We are not an airline with great customer service. We are a great customer service organization that happens to be in the airline business.
Southwest Airlines former President Colleen Barrett
The personal Blog of Howard Mann. Author, Speaker & Entrepreneur. - January 7th, 2009
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Story Corps
I love the purpose, idea and execution of Story Corps.
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Kevin Roberts - Lessons From Starbucks
Kevin Roberts, global CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi (and of the Lovemark book fame) writes a fantastic blog that has quickly become a favorite read of mine. His posts always serve to spark a new idea or share a life experience he has had in a way where you feel like you were there (Or wish you were).
His latest post "Inspiration From Starbucks" is a great reminder of the kind of base level ideas I love:
1. You have to learn more to earn more.
2. Surprise and delight with new products.
3. Deliver big ideas.
4. Feed your mistakes to the lions.
5. In a Blue Ocean the best sort of ship is Leadership.
6. Don’t pay for stuff you don’t need.
Do visit the full post for his smart synopsis of each.
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When You Know How It Is Built
National Geographic HD has a great series called "Ultimate Factories." I just watched an episode that showed the entire assembly process of a BMW Z4 from start to finish. From the robots that make the welds to the machines that rotate the car through baths of paint to the people that fit the steering wheel in place. I had never thought much about that car but seeing the machine and human work that goes into creating the incredible complexities that make a car do all it can do completely changes how I now look at it and loaded me with incredible stories I could tell myself and others if I owned one.
Even a little lesson that the logo of BMW, that most believe represented a propeller (that relates back to BMW's history making aircraft engines), is actually a tribute to the blue and white shapes on the Bavarian flag.
It should be required viewing for anyone looking to buy the car. A sales person at BMW would sell more of them vs any type of sales pitch they could make.
It also sparks the larger question of how well you do explaining all the little things you do that delivers the product and service you sell. We each put a lot of our own "craftsmanship" into what we deliver for our clients/customers. But do we tell them about it in a way that is interesting? Does it help them value what you offer more?
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Quick Posts
Run, don't walk, and read The First Time CEO's Recession Survival Guide written by Redfin online Real Estate CEO Glenn Kelman. My favorite is #1 "Compete With Your Successor - I often think about what my replacement will do after I’m fired. She won’t have emotional commitments to decisions that I already regret."
Rajesh Setty is giving away his great book "Life Beyond Code. Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps!" A very nice and useful Thanksgiving gift to yourself. Download it here.
It seems the commenting feature on the blog posts has not been working properly. I apologize. It is now fixed. Please do comment and join the discussion.
Great Harvard Business post on lessons that can be learned by the Obama campaign. Loved this part on the importance on purpose: "Bigness of purpose is what separates 20th century and 21st century organizations: yesterday, we built huge corporations to do tiny, incremental things - tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things."
Tom Peters: 100 Ways to Succeed #146: "Obsess On The Basics! Now, More Than Ever!" "....Keep on each other over those basics—and be liberal with the kudos for those who go an extra millimeter to do a "trivial" job especially well."
The VC's are yelling from the roof tops for startups to batten down the hatches. Like I said in my post from the other day, you have to double down AND batten down. What all of this really means is, of course, you need to get back to the business basics that have always worked and always will.
The smart folks over at Behance have launched an online project collaboration tool that follows their Action Method paper system. Watch the online video tour to get an idea of how it works. Looks like a simple and effective ways to track the individual action items for projects and goals.
Tom Peters and Seth Godin on one stage taking questions from Inc. 500 business owners. Priceless wisdom on a wide variety of topics. Click here to watch then sit back and enjoy!
"It’s easy to say that entrepreneurs will create jobs and big companies
will create unemployment, but this is simplistic. The real question is
who will innovate. A 50-year-old company can innovate as well as two guys/gals in a garage." From an interview with Guy Kawasaki discussing the ideas in his new book Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
"If you want to make your website better at turning visitors into customers (or subscribers), you need to understand why most of your visitors are leaving!" a helpful article to drive home the point that launching your web site is the easy part. If you want your web site to deliver real results for your business then you need to work at with persistence.
Howard Mann is a speaker, author and entrepreneur. He is on a mission to get businesses to thrive in every way, in good times and bad, by relentlessly sticking to their basics. Learn more.
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The little eBook of Business Jokes
The Little eBook of Business Jokes. 9 jokes to make you laugh and smile. Why? Because business has become a place of too much stress and laughter is still the best medicine.
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