Off the Record with a CEO is an OEN program designed to bring together seasoned entrepreneurs and investors with members of the entrepreneurial community for frank discussions and learning opportunities. Last Friday's tour was just that. The tour visited Mike Wright, CEO of WellPartner, (winner of 2005 OEN Entrepreneurship Award Growth Company and 2006 OEN Individual Achievement Award) and Irving Levin, CEO of Genesis Financial Solutions. Irving is also one of the most active angel investors in the Portland area.
Mike shared with the group to always be transparent in running your business with everybody, employees, suppliers, etc. When you let people know what is going on honestly, they can decide to stick with you or depart and that made a big difference for WellPartner during the tough years. Employees stayed because they believed in the mission and they knew what was going on. That held true for WellParnter across the board. The other key tenant for WellPartner was to focus on the customers and their employee teams. It may seem simple, but when you treat people right, they stay and that makes all the difference.
Irving shared his insights on a similar theme about treating people with integrity. Genesis Financial takes an entrepreneurial approach to collecting long-term unpaid debt and to offering access to credit to college students. Instead of giving up on unpaid debt that has already been through collections, Genesis Financial has taken a negative and turned it into a positive by giving people a pathway to credit by converting old debt that would normally not get repaid, and putting on a credit card, once the debt on the card is paid, the cardholde will have access to credit. It changes the perception of the debt into an opportunity.
To get more info about the day, read the OTBC blog entitled, Don't be an Entrepreneur Unless you Have Too - and other lessons
