Month: May 2011

When Carmine Gallo interviewed
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz years ago,
Schultz told him
“We’re not in the coffee business.
It’s what we sell as a product
but we’re in the people business
—hiring hundreds of employees a week,
serving sixty million customers a week,
it’s all human connection.”

The company I’m currently working with
originally thought of themselves
as being in the cellphone business.
The competition in that business increased,
and they wanted to grow.
That growth came
when they repositioned themselves
as a company that
helps their customers communicate.
Bam.
Their market expanded.

One of my writing buds
saw herself as
writing print books.
She resisted eBooks
and audio books
and other new technology.
It was only when she began
to see herself as
providing stories
that she embraced change
and the future.

Your view of who you are matters.
It defines what you can and you cannot do,
what you look at and what you discard.

Take some time
and examine who you believe you are.

In Profit Magazine,
Stephan Cretier,
Founder of Garda World Security,
talks about how his company
survived the financial crisis
(when his company’s stock price
dropped from $17 to $0.57)

“Our two main clients
at that time were
Washington Mutual Bank
and Wachovia Bank,
which don’t exist today.
We were leveraged
to the maximum,
and we didn’t even know
if our bank clients were going
to survive.
So, many people questioned
whether WE would survive.

I remember
sitting with my management team.
I said, “Let’s stop focusing on
what’s impossible,
and start thinking
about what’s possible.”
So, we started thinking about
ways to get through the crisis,
whether it lasted 12, 18 or 24 months.
And we said “Let’s make sure
we’re the best security company
in the world when this crisis is over.”
So, we really started focusing on our systems,
on benchmarking the company,
on choosing the key markets,
on cleaning up the parts of the business
we wanted to be in
and getting rid of the rest.”

Of course,
if Garda had done all that
BEFORE the meltdown,
they would have been
in an even better position.

Don’t wait until your industry’s meltdown
(and it WILL come)
to take action.

In May’s Profit Magazine,
Greig Clark
talks about greatness.

“In business,
table stakes is understanding
what is asked for
and delivering it.
Greatness is taking it
one step beyond that,
being proactive
and what I call a “life force”
in the business.
Someone who is an “energy multiplier,”
not a drain.”

We all know these life forces.
When they leave the office,
it is like they turned
they turned off the lights.
The energy level
immediately drops.

What is the source of their energy?

Passion.
They funnel their passion
to others.

All great leaders have this passion.
They’re life sources
for their companies.

One of my buddies
writes the worst blurbs.
Every time she sends them to me,
I cringe.
I don’t say anything though.
Why?
Because she gets results
with those bad blurbs.
She sells her manuscripts
to publishers.
(They then write their own blurbs
for the readers)

I’m told
I have the world’s ugliest resume.
I haven’t bothered changing it though.
Why?
Because I get every job
I want to get.
The resume is ugly
but it works.

There are plenty of things
that don’t work
for you to fool around with.
If something works,
don’t tweak it.

Some win-at-any-cost folks
use the natural competitiveness
of children
as an excuse for their bad behavior.

Kids ARE competitive
but it isn’t a win-at-any-cost
type of competitiveness.

My 11 year old niece and I have a bet
about whether or not
she’ll be taller than I am
in two years
(the answer is likely yes).

Shoes and hats count
in this bet
so she was disappointed
that I didn’t give her a tall hat
for her birthday.
(I forgot)

When an adult pointed out
that I wouldn’t help her win,
she replied back that
I wouldn’t think that way.
I’m fair
and I would help her try to win too.

Even kids know that
a fair ‘win’ is a better win.
Compete but not at the expense
of your ethics.