idea for the organization, you have to ask yourself, ‘How am I going to pitch that across the rest of the organization?’
“Tat requires salesmanship with your peers and superiors. I’d say there is a cer- tain amount of sales in many things we do” in uniform.
CONCLUSION Although salesmanship is highly impor- tant, the ultimate key to success, whether in business or as a member of the Army Reserve, is meeting the needs of the cus- tomers—or Soldiers. In battle as in the boardroom, leaders must create order from chaos while allowing and reward- ing initiative and creativity to accomplish the mission or attain goals.
Converting those principles into a suc- cessful business is a complex equation with which Teamey is now deeply famil- iar. “By leveraging military and civilian skills, training and experiences from both the private and public sectors, we may remain committed to the meeting the needs of our Soldiers in this time of scarce resources.”
For more information, go to http://
www.army.mil/article/66559/
and
http://www.army.mil/article/28700/ tigr-allows-soldiers-to-be-there-before- they-arrive/.
“You could say the job of a military officer is to create order out of chaos, and a startup company is chaos. It’s pure, unadulterated chaos. You have nothing but an idea, and you have to focus that into something that eventually creates tangible value.”
MAJ MAURICE G. PRITZ JR. is a public affairs officer for the Military Intelligence Readiness Command, Fort Belvoir, VA, as well as a USAR finance officer. He holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Wichita State University’s Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs and a B.S. from Wichita State. He also attained a graduate certificate in accounting from DeVry University’s Keller Graduate School of Management, and has completed Intermediate-Level Education.
92
Army AL&T Magazine
January-March 2016
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