Middle Market Deals and how to buy, sell and raise capital from $5 to $500 million

As I think about what it takes to be a Power Player, or without the alliteration, a successful entrepreneur or executive, I think there are some key things to keep in mind.

Great entrepreneurs and executives aren't always charismatic, good looking or particularly well spoken.  They don't all fit neatly on the cover of BusinessWeek.  Although I find a correlation between great education and success, it isn't the education that creates the talent.  The education, when it exists in an entrepreneur's resume, is a product of the same key trait that makes an entrepreneur great.

The trait can be described in lots of ways, but I think the number one thing is a results orientation.  Entrepreneurs get stuff done.  When an entrepreneur is missing from the office you can tell.  Things move more slowly.  The focus shifts from action to analysis.  The real entrepreneur is a self starter who knows when she wakes up in the morning just exactly what needs to be done and she starts doing it.  No one has to tell her.

The rest of us need to be told.  Some of us just don't think we do.

• More interviews:  because the interviews can be conducted at the convenience of the interviewee and can be viewed at the convenience of the hiring manager, we were able to interview many more people.
• Fair process:  the HireVue process gives each person the exact same opportunity to answer the same questions (we wrote the questions).  This allowed us to avoid variations in the interviewer's questions so that we can fairly compare one interview to another.
• Peer Review:  because the interviews can be viewed on-line, they can be shared with everyone who may wish to influence the hiring process, giving us buy-in from the whole team.