The Growth Guy

Jim Collins Latest Article

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy
 
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Jim Collins' Latest Article in FORTUNE -- is worth taking five minutes to read. Here's Jim's key line that sums up his position on enduring greatness "Companies do not fall primarily because of what the world does to them or because of how the world changes around them; they fall first and foremost because of what they do to themselves."

Milken Global Conference -- Michael Milken, the king of junk bonds, hosts an annual conference for 3000 focused on education, health, and finance. I was invited to speak on the importance of small to mid-market firms going global as a way to insulate themselves from local downturns. With developing countries growing at 3 to 4 times the rate of developed countries, it's imperative that mid-market firms take advantage of these growth areas. And it's been THE topic of discussion in Malaysia this week as I co-host our 7th annual "Taipan: Making of Asian Giants" conference. More and more of the local firms have found it necessary to expand regionally, venturing into Vietnam and Thailand as well as India and China. I recommended two books: Doing Business Anywhere by Tom Travis and Riding the Waves of Culture by Fons Trompenaars (which Tom Peters called "...a masterpiece").  BTW, both authors will speak at the Growth Summit Oct 21-22  along with the famous and irrepressible Tom Peters.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google -- keynoted the Milken conference. One of his main points was the importance of setting aside email and taking time to think, read, and come up with ideas! He particularly sets aside time each weekend for reading books, a routine critical for keeping himself and Google relevant in today's global marketplace. And he admitted that he has to discipline himself to do it since the pace at Google is grueling.
   
T. Boone Pickens, who also keynoted the Milken conference, explained how he recently turned a $4.3 million investment into over $5 billion! The key? -- a disciplined routine that includes four daily huddles with his team and the equivalent of a mini-CEO Council meeting each morning over breakfast (hey, I'm just asking you to do a single daily huddle and a CEO Council meeting each week!). At 5:30 a.m. his top two traders arrive and begin assembling information about what's happened in the global oil industry in the past twelve hours. Pickens then gets on the phone with his traders at 6:15 a.m.where he's briefed. He then works out with a trainer, allowing him to process what he's just learned while energizing his brain and body. Next is a 7:30 a.m. breakfast (egg white omelet already prepared) with his team where they informally discuss their trading strategy. This is followed, throughout the day, with two or three additional team meetings, including one at 4:30 p.m. to wrap up the day. It's these constant focused synchronous conversations, vs. endless emails, that have driven the success of Pickens portfolio. He must have used the words "discipline" and "routine" a dozen times in his presentation.

Wind and Solar -- BTW, T. Boone was bullish on wind and solar power. Just this past week his firm placed orders for $2 billion worth of wind turbines to be installed near Sweetwater, Texas. Expected to be fully operational by 2015, his wind farm will generate 4000 megawatts of power. And he laid out a plan whereby the U.S. could become energy independent; eliminating the $600 billion paid annually for foreign oil. It involves building a series a wind farms running from Texas north through Oklahoma and Kansas, all the way up to the Canadian border. A similar solar power belt would run west from Texas to California. This would generate enough power to replace the contribution natural gas makes to the production of electricity so it could be used to power our trucks and cars with liquid natural gas (LNG). He pointed out that the distribution system for this is already in place given the extensive network of natural gas lines that run into almost every home. It's a small device that each home could have to convert the natural gas into LNG. It was some bold thinking.

Profitability of the FORTUNE 500 -- the latest list was recently published and the first thing I did was calculate the overall profitability (after tax) of this $10 trillion economic engine. You might recall that historically profit has run around 3%. It almost doubled to 5.9% in 2004 and 2005 and reached a historical level of 7.9% in 2006. Therefore, I was wondering what happened in 2007 with all the bad news. Yes, it did drop, but it still beat 2004 and 2005, coming in at almost 6.1% after tax. We're still looking at profits over twice historical averages! And the companies that performed best had a large share of international business. BTW, Wal-Mart reclaimed its lead as the largest company, surpassing ExxonMobile. Wal-Mart, through clever pricing, managed to grow 7% in 2007 reaching $379 billion in revenue. And the best performing stock for the past five and ten years? Apple, providing an annual return of over 50% per year for the past ten years!!!

Vikram Pandit, New CEO of Citigroup -- was featured in the latest FORTUNE 500 issue. Noted FORTUNE "(Pandit) insists that his schedule include time to think" to which the writer noted "how refreshing!" The article also noted that the first thing Pandit did after taking over in December was announce three priorities for 2008: raise capital; protect earning power by paying people as well as he can; and get their risk assets under control. If the CEO of Citigroup can name three priorities, we all can get this specific in our own companies.

