THINGS TO PAY ATTENTION TO:

  • DROOM – Don’t Run Out Of Money
  • Bigger Isn’t Better – Better Is Better
  • Do It Right the First Time
  • PPPPP – Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
  • Only Do Business With People You Like and Trust
  • You Can Always Make a Living Doing Something You Love; but You Can’t Always Love What You Do to Make a Living
  • To Solve a Computer Problem You Need a Teenager
  • Just Because You Say It Doesn’t Make It So
  • Just Because It Has Always Been Done (That Way) Doesn’t Mean It’s Right (or Still Right Today)
  • You Know What You Know, You May Even Know What You Don’t Know, but It Is What You Don’t Know That You Don’t Know That Will Get You Every Time
  • The Secrets are just as simple: CARE!
  • MAKE A DIFFERENCE
THOUGHTS become WORDS …
WORDS become ACTIONS …
ACTIONS become CHARACTER …
CHARACTER is EVERYTHING

ENTREPRENEURIAL CONSULTING

The core business of iPayAttention has always been Entrepreneurial Consulting. This was true even prior to leaving ESPN and going independent ahead of the wave and creating what later became known as “virtual companies” for the super-creatives. While at Price Waterhouse, the NBA, CBS Sports and ESPN, figuring out a better mousetrap and how to enable a business to be more efficient and profitable has been an every day activity. Upon leaving ESPN in 1992 to set up shop – first as Sports Television Business Management and then as iPayAttention – there has always been a dual career with one side focusing on being the financial guru and the other working on the productions themselves.

The client base expanded beyond the Sports Television industry into entertainment, venture capital, a developing Mutual Fund, running a Professional Sports League (the first of several), an Omnicom Promotion Marketing Agency, a Music Production Library, and many general businesses in many different industries though always for entrepreneurs. The work evolved from advise and getting businesses started to writing business plans (and tearing them apart and analyzing their viability while at MoneyHunt), acquisition, due diligence on both sides of the transaction, business operations including finance, administration and all middle and back office, full CFO and COO positions, and running entire business lines on the Management Team.

It all revolves around one thing – Paying Attention To Whatever It Takes. It is usually the details; it is often the vision; it is always the business operations. It matters not the industry. What matters is whether the passion of the entrepreneur can be downloaded and whether the viability is achievable. The combination of vision, wisdom, provable evidence of viability and a relentless effort committed to matching people who are excellent at what they do with the united enthusiasm/belief of the Team is the recipe for success. It works in sports, television, events, industry and business in general.

The most recent projects are windows into what iPayAttention does.

  • CFO and a member of the management team for a Production Music Library which created a technology to redefine the music industry. Brought in when a private equity investment funded the operations of both the core and new technology businesses, the mission was to turn a proprietorship into am emerging growth company by establishing controls, training the Team to work efficiently and run the business while the principal concentrated on the things he was extraordinary at.
  • Brought in when private equity investment was secured, the first task was to establish the budgets and television production for a major MMA series and upon commencement of the season, take over the event operations as needed to bring the series into the prominent position it needed to be in for success, profitability and acquisition – the three goals of the investors and principals.
  • Create from concept a major sporting event which has never been done before. The steps taken, to date, are: forming the management team; writing the business plan; securing agreements with the venue location for the performance; lining up all vendors; preparing the marketing, participant communication, press and public relations campaign; and, event operation strategies for full implementation upon securing investment which is currently being solicited.
  • And now, for the first time creating an operating company for myself, three complementing business lines in the youth basketball environment which fill a need and are expandable to all other sports and the families involved. Being involved in the AAU Basketball world as a coach and founder of a niche program has provided a plethora of insight through direct experiences and made glaring the need for several services of great value to student-athletes. Thus, a business has been borne – Academic Basketball.

When do you call iPayAttention?

  • When you are starting a business and need advice, help focusing, a viability analysis, a business plan or a financial professional to work with you to get your business started right the first time.
  • When your business has become so successful you cannot handle everything yourself and need to clone yourself to get someone involved whom you can both trust your business and trust your business will be run your way with a new person involved working alongside you once you download your passion to him and are prepared for an exponential increase in productivity.
  • When your business is in need of fresh ideas, focused analysis or a financial professional to help you run your business.
  • When you need to replace or upgrade your financial and business operations professional.
  • When you receive private equity investment in your business and you need to put an experienced financial professional in place to handle the things you no longer have the time to take care of. Or, when your new investors advise they want an experienced financial professional in place to work alongside you and grow the business the way you have sold them on doing.

In other words, when it is time for the fun, aka the hard work, to be taken to the next level.

We would like to make a statement on the matter of rules, compliance and the actions of others that have caused many to take issue with AAU basketball in the macro, which is why we are eschewing identification with aau and referring to the genre as Grassroots, and with a team or coach in the micro: Not only do we know the rules (both the letter and spirit) we wholeheartedly pledge/endeavor/mandate ourselves to follow them without fail every day that ends in a “y.” We maintain a higher standard for ourselves than others expect of us. In all matters, we live by the Golden Rule in addition to Rules #1 and 2.