Speed Freaks

If you're going to work fast, you don't have time to make bad choices. A string of smart decisions is why Heather Blease is thriving. Blease, 36, is the president of EnvisioNet, a company that provides Internet and technical support services for software companies. A former electrical engineer, she founded her firm in 1995, when many other entrepreneurs were just discovering the Internet. Today, Blease's company has a staff of 500, and 1999 sales should be around $8.5 million. All this, while raising three boys (they were all under age 4 when she began her business) with her husband, Dwight.

Blease always assumed her industry would change quickly, but "because of the Internet, it's faster-paced than I thought it would be," Blease says. "It's not a question of whether or not I keep up--it's about how to most effectively keep up."

Blease considers outsourcing portions of her business one of the smartest things she's done. She's outsourced everyone from CFOs to staff in payroll, recruiting, market research and strategy formation. "Getting the best advice is absolutely critical," says Blease. "There are so many times in a day when major decisions are made, and you need to make the right decisions all the time."

And what are some good decisions? Here are just a few:

• Put an "ottawara clause" in your contracts, especially if you're working with other newer, fast-paced businesses. "It's a Japanese concept," explains Blease, "and it's essentially an `economic harmonization' clause." An economic harma-what? "We agree as companies that if one or the other is way off in projections, and if it's materially hurting the other company, we'll sit down and renegotiate. It's very vague, but we're agreeing that we want to ensure ourselves a successful partnership, and if things are going south for one company or the other, or if things are going too quickly, we agree to come together and sort things out."

• Work with fast-paced, new and possibly lucrative companies, but anchor your alliances with the stable, more stodgy ones. The bigger, older firms may seem stuffy, but they'll pay you on time.

• Establish a relationship with your suppliers so you're not just a client, but more or less a partner. It's a smart move, according to McKenna, who says that having solid relationships with another big company is the hallmark of two of the speediest corporations in today's fast-paced, breakneck speed of business: Wal-Mart and Procter & Gamble.

• Educate your employees. It sounds obvious, but too many entrepreneurs aren't educated enough in the very business they're in, says Blease. Because so many people are jumping into businesses and learning as they go, they expect their employees to be able to operate as fast as they do. That's a sign of entrepreneurial inexperience, says Blease.

This article was originally published in the September 1999 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Speed Freaks.