Godin & Ries iPhone Slap Down

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES: (Marketing Tips from Sales and Marketing Summit) Print-Friendly Version

iPhone "Slap Down" Between Laura Ries and Seth Godin -- as an update from the 2007 Sales and Marketing Summit, you might recall a debate was initiated between marketing gurus Seth Godin and Laura Ries over whether the iPhone was a fad or lasting product -- the iPhone was to be launched shortly after our last Sales Summit. Seth, in his blog, took on Laura Ries and predicted 2 million units would be sold in 2007 with more in 2008. The iPhone ended up selling 3.7 million in 2007! Seth wins!! However, to Laura's point about convergence, most iPhone users still need to carry two devices and two chargers since it's much easier to use the iPhone with some kind of Bluetooth headset -- so Laura also sort of wins. Note's Seth "it's nice to be right!...but it's important to be willing to be wrong."

When You Customize a Service it Becomes an Experience -- Jim Gilmore, author of The Experience Economy, walked us through the progression of commerce: the agrarian economy was about "extracting" commodities; the industrial economy was about "making" tangible goods; the service economy was about "delivering" intangible activities; and he maintains that the experience economy is about "staging" memorable events i.e. Case Tomahawk building a huge sandbox where prospects can come play with the huge earth moving equipment they intend to purchase. His point -- we should look at the key service points of interaction with our customers and figure out how to make it more of a memorable experience.

"...ing" the Thing -- the key is looking for "..ings" in your product/service offering. Case Tomahawk focused on "playing" with the earth moving equipment; Steinway did something similar by focusing on a "piano-playing" experience (if you purchase a Steinway they host a party in your home, provide a professional piano player, and allow you to invite your friends. It becomes an experience that normally results in two additional sales!). Gilmore even showed how Coca-Cola Fountain "...ing'd" their briefcases (he explains in his book). It's why we focused on "networking" at the event using the IntroNetworks system (see who you match-up with among the 727 that have entered profiles!) -- a way for the attendees to identify the five people they must meet at the event. And from the feedback, it looked like it worked for most of the attendees, helping to customize the experience for each attendee.

Identify a Place of Sacrifice -- Gilmore also suggested looking at some existing "ings" in your business and seeing where customers are not receiving a customized service i.e. the paying process, invoicing process, etc. We're looking at our "registering" process to see how we can make it more of a memorable experience -- and one place where attendees have to sacrifice is picking where they are seated at our events. It's decided by order of registration -- those that put down earlier deposits get the best seats (BTW, almost 100 are already holding seats for our Growth Summit October 21-22 -- the infamous Tom Peters is headlining! -- reserve a seat now) but for some they might prefer to be further back or closer to the door, etc. We're looking into this. Where are your customers sacrificing and how can you fix it?

Most Brains Wins -- this is my latest mantra and what is underpinning the drive to create customer communities.  Dell's IdeaStorm website has received feedback from over 600,000 customers and garnered almost 9000 ideas, including the need to standardize power cords for laptops! Starbucks has followed suit. Jim Fowler, founder of Jigsaw, showed us how companies like ours are using Jigsaw's collective rolodex of over 300,000 sales people to update and clean-up our customer databases. Our own Gazelles' Quarterly Theme wiki now has 23 quarterly themes submitted by the readers of these insights -- and we suspect we can get that to over 100 by the end of the year -- that's a significant database of knowledge well beyond what I could contribute myself. What are you doing to tap into the collective knowledge of your customers and allowing your customers to help each other?

Most Brains Frees Journalist from Jail -- using the micro-blogging site Twitter, a young American journalist sent out a one-word message "arrested" to alert fellow users of Twitter and other bloggers what had happened to him in Egypt. They immediately sprung into action, alerting others in their community and providing the journalist with contacts that helped him secure his freedom. Here's a posting of his story.

What's Your Biggest Challenge? Identify the five people in our network that can help you. Take ten minutes to complete your profile (the more detailed the better the system can help you) and then take a look at the relationship map to see who are your top five matches -- then send them a note. Les Rubenovitch shared how our system matched one of his clients up with someone else in our network and now the two of them are doing some significant business together. Take ten minutes to "find your match" in our network of top executives of growth firms.

Protecting your IP internationally -- Brett Kingstone, founder of public company SuperVision (now Nexus Lighting), shared his grueling story of having his IP stolen by a Chinese firm and how he had to utilize his own private investigators to gather the evidence necessary to gain a conviction and judgment award of $41 million (while the Chinese defendant used U.S. taxpayer provided legal services to defend himself!). Kingstone has yet to collect a penny of the judgment, but his story did bring to light the issue within Congress. He mentioned a publication called Start-It that is tracking the issue with positive suggestions on how you might protect yourself. Here's a link to the Part 1 and Part 2 articles -- worth reading if you're doing business in other countries.

Main Role of Sales Manager

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy
 
HEADLINES: (Sales Tips from the Sales & Marketing Summit) Print-Friendly Version

Sales Managers Don't Grow Sales, They Grow Salespeople!  Jack Daly was his typical energetic and insightful self, closing our Sales Summit this week.  Here's a link to his 21 Tips for driving sales and creating great sales leadership. As Jack notes, sales management is more than a full-time job. And the majority of the sales manager's time should be spent recruiting and training sales people, not garnering sales themselves-- or trying to run the company when the CEO is the default sales manager!!

