2004 IT&E Convocation

2004 IT&E Convocation Address - May 13, 2004 - Patriot Center

Katherine K. Clark - Former President & CEO of Landmark Systems

Here are my six secrets of success and my advice to entrepreneurs:

1. Take Risks

2. Think Big

3. Know your strengths

4. Don't give Up

5. Give back

6. I'll save this for the end of the presentation

Point #1 is trust your instincts.

I was once asked to do a presentation for a group of local business executives and the invitation was phrased as follows: "Kathy, we're looking for a successful entrepreneur to talk to us about all the biggest mistakes they ever made and we immediately thought of you!".  Well, I was flattered by the invitation and accepted it. And it's true that I've made a lot of mistakes. But the point of my presentation that night was that you never know in advance which decisions will be mistakes and which will turn out to be strokes of genius.

My favorite "mistake" was our decision to start our business overseas before we had sold a single product here in the U.S. Any sane person would have advised against it. Here was the scenario: we were two techies, high school graduates with no business experience, no knowledge of sales and marketing, no international experience, and a promising but very much unproven product. We got connected with a distributor in Europe, a guy with a small company that represented several U.S. software companies. After some discussion we gave him marketing rights to most of Europe. The result? We were more successful in international markets than we were domestically for the first 18 months. And the revenue that came from Europe in those early days in effect became our venture capital, providing the funding to grow our business here. In fact, that's the single biggest reason we never had to look for an outside investor.

Why did we do it that way? Because it felt right, we trusted our instincts, and we were willing to take a risk.

Point # 2 is to Think Big.

Our initial product faced one major competitor, a large company with lots of resources. This company was very successful with many large customers and had multiple products with dominant market share and name recognition. The logical strategy for us would have been to find a niche and avoid a confrontation. But our choice was to attack this competitor head on. Why? Because we always thought of ourselves as the market leader, even before we had sold a single product. We just knew our product was better. This was evidenced by our first brochure - a 4-color glossy piece - and by our first ad - full page and four color.

In three years, we had indeed become the market leader in that initial market and in five years we were challenging in related markets too. One of the questions I'm frequently asked is "did you ever think you'd be this successful?". And the only answer I can give is "Of course! How do you think we got here if we didn't believe we could do it?!"

Point # 3 is to Be Flexible

One of my favorite stories is that of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's. When he was in his mid-40's, Kroc was a traveling salesman, selling stainless steel milkshake makers. He was attracted to a restaurant run by the McDonald brothers because it sold more milkshakes per square foot than any other in his territory. He thought that if he could replicate that restaurant, he could create a larger market for his product. That led him to negotiate a deal to own and expand the restaurants. Soon, Kroc realized the potential in fast food and adjusted his strategy to tackle a new and much larger market - he was flexible enough to adjust his plans based on the circumstances.

At Landmark, our first plan was to run the business as a part time venture to earn a little extra money and have some fun. Soon we realized there was more potential and decided we had to quit our full time jobs. Our next plan was to prove the viability of the company so that we could sell it to a larger company that would give us jobs as software developers. As we began to prove the product's viability, we adjusted our plans and decided we could build our own company. Throughout our history, we continually tried to be flexible enough to adjust our personal and business strategies to the circumstances at hand. 

Point #4 is Don't give up

You'll hit many obstacles along the way as your career progresses. These should be approached as challenges, not as roadblocks. One of my biggest role models is Abe Lincoln - not because he was a great president, but because he lost his first 15 elections! He knew the meaning of never giving up!  Landmark faced a tough situation in 1991. The country was sliding into an economic recession. Our business was mainframe software products and the mainframe market was declining at that time. Both Landmark and our competitors had been quite successful, leading to high saturation of our markets. So we were facing slowed growth and decreasing margins, while needing to fund an investment in new markets.

We had identified new opportunities in new markets and decided to acquire a small company with some good technology. In hindsight, I describe this as buying products that were 90% complete and spending the next 3 1/2 years completing the other 90%! This was not an easy change for us. Besides changes in technology, it entailed changes in our development process, pricing, marketing, and sales channels. It wasn't  easy and took far longer than we expected. But ended up with some great new products and  in the meantime, our core mainframe market rebounded.

 Point # 5 is Give Back.

 Most successful people don't get where they are all by themselves. Most of us have had a helping hand somewhere along the way. It's important to recognize how lucky we've been and to understand that we have an obligation to give back - to help make things easier for those less fortunate or for those who want to follow in our footsteps. At Landmark we did that by establishing an outreach program with a community in rural Appalachia and a partnership with Edison High School here in Fairfax County. We also participate in many community events. And you should too. When you reach the point where you can afford to look outside your company, do it! All of us working together can make this a better community and a better world.

Finally, Point #6 is really my personal philosophy of life and that's to HAVE FUN!  It's important to enjoy what you do. Whenever I see people who don't like what they do, I have to wonder why they do it at all. Landmark has been a lot of hard work - probably harder than I ever thought possible. But I can truly say, I love being with customers, going up against the competition, and tackling all the everyday challenges. I'm convinced the most successful people are the ones who love what they do and have fun doing it. So always remember to have fun at what you do and do what you think is fun!