This year's Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award finalists were put through their paces at the MIT Sloan School of Management, writes Siobhán Creaton in Boston

Finalists in the 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year programme have been eyeballing one another across the classroom. As the competition moves into its final stages, they have been showing an eagerness to learn how to build on their success and are weighing up the competition for this year's award.

It's been some time since most of them sat in a classroom and almost certainly since the first time they attended lectures on the science of entrepreneurship.

The retreat for the chief executives of the firms that make it to the final in the contest, which has been running for eight years in Ireland, has become an intrinsic part of the Entrepreneur of the Year programme. More than 20 of the 28 finalists participated this year.

They attended a series of lectures at the MIT Sloan School of Management - the first time they had assembled as a group.

Over a couple of days, Joseph Lassiter, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, and Kenneth Morse, senior lecturer and managing director of MIT's Entrepreneurship Centre, put them through their paces. They discussed the factors driving successful entrepreneurs, examined business case studies while their teachers, experienced and successful entrepreneurs themselves, provided hints for the future.

Morse's key message was that they should all develop an "elevator pitch" about their company - convincingly selling the value of their company's products and services to a potential customer within 55 seconds.

"Practice this at every trade show and function," he urged. "You can learn a lot in 55 seconds."

Most of the group was shocked when Morse advised that their business cards should display their mobile and home phone numbers to ensure they were always available to their customers, and some were highly amused by what one of the finalists, John Concannon of JFC Manufacturing, described as Morse's "cheeky" means of pursuing a crucial contact as he walked away from a key meeting.

Few believed that Morse's persistent approach would be effective for them. The exercise had sought to demonstrate the importance of establishing themselves as a peer in any such negotiations and to be focused on achieving their desired outcome, even when it appeared elusive.

There was some heartening news for the weary salesperson finding it difficult to clinch a sale. Morse says that most deals are finalised after about 17 meetings.

"If you are on your 10th meeting take heart, you are more than halfway there," he says.

MIT's research emphasised the importance of having a good management team. Its examination of the success factors in technology-based entrepreneurship suggests that a first-rate management team with average technology will always be more successful than a first-rate technology with a second-rate management team.

Successful companies will always have an "A team", according to Morse. Companies run by entrepreneurs with "B" and "C" teams will build an inferior organisation, he says.

"A people will hire A people. B people will hire C people and C people hire dogs," he adds.

MIT finds that entrepreneurial behaviour is more successful when performed by teams rather than individuals.

This research by MIT associate professor John Preston established that the probability of success increased dramatically with team size until you got up to four or five entrepreneurs founding the company.

The entrepreneurs all agreed that there was plenty of capital available for starting ventures in Ireland but most were cautious about bringing venture capitalists on board. Some said that Irish venture capital groups tended to be pretty risk averse and were chiefly concerned from the start with finding a safe home for their money.

They all agreed that the most attractive source of funds was "OPM" (other people's money). The consensus was that this form of capital is sweetest, of course, when the investors don't look for an equity stake in the business.

MIT's advice to the entrepreneurs was to do plenty of homework before signing up with a venture capital group.

Lassiter stressed that the chief executives should always make it their business to talk to firms that had done similar deals with these venture capital groups to learn from their experience before making a final commitment.

Lassiter focused on case studies, including one based on piano manufacturers Steinway.

He highlighted the fact that entrepreneurs will always sell to individuals who are either pragmatists or visionaries, and offered advice on how they should deal with both.

He urged the Irish businesspeople to do something dramatic with their companies when they returned home in light of what they had learned.

The students all believed that it had been a productive exercise and most were delighted to be in the company of people in similar situations as themselves.

Oliver Hughes, a co-founder of the Porterhouse Brewing Company, said it was refreshing to talk to a group of people with totally different businesses than your own but who were all "on the same wavelength".

Enda Kelly, Ernst & Young's partner heading up the Entrepreneur of the Year programme, urged the group to network with each other and to seek out fresh business opportunities.

Before the group departed for home, it was obvious that some were already forging alliances.