Daily Sales Huddle -- Keith Crownover, CEO of Delta Health Technologies, a home health software solution company, shared at the Summit how they recently launched a daily huddle for their sales people. Notes Joe Fochler, Director of Sales "I was an initial skeptic of the daily huddle for my sales team; I am now a raving supporter. We had been holding an hour 'touch base' meeting each week as our only source of group communication. My reluctance remained even after we attended your recent seminar in State College. Following the workshop our management team spent some time with our coach Gene Kirila and he convinced me to 'give the huddle a try' and had some sound examples of how to 'sell the huddle' to my team. He told me to try the huddle for three weeks and if we don't feel there is any value, then we can stop using the huddle..."

Learn Faster and Save Time -- continues Fochler, "...We started the daily huddle on April 2, 2008 and the huddle has become a habit and my team has really enjoyed the quick resolution of 'stuck' points. Our huddle is from 4:50PM to 5:00PM each day and I take any 'stuck' items to my morning huddle with the executive team. I often have issues resolved before we get back together for our nightly huddle. I have actually found that I have fewer interruptions throughout the day as my team has developed a discipline to wait until our daily huddle for certain issues to be discussed. We have experienced great 'findings' about competitive advantages that a salesperson shared that may have been lost if we waited a week. We all feel like we are 7 days ahead of our competition and the pace has definitely picked up as a result of the daily huddle." Here's a link to my article on running a daily sales huddle.

Sales People Need to Bring Value to a Sales Call, Not Just Communicate Value -- this was one of the key messages Neil Rackham delivered to our audience. And how does the sales person deliver such high value that the customer would actually pay for the sales call? (this is an excellent litmus test for determining if you have an effective sales force) -- Here is Neil's list in order of value (low to highest):

 

• Talking brochures add no value
  
• Information on customer relevant trends and issues adds minor value
  
• Acting as the customer's advocate creates value 
• Problem solving and customizing solutions add high value 
• Helping customers change strategic direction adds most value 

Neil suggests, as part of a call planning process, that the sales person with their sales manager figure out the kind of value they can bring to a particular sales call.
      
Transactional vs. Consultative Sale -- Neil also drove home the point that you can't get stuck in the middle. You either need to dramatically reduce your transactional sales costs (web solution or distribution channel strategies) or build deeper consultative selling skills and approaches i.e. Oracle took the transactional database sales away from the sales force and moved to a telesales and distribution channel strategy and in turn focused their sales team on landing the larger applications business that required deeper consultative skills. The result -- no reduction in database sales while a dramatic increase in application sales. In transactional sales, the buyer trusts the product; in consultative sales the buyer trusts the seller (sales person).
      
Three C's of Consultative Selling -- so how does a salesperson build trust? Candor -- straightforward, no exaggeration, honest about ignorance; Concern -- cares about what I think, listens, asks questions; Competence -- professionally sound, technically proficient, experienced. And which of the three is most important, Rackham's research shows? Concern. This led to his famous SPIN Selling model. I encourage ALL sales people to read his SPIN Selling book or fieldbook once a year to sharpen their questioning and listening skills.
      
Sales Manager or CEO Should NEVER Offer Customer Concessions -- this powerful tip from Neil Rackham. The quickest way to undermine your sales person and signal to the customer that he/she should deal with you directly rather than the sales person is to OK concessions. If a customer asks for a discount or free shipping etc. and you're on the sales call with your sales person you should turn to the sales person and ask "would it be OK if we offer the customer an 8% discount -- you know the numbers?"
      
Marketing Hints Next Week!  And the next Sales and Marketing Summit is April 21-22, 2009 -- mark your calendars.

Dilbert on Daily Huddles

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES: (Theme -- smarter people than me!) Print-Friendly Version

Dilbert on the "daily huddle" -- you know a concept "has arrived" when Scott Cook starts beating it up -- check out Tuesday's strip  and Wednesday's strip.  I did send an email to Scott Adams offering to train Dilbert & Co. on the proper way to lead a daily huddle!!

Warren Buffett on investing, the economy, etc. -- 15 times a year the wealthiest person on earth shares his wisdom with a group of students. Recently, FORTUNE magazine was invited to sit in -- if you read just one article this week take ten minutes to scan through this insightful piece -- this link provides a summary, but I would encourage you to click on the full article. My favorite Buffett line "I think we've got fabulous capital markets in this country, and they get screwed up often enough to make them even more fabulous. I mean, you don't want a capital market that functions perfectly if you're in my business." There you have it -- thank goodness for fools!

