Entrepreneurship Trends, in Theory and Practice

Theory meets practice at the Poole College of Management, sometimes literally. 

That happened recently when Jeffrey Pollack, Lynn T. Clark II Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship, sat down with a pair of people who are active in North Carolina entrepreneurship: NC State Entrepreneurship Clinic director Haley Huie and Poole grad Lynn Clark.

Jeffrey Pollack: What are you thinking about with entrepreneurs and the market post-Covid? Are things back to business as usual?

Haley Huie: Access to funding is a topic that comes up every single day in my life. A lot of conversations focus around general access to capital for scaling operations really quickly when companies are finding that product-market fit. Who are great partners to know? What are productive paths to capital, be it private equity or venture capital?

Lynn Clark: Are things back to business as usual? I would say yes, they are. But I think that there is probably a little bit too much reliance on Zoom (and videoconferencing), instead of doing face-to-face meetings. And I’m a big proponent that people are going to tell you more face to face than they are over Zoom, and there are probably studies done on all that. But, for instance, I like to go fly or drive to see my clients, or even vendors. You can build that relationship. Sometimes you get better pricing. Sometimes you just develop the relationship a little bit better. I encourage people: If you really want to be good, you’ve just got to get in the car or get on a plane and go. 

Pollack: Is that advice that you would suggest for both new and existing entrepreneurs across industries?

Clark: I would say it’s probably, all-around, how to network. If this is the initial conversation with a new person that you meet, you go see them face to face first. Then you can start doing Zoom calls. After that, you don’t have to keep on flying back out to them, but that initial meeting is very important.

Huie: I think the advice is really good, and certainly, especially in business development work and strengthening relationships, checking on vendors, there’s no substitute for human-to-human connection. That absolutely tracks with what we see. 

Where I think I might differ slightly is just the access to talent and access to customers. It’s just becoming far more efficient to find really talented people everywhere, not just in your regional metro. So I think that that’s been a really positive trend for companies that can now have a remote tech worker who could live anywhere in the world. They’ve increased their work-life balance. They’re still happy to come to the office and meet with teams. Many of the folks that I know here in Raleigh, for example, are distributed. They might work in the Bay area. They might work in the Northeast. They love to call North Carolina home for a lot of very good reasons. That’s unlocking a more powerful talent network, which is something that we weren’t as used to doing (before the pandemic).

Clark: I see that also, where there were some people who lived in the Bay area or lived in Manhattan, they might have moved to North Carolina during Covid. Or maybe they’re from North Carolina. And so now with Zoom and all the tech, they can still live in North Carolina. So really, North Carolina has been a beneficiary of that.

Pollack: Both of you have a main day-to-day role, and both of you have entrepreneurial ventures that you’ve launched. I’m curious to know if that’s something you’ve both always done. Or is that something that has been recent?

Clark: A full-fledged new venture with a name, a logo, and that kind of stuff—It is new to me. I’ve always thought about it. I’ve been in the long haul trucking industry since getting my MBA—for 10 full years now. I have my feet on the ground in that industry, and everything’s going well. So I now have the time to be able to do a new entrepreneurial venture. If I would have said I wanted to start another venture two years into my career at Guy M. Turner, it probably would not have been the right time because I still needed to learn my main core business, which is my main paycheck. I just don’t know if it would have been the best use of time, but now was a good time to do it.

Pollack: What is one skill or ability that would help students be prepared for doing something entrepreneurial?

Clark: You have to be able to sell. If you can’t sell, you can’t get revenue. I mean, you can’t do anything. So you’ve got to be able to sell your product. That’s through communication, understanding what the customer needs, the pricing—everything. You have to be able to sell and market the product. And that has been the number-one thing that I’ve had to do at both Guy M. Turner and Clark Outdoor Billboards: I sell. 

And it’s a numbers game. You’re going to get a lot of nos. And for me, you’ve just got to keep on because there are a lot of people who can benefit and spend money on outdoor advertising. For some people, it’s not the right time, so maybe you check back in with them later. 

Selling is much more personal, where marketing is more about mass audiences. And I think that learning more of the sales aspect is important in a college curriculum. That’s why I’ve been able to be successful, since I know how to sell.

Huie: I think sales is such a great answer. I say this to my students all the time: I don’t care what career path you’re going into. I don’t care what industry you’re working in, what company you plan to work for. It matters not. Sales is such an essential skill that you will use in every position, ever. 

And it’s really hard to learn until you’re doing it. It’s really hard to read a book on sales and suddenly be the world’s best salesperson, though there are many good books out there. I have my students watch a TED Talk called “What I learned from a hundred days of rejection.” It’s about getting really comfortable with hearing “no,” because then you’re not afraid of hearing “no,” and you’re more comfortable asking the question