I attended the very first At The Top Networking event at the Skyline Club on Tuesday. I’ve been to a lot of networking events in the last two years, and have met more than my fair share of the city’s small business people and entrepreneurs.
Indianapolis Business Journal founder and former Indiana Secretary of Commerce Mickey Maurer was our speaker for the evening, there to tell us about how he made his way to the top.
“I’m not at the top yet,” he told us, although he has come close. Ten years ago, Maurer climbed to the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, and told us how he stood on top of a small mound of dirt at the very top. “But I got light-headed, and had to get back down,” he told the crowd of 150 networkers.
Maurer said he has spent his entire career being an entrepreneur. “Entrepreneurship is a game where you use money to keep score.” He said he has made his career by specializing in startups and turnarounds. He opened the first racquetball club in Indianapolis, turning it into the 2nd largest racquetball chain in the country. He started the Indianapolis Business Journal, a newspaper that is still thriving in a declining media market. He helped start the National Bank of Indianapolis.
If an entrepreneur wants to learn anything from Maurer’s life, it’s the fact that he specialized in just two areas: startups and turnarounds. He didn’t try to run a large corporation. He didn’t try to stand on the shoulders of giants. He saw a need that no one else could fill, and he filled it.
But that’s not what made him a success. He said he attributes his success to ten lessons he has learned along the way. The most important?
“People are the most important part of any business deal,” Maurer said. “I look at the people first, before I look at the numbers. If I don’t like the people, I don’t take the deal.”
Maurer said this goes for employees of a business as well. Treat your people well, and you’ll succeed.
We then got to hear about some of the amazing women in Maurer’s latest book, “19 Stars of Indiana,” a book about 19 living legends in Indiana. It’s a must-read for anyone who has a strong woman in their life, or wants to help inspire one.
Finally, let me just say how much I enjoyed my time at the Skyline Club. They really made me feel special. As I spent time time talking with different people at the event, the staff was very attentive and treated us well. The food was excellent, and some of the best hors d’oeuvres I’ve enjoyed in a long time: pecan fried oysters, lobster bisque, pumpkin bisque, and a lobster salad on a roll. I also had my very first Old-Fashioned. I still don’t quite know what it was, but I liked it.
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