Pixar's Brad Bird on innovation -- and if you have any brain minutes left, read this amazing interview McKinsey did with Brad Bird, two-time Oscar-winning director at Pixar for directing both The Incredibles and Ratatouille. His insights on how he got the animation teams to produce something four times as difficult for less money/minute and overall time IS incredible. And how he excited the "black sheep" to shake up the way they had been doing things up to that point is insightful. This article is particularly critical for those of you with creative teams i.e. software, PR, engineering, architectural, and accounting firms (OK, maybe not accounting -- we need to keep it legal!). What's even more amazing is that Bird was brought in to purposely shake up the status quo after he had just produced a financial disaster -- The Iron Giant.

Stickk on maximizing upfront cash and meeting goals -- thank you Matt Heinz, Senior Director of Marketing, Verdiem  -- Power Management for PC Networks -- for turning me onto this upfront cash machine -- a website called Stickk. Their tagline is "Put a Contract Out on Yourself." In essence, you pick a tough goal, establish the stakes, and pick a referee. Let's say you want to lose some weight and you put $50/week at stake. If you achieve your weekly goals, you get the money back. If not, it goes to charity or a friend or an anti-charity. Stickk doesn't actually get to keep any of the money in the end, but it gets to sit on the money (think interest) during the goal period. Here's a great explanation of the idea. I imagine many of your firms could do something similar to help people in your office achieve some personal goals -- and hey, if you're a little short of cash flow...J

Grand Master Strategy

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

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"Grand Master" Strategist Gene Kirila Turns $7 Million Division into $100 Million Opportunity -- I spent the last two days with a couple of dear friends and long-standing clients Gene Kirila and Paul Silvis. Gene was the youngest-ever named "Hero of Manufacturing" in the U.S. for pioneering several manufacturing technologies that have changed entire industries; Paul is founder of Restek, a $60 million leader in manufacturing chromatography products. Knowing that the best need coaching, Paul invited Gene in to look at a $7 million division that he felt should be generating considerably greater revenues. What resulted from the strategy session was a credible and realistic new strategy to generate $100 million. It's strategy that drives revenue growth -- if your top line isn't growing as fast as you would like you need to tweak your strategy!! How they did it is under DETAILS below.

Grand Masters Have the Most Moves -- Kaihan Krippendorf, the brilliant ex-McKinsey strategist and author of The Art of the Advantage book and DVD series points out that Grand Master chess players aren't thinking any more moves ahead in a chess match than an expert-designated player. The difference is that given the layout of the chess board at any particular moment the Grand Master has 10 times the available next moves he or she can make i.e. more available patterns residing in their brain. Kaihan, who is doing strategy training work for firms like Wal-Mart and Microsoft finds that most executives have the same handful of moves or patterns they fall back on when plotting strategy. His approach expands that to 36 moves -- moves all of you should have at your disposal. BTW, you might notice Kaihan appears to have a new book out -- it's simply a re-titling of his Advantage book now called Hide a Dagger Behind a Smile!  The key is to play with a half-dozen of his strategies at each strategy planning session until they become second nature.

50 Deals and Experience -- so let's go back to Gene and Paul. Paul has been ensconced in basically one business for decades. In turn, Gene has been involved in over 50 deals during the same time. As you'll read below, Gene simply had a bunch of moves and experiences available at his fingertips that were different than Paul's. This is why we all need outsiders -- advisors, consultants, coaches -- to help us maximize the potential of ourselves and our businesses. It's not a sign of weakness (Paul is one of the most respected business leaders in his community -- FYI, he's a candidate for Trustee at Penn State U -- any Nittany Lion alums, please cast your vote); it's the best that reach out. That's why the Microsoft's and Wal-Mart's hire grand masters like Krippendorf.

10,000 Hours to Become a Master -- Bryan Fischer, with Catalyst Connection   in Western Pennsylvania, pointed me to this outstanding April 1, 2008 NY Times Op-Ed piece by David Brooks. Published on opening day of baseball, it's one of the most succinct and elegant explanations on how to instill discipline within people and organizations I've ever read using the insights about focus and discipline from the H.A. Dorfman's book The Mental ABCs of Pitching. And in the op-ed piece he notes that it takes 10,000 hours to master anything -- roughly three hours per day for 10 years -- which I shared with my children. Please, please, please share this article with ALL your employees (you don't have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this article)!! Make it the subject of your next weekly meeting or brown-bag lunch series.

Masters Lose Themselves in the Task -- there are so many great lines in Brooks op-ed piece, but this one particularly hit home as you watch Grand Masters do anything -- notes Brooks "A baseball game is a spectacle, with a thousand points of interest. But Dorfman reduces it all to a series of simple tasks. The pitcher's personality isn't at the center. His talent isn't at the center. The task is at the center...and by putting the task at the center, Dorfman helps the pitcher quiet the self. He pushes the pitcher's thoughts away from his own qualities -- his expectations, his nerve, his ego -- and helps the pitcher lose himself in the job."

