This must be the week for workshops and conferences here in Boise. Last night and today was the third annual Kickstart event. Last night’s opening keynote was Rich Sloan, co-founder of Startup Nation (and co-author of the book by the same name).

Rich provided some key tips for entrepreneurs. One that I really liked was his question, “Do you want 90% of a grape or 10% of a watermelon?” Rich pointed out that it’s very difficult to go it alone with the idea of controlling everything. Involving more people and leveraging resources can create a much higher value proposition. Rather than focus on controlling everything, one can be much more profitable financially by focusing on overall value.

Rich also did a good job answering questions from the audience. It was affirming to hear him emphasize the need to be a specialist in a niche market — especially since this past quarter I cut out 90% of the services I offered and now focus on delivering train the trainer and the manager as trainer workshops (and a quick shameless plug for the online train-the-trainer modules that will be available soon!)

This morning’s keynote was Ben McConnell, co-author of Citizen Marketers and co-owner of the Church of the Customer blog (loved the red shoes, Ben!). A couple of key points I enjoyed from Ben’s presentation were to get our website/blog visitors involved, but to remember that only 1% will actually add/contribute contents to your site.

He encouraged everyone to start blogging!

Considering that 70% of job creation in the United States is small business and that the economic power generated by small businesses in the US is greater than the total economy of Great Britain (stats provided by Rich Sloan), entrepreneurs in America have an unmatched opportunity to make a serious impact in the business world.

Although all of the breakout sessions and information presented were excellent, I did find one thing missing:

Nobody talked about training.

Granted, training trainers is what I do so I’m rather tuned in to the topic. But after 18 years of management and leadership consulting, I’m a firm believer that many problems occurring in business can be prevented if business owners will factor training into their operations right from the start.

Reason: New people hired later on don’t have the history with the product or service that the founders do. Assumptions are made (on both sides) — and so are mistakes. Sometimes costly mistakes.

Outlining training is certainly not as urgent (nor as fun) as the other tasks needed to get a business off the ground. But it is important. So — I guess I’ll be the evangelist that beats the training drum so that more entrepreneurs will take notice.

Idea for high-speed entrepreneurs: Follow Rich Sloan’s advice and outsource the things you’re not comfy doing.   (Us training folks are out here if developing training is one of those uncomfy/unfamiliar things.)

Big thanks to the Kickstand organization for this year’s Kickstart event—especially to Becky Gates of OCM Idaho for being the conference chair, and to John Foster of the Idaho Business Review for emceeing the event.

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