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Rachel Finley
574 TNRB
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 422-3598
prspecialist@byu.edu

Student-Turned-High-Tech Entrepreneur Speaks at E-Business Lecture Series

Engagement is a key to a successful business today, says Adam Edmunds, president and CEO of Allegiance Technologies. Edmunds, a BYU graduate of the Masters of Accounting program, stressed the importance of this and outlined eight steps on how to be a successful entrepreneur at a recent e-business lecture.

“What companies are trying to do now is move beyond loyalty and get to engagement,” Edmunds says. “A few companies that have engaged customers are Apple, Harley Davidson, Nordstrom, and you could probably think about a company that you are engaged with, where you go out of your way to tell people about them.”

Edmunds says engaged employees create engaged customers, also known as a spillover effect. He says the lifetime value of every customer to Federal Express is worth almost $400,000, and for Pizza Hut the value is $4,000. He also says that this engagement creates repeated, satisfied interactions, which strengthen their emotional connection with a brand.

Along with engagement, Edmunds listed the following steps on how to be a successful entrepreneur.

1. Decide on Entrepreneurship: Edmunds says that entrepreneurship is not for everybody and is not easy in the beginning. He pointed out that the rewards are worth the challenge though because of what can be learned from the process.

“The thing I like about (entrepreneurship) is all that you learn,” Edmunds says. “You get exposed very quickly to a lot of problems that you otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to: dealing with people issues, marketing and sales, and things in school that you learned but you never got to actually do.”

2. The Idea: After entrepreneurship is chosen, the entrepreneur must come up with a good idea in order for the company to be successful. Edmunds says that “it is really about getting out there and just making something work.”

3. Overcoming Rejection: Every entrepreneur will face rejection many times when starting a business. Edmunds says that it is important to overcome and learn from these experiences.

4. Bootstrapping: Edmunds says that all entrepreneurs need to do bootstrapping, which means to make cash last when starting a business.

5. Sales Execution: “If you are going to be an entrepreneur, you have to know how to sell,” Edmunds says. “You’re always selling as an entrepreneur … you are selling people to come to you … learning how to sell and being persuasive is a big part to entrepreneurship.”

6. Refine Strategy: Edmunds says when entrepreneurs make mistakes they need to then refine their strategy. “You will have to refine your strategy along the way; it is inevitable,” he says.

7. Sell the Dream: Every entrepreneur has to sell something they do not have yet. “If you deliver what you sell, then it is not lying,” Edmunds says.

8. Unexpected Success: Edmunds says he raised $5 million from a business owner in Palo Alto, California, who previously rejected his proposal. He says that sometimes success comes for entrepreneurs in a way they would least expect.