Grand Master Tiger Woods at the Masters -- as I write this Woods is just four back from the lead at the coveted Masters Golf Tournament. If there is anyone on the planet that knows how to "lose himself in the job" and place the task at the center, it's Woods. And if you take time to watch the Masters this weekend you'll once again witness a player who simply has more moves in his arsenal than the rest of the field -- and an outstanding coach in Hank Haney.

Grand Masters Set Strategy; Experts Drive Execution -- I'm starting to see that it takes a village of coaches to help firms. When it comes to setting strategy, you have to engage a Grand Master -- someone with decades of diverse experience who is wicked smart. And this strategy is critical because it has to last 5-7 years if not longer. Challenge is -- these people are expensive in the short run, but if you amortize over several years (and calculate the cost of not getting your Business Model correct) then it's inexpensive. In turn, driving execution and holding your feet to the fire would bore strategists, so you need a different kind of long-term coach to support this execution process.

You Don't Know What you Don't Know -- that's why Bill Gates does his "Think Weeks."  This is why we host our two Summits.  Gene Kirila will be in Orlando at the Sales and Marketing Summit precisely because he's a great student of business -- he's there to learn from other masters, picking up new moves and patterns. He'll have no idea when he'll use them, but they'll be there as he does his next 50 deals. Whoever has the most patterns and focus wins i.e. lots of diverse patterns applied to a single-minded focus! Come meet Gene.

DETAILS:

Here's the essence of Paul and Gene's strategy. Gene asked what the main differential advantage was provided by the $7 million division. Their metal coatings can reduce costs by 20% - 30%. He then asked who the largest customer was which was a firm doing about $400k. He then asked Paul how much business this customer should be doing with this Restek division. Paul replied roughly $25 million.

Gene then had Paul's team pull up the 10k for this customer and point out "which line item on the income statement is affected by the 20% - 30% improvement?" Turns out, in the larger scheme of things, Restek's process is maybe impacting the customer a fraction of a percent -- not enough to get anyone to be a strong advocate for the process.

Gene then asked if there was any existing client where the Restek process made a critical impact on the business. One of the people in the meeting said yes, there's a critical valve in off-shore rigs that has to be replaced frequently. And when the rig is shut down for the eight hours to replace this valve, it costs the company millions of dollars. Restek's process can have a significant impact on the life-expectancy of these valves!! The strategy, therefore, is to dramatically narrow the focus of marketing/sales and go after companies in this industry. There's one client they figure might do $100 million in business with them.

Paul also pointed out publicly in our Rockefeller Habits workshop yesterday that Gene had also opened his eyes to a marketing strategy he never would have contemplated. They have a major customer that has been balking at the cost of their coating process. Gene suggested they do the coating for free (install a coating facility within this major customer's plant -- something Gene did himself in another venture) and then split the gains i.e. the coating will let the customer increase the price of the product by $10 so Restek and the customer can split this gain.

Time will tell if these are viable strategies.  Stay tuned.

Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES: (Theme -- parenting, children health's, autism) Print-Friendly Version

16  Quarterly Themes Posted -- if you're looking for ideas for  Quarterly Themes, sixteen examples have been posted   since we launched the wiki last week -- thank you for everyone that posted. And if you have examples, please post   -- let's get the database up to 50 themes!

Perfect  Parenting -- my wife Julie and I just completed an email-based  and complimentary "3 Weeks to Perfect Parenting" course -- it was very insightful and helpful. The creation of Rabbi Steven Baars, he's also the creator of "Bliss" a fantastic marriage program which we just hosted for the members of my DC Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) chapter -- it was also very well received. I encourage you, if you're parents, to sign-up for Baars free-parenting course. You receive a single email each day that provides a learning point and some actions you can take. We're actually going to go through the course again for review.

TOPGRADE YOUR KIDS?  That's right! Topgrading founder Brad Smart has teamed up with his daughter, family therapist Dr. Kate Smart Mursau, to publish such a book ... though the title was changed to Smart  Parenting: How to Raise Happy, Can-Do Kids. I love the book and think you will too. Kate surveyed 3,000 high achieving business managers, who reported that the most important life skill is (just as Brad suggests in his books) resourcefulness, yet they complain that their kids lack it. The book explains why, but more importantly offers dozens of fun activities parents have successfully used to re-stimulate kids, to make them can-do kids who become more energized, focused, responsible...can-do kids. 

Actors  Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy wrote the most  thoughtful and insightful article on autism I've read as the world focuses on this dreaded affliction. In essence, their 5-year old son has recovered from autism to the point that professionals now doubt he ever had autism! And they achieved these results through vitamins and alternative methods that cleansed his body of the effects of vaccines and other toxins. My wife and I are fans of homeopathy where it's understood that minute amounts of a substance can have immediate impact on a person's health. Whether it's the 36 vaccines before age 2 (used to be 10 before age 5) or the host of other toxins that pour into our systems, there are proven protocols that cleanse the body of these toxins, regenerate the healthy bacteria we need, and significantly boost the immune system (including cancer).

