Adrie's Blog

What a Week...

When networking is your core business it is obvious that you will meet a lot of special people. This week was marked by the great diversity of people I met, both in Europe as well as in the US. My first meeting in the US was with Marc - Norwegian by origin but now an American living in San Diego and with whom we are working to get financing for a real estate fund. I had brought him in contact successfully earlier with an investor for a Euro 250 million real-estate deal.

On Fridy I had the pleasure to meet a very special, colourful person - Jewett - in Athens, Georgia. Jewett has made it big and is well-known for being a trader in property, He is Kenny Rodgers neighbour and friend of the Stones' drummer, has been all over the place, seen everything and has a huge sense of humour. This kind of person gives life colour - you leave a meeting with more energy then you brought into it rather then those meetings that seem to drain you of all energy you had (which is the case with many people unfortunately). In the south of the US, they talk more in a sing-song rhythm, and more slowly and Kenny is no exception, but the brains work twice as fast as those of other people.

Earlier that day I met Gwen, who runs an organisation called HR Now and who knows everything there is to know about minority business and compliance - finally someone I could ask how that works exactly with a minority business, highly educational.

Like I described in detail in my book the N Factor, I always seem to connect with people when I am flying - this time was no different. Both flights I ended up speaking to people that could be very useful one way or the other for E.Factor members - one being a highly ranked office of a Japanese consumer goods distributor and the other with a founder of a software company dealing with procurement.

Something else that I had confirmed yet again - and something I point out every single day, is the sense of urgency that exists - or mostly does not exist - with people. I had a potentially serious investor which I introduced to two young IT companies as I knew they were looking for money to finance their expansion. Both entrepreneurs (or are they?) told the investor they were on holiday and would only be able to get back to him early september - no call was made, no information was sent, nothing at all to show that they were seriously interested in the relationship. In the meantime the investor has done two acquisitions and told both IT companies that he would not pursue it any further. In business, there is nothing like a free ride - you have to hunt it down like a terrier and once you get your teeth into it, you just don't let go.

These were just a few days from the life of an entrepreneur.