Center  for Human Functioning -- my apologies upfront, but I receive lots of requests to donate to this health cause or another. In every case, I send a donation on the person's behalf to the Center for Human Functioning. I believe that most of the organizations looking at solving this or that human disease have headed down dead-end traditional paths, wasting billions of dollars. In turn, these well-meaning organizations ignore simple, yet effective approaches. I blame our FDA which reinforces our multi-billion dollar pharma industry and does everything it can to block alternative approaches. The FDA's recent ruling to make illegal bio-identical hormone treatment for women in favor of Wyeth's artificial chemicals has me (and my wife) livid!! Anyway, whenever a family member or friend experiences a serious ailment I contact the Center to find out their proposed protocol. FYI, it's their Vitamin C IV protocol that is now being used worldwide and the one we use in our family.

How Vitamin  C IVs Kill Cancer -- and here is the latest update on science's understanding of how/why high dose Vitamin C (given intravenously) kills cancer -- more progress is being made every day. I've shared how my parents, both in their 70's have had miraculous recoveries from various health issues following the Center for Human Functioning protocols and receiving regular Vitamin C IVs. My mom used to be on a bag full of meds prescribed by her traditional doctor that created a "death spiral." We intervened and today she takes half of a blood pressure pill each day -- that's it. My father is back dancing regularly as he turns 73 in a couple months.

Food Dyes and Preservatives Lead to Toddler  Tantrums -- and this from a major study in Great Britain. In essence, most food dyes and preservatives are made from petroleum products -- not good for children's developing brains and bodies -- and they found a direct link to hyperactivity in children. Here's an excellent website that summarizes  the impacts. Under DETAILS below I  list details of the study as well.

DETAILS:

Toddler tantrums

When 3-year-olds in Great Britain were given food dyes and a  preservative, something unexpected happened.

The researchers  found that a modest amount of food additives had a profound effect on the  children's behavior.

The 277 preschool age children on the Isle of Wight who participated in the study were youngsters from the general population. Screened for hyperactivity and given a skin-prick test for atopy (allergy), they were divided into four groups based on whether or not they had one, none, or both of these conditions. They were all put on a diet that excluded food colorings and the preservative sodium benzoate. (BHT/BHA/TBHQ preservatives which are so prevalent in the American diet are not allowed in children's food in the UK.)

For two of the weeks the children drank fruit juice that did not contain additives, and then during the other two weeks their juice looked the same, but contained a blend of four food dyes and the preservative sodium benzoate. The parents were not aware of when the children received the plain juice and when their juice was laced with additives. During the "challenge period" (when the children consumed the chemicals) parents reported these reactions: disturbing others, difficulty settling down to sleep, poor concentration and temper tantrums.

The amount of dye used, 20 milligrams, is very small, considering the number of brightly colored foods children typically consume today, particularly in the United States.

To give you an idea of what 20 mg of dye equals, it is less than the amount you would find in one half teaspoon of bright colored frosting, not nearly enough to cover a cupcake. If such a small dose could trigger problems for one fourth of the children, what would be the effect of using a more typical dose? Ten times the amount used in the British study would be more representative of what an American child ingests in a day. And the child attending a birthday party, consuming dyes in the cake, ice cream, drink and candy can easily reach 600 milligrams. Even when a family limits the sweets, children are exposed to growing amounts of petroleum-based dyes in their toothpaste, vitamins, cereals, "fruit" juices, and medicines.
 

The study suggests that the more a child consumes, the greater his chance of being affected.

This study demonstrates what parents have been reporting for decades:
their children behave badly after they eat certain foods. Now it has been documented that food additives affect the behavior of children who have no history of behavior problems. See the abstract of the study.

As a result of this study, the British Food Commission, an independent watchdog, is demanding that those additives be removed from food and drinks designed for children. They estimate that the elimination of the troublesome additives would significantly reduce the number of children who are diagnosed as hyperactive.

There's an ugly side to those pretty colors. Most of the food dyes found in products marketed to children are made from petroleum (crude oil), just like gasoline.

Food additives, including dyes, are not required to be tested to determine if they can affect behavior. But studies have shown that they are responsible both for behavior problems and for an assortment of serious health problems.

Red dyes were found to cause DNA damage, physical toxicity, possible breast cancer and damage to the reproductive systems of test animals.

Yellow dyes led  to migraine headaches, suppression of the immune system, abdominal pain,  asthma, eczema and cancer.

When the American Academy of Pediatrics studied the damaging effects of "inactive" ingredients - the dyes used in drugs and thought to have no effect - they found that the additives are far from inactive. Most of them triggered various respiratory problems. Considering the epidemic of childhood asthma, that health professionals are at a loss to explain, a good place to look for clues would be right under our noses or more specifically, under the noses of the children who routinely ingest phony fruit drinks, green ketchup, blue applesauce, purple vitamins, pink antibiotics and fluorescent cereals.

For more information on dyes and their effects, see: Research on Dyes, Information on Coloring, and Adverse Effects of Inactive Ingredients (based on Pediatrics 1985)
 
   
 

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Top Two CEO Concerns

". . .keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES: (Quarterly Theme time!) Print-Friendly Version

Archive of Quarterly Themes -- Gazelles is launching a public wiki (think Wikipedia) in partnership with AboutUs.org where we're asking you to upload past quarterly themes so other firms can garner new ideas for their themes -- include theme title, pictures, pdf's of posters and handouts, description, etc. -- here's the link -- more detailed instructions under DETAILS below (though the beauty of wikis is the simplicity of putting up information on the web!). Please upload and share your quarterly themes, past and present, with others. Hopefully we'll have a bunch for you to look at by the next Insight.

Exceptional Employee Retention in Notoriously High Turnover Industries -- FORTUNE magazine needs two companies under $100 million that have figured out how to retain their hard-to-retain employees. Tech/Software and Health Care are two industries that have high turnover rates. Have you cracked the code on employee retention? Let me know and I'll pass along your info -- U.S. companies only.

Chicago Bread Company "Makeover" -- any suggestions for how to help this company?  Here's the link. Post your comments by Wednesday, April 2, and the best comments will run in the May issue of FORTUNE Small Business magazine.

200 Sales Leads -- this was the 4th quarter Critical Number for Boise-based Employers Resource. Noted co-founder Mary Gersema, "our 4th quarter goal was 200 leads from employees for prospective clients. (We have 97 employees so figured 2 from everyone was lofty). The prize. . . 42" flat screen to watch the Super Bowl (#42). Theme NFL 'need for leads.' We did daily phone calls to tally the count. On December 19th we had stalled out and I did impassioned pleas (I was shameless) and got us from 189 (at 9am) to 200 by 1pm! We ended up with 215 leads, had a ball (get it. . . football), gave a TV to a great employee and have already converted 2 of the leads to clients and will most certainly convert more."

Rolling out Themes to Branch Offices -- continues Gersema "I forgot to mention that we have 8 branch offices around the country so each branch became an NFL team. Almost all branch offices have a 'real' team so it was easy to have the Dallas Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons, etc. Full decorations and tailgating parties for every 50 yards (leads). Awesome fun and 100% participation."

Captain Ahab and Ishmael -- Sherry Hoffman, head of Marketing & Communications for Portland-based Fairway America sent me this note about their latest quarterly theme "We just had one of the most amazing 1st Quarter Kickoffs ever to date. Picture our CEO dressed as Captain Ahab and our esteemed President as Ishmael. It just gets better from there. You can read/see the story in brief on our website."

Power of Themes -- concludes Hoffman "We greatly appreciate your trainings and guidance as it has made an immense difference to our company culture and growth as we have integrated the Rockefeller Habits into our daily rhythms. Last year was our best year ever, and we anticipate this year being even better." 

New One-Page Strategic Plan Word Document -- and yes, there were some formatting issues with the Word version of our new One-Page Strategic Planning template. So we hired some pros and the Word document works fantastic now. We still have the "Classic" version available as well. Just click on "My Gazelles" in the upper right corner of our website, enter your email address (our system will recognize you if you're already registered) and scroll down the left hand column of your personalized page -- you'll see links to the New and Classic One-Page Strategic Planning templates.

Top Two CEO Concerns -- the latest IDC annual survey of CEOs found that "Sales Productivity" and "Customer Care" are the top two concerns of CEOs given the volatility of the economy. These happen to be the two main topics of our April 22-23 Sales and Marketing Summit. Take 48 hours and immerse yourself in the practical ideas contained in over a dozen leading books. "Ideas are our main value-add as executives." And those that attended our Summits know that there is very little theory and a lot of practicality. BTW, we've exceeded our numbers from last year, so it will be a dynamic Summit.

Speaking of Ideas -- I had a thirty-minute call with Insight reader James Dickey, who runs marketing for a half billion firm (he did it after hours!). IntroNetworks, our new community-building system in which he's participating, matched him and me up based on how we each filled out our profiles. His expertise matched a specific challenge I'm facing in my business and his advice and insights were invaluable. Thanks James. Take five minutes to fill out your profile and visually see who is in your inner circle. It's a dating service for executives of growth firms. Many of you have already shared how you've met fellow executives in our network that share common interests, concerns, and talents. "Whoever has access to the most brains, wins!" And we'll be doing a live networking event at the Sales and Marketing Summit led by Mark Sylvester, co-founder of IntroNetworks. Find the ideas that matter to you!

DETAILS: (Quarterly Theme wiki)

Ray King, founder of AboutUS.org, is a serial entrepreneur who has built and sold several technology firms -- and has been one of our longest standing clients -- many of you met Ray at our last Growth Summit. His last firm, SnapNames, provides the domain name backorder and auction engine for most of the domain name registration companies -- in fact, rather than pay domain name backorder charges upfront, like you have to do at GoDaddy, Network Solutions, etc., you can go directly to www.snapnames.com and declare which URL's you would like to own. And you only pay if you get access to the URL. It's how I got www.bestpractices.com (I get lots of requests to buy it!)

Anyway, Ray's latest firm, AboutUs.org, has technology that automatically builds a parallel wiki for every website in the world. And since most websites are business oriented, AboutUs is becoming the largest wiki of businesses. In fact, the founder of wiki's is on his board and Ray, himself, if recognized as one of the top five experts on wikis.

Why do you need a public wiki (lots of you are starting to use wikis internally to capture employee IP)?

1. Information in wikis pop higher on search engines because they are so hot-link rich
    
   
2. We should all have wikis to start tapping into the collective intelligence of our own networks -- again, "whoever taps into the most brains, wins" -- this is the key behind the success of Facebook, My Space, Wikipedia, and Google
    
   
3. You don't want your wiki to be an island on its own. You need to be hanging out in a large ocean of wikis so people can find you

This is why we're partnering with Ray. Gazelles is going to be building a bunch of topic specific wikis to make it easier for our network of 15,000 to share best practices around meeting rhythms, strategic planning, etc. And our first is a wiki to share Quarterly Theme ideas.

Start sharing and networking with what I believe are 15,000 of the savviest and smartest executives of growth firms on the planet. And the network is growing.

Ten Ideas That are Changing the World

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES: Print-Friendly Version

NOTE: March 21 Deadline - Hotel Reservations for  Sales and Marketing Summit -- our $159/night room rate expires March 21 -- if you plan to attend the April 22 -- 23 Sales and Marketing Summit in Orlando, please make your hotel reservations -- here's a link to info. We try and get the hotel to extend the rate for late registrations, but it's never guaranteed. And you can cancel later, so reserve a room if you think you might attend.

Ten Ideas That Are Changing the World -- this is the cover  story of the March 24 issue of Time Magazine.  Idea #7 is "Authenticity" and  features Jim Gilmore and Joe Pine, authors of Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want as well as their  best-seller The Experience Economy. BTW, Jim  is one of the main keynote speakers at our upcoming Sales and Marketing  Summit.  Here's a link to their piece in  the extensive article.
 

Jim and Joe are referenced  throughout the article, written by Time staff writer John Cloud who interviewed them extensively for the piece. We're honored that this venerable magazine is devoting so much coverage to why the desire for authenticity is now driving consumer behavior and business change and we're excited to be hosting them at our event. We encourage you to read what Time is saying about the growing role of authenticity and when you're ready to continue the conversation about authenticity, be sure to go to www.AuthenticityBook.com where you can explore, learn, and share your own ideas on getting real in an  increasingly unreal world.

FORTUNE Small Business Focus Group -- see  invite to participate in a focus group session at the Sales and Marketing  Summit -- under DETAILS below. $100 Amex gift certificate for each participant -- plus experience how the focus group process works, something you can use in your own sales and marketing activities.
   
No Thursday insight -- I'm on spring break  with my family -- I'm taking a break from writing which is why this one is short  as well.

DETAILS:

We are recruiting a select group of small business owners who read FORTUNE Small Business to join us in Orlando during the FSB and Gazelles Sales and Marketing Summit to share their valuable insights and opinions on how technology helps grow business.
 
This invitation-only focus group will be conveniently held in the same hotel as the Growth Summit -- the Marriott Orlando Airport, Orlando, FL-- and will not conflict with any of the conference program. The focus group will last approximately 90 minutes. We recognize that your time is valuable, so if you are selected, you will receive $100 in American Express Gift Cheques for your participation.
 
If you are a small business owner and a FORTUNE Small Business reader and you would like to participate, please visit the link below and enter your contact information:
 
http://www.businessownerscouncil.com/surveys/m/3033fg/invite.asp

Best Tagline

"...keeping  you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

 

HEADLINES: (All About Employees!) Print-Friendly Version

How Do  You Handle Dress Codes -- FORTUNE Small Business Magazine is looking for small business owners who would like to share the challenges they have experienced and/or the solutions they've come up with in dealing with their employees' dress codes. Whether it's tattoos that are covered up or out in the open, jeans or slacks, lawsuits or wardrobe allowances, we want to hear about it. By small business we mean 1 to 100 employees and/or $1 million to $100 million in annual revenues. We also prefer businesses located outside the New York area. If you have something to contribute to the story, please contact fsb_mail@timeinc.com with the subject heading: "DRESS CODE IN THE WORKPLACE."

How to  Know if Someone Has to Go? -- Wallace  Brumley, CEO of Brumley Professional Employer Services, has a simple way to know if an employee should go. Annually he sends out a letter commemorating an employee on their employment anniversary -- and it includes hotel and dinner. If he doesn't feel like sending the letter, it tells him it's time for the employee to go.

The  Southwest Airlines of the Portable Storage Industry -- A Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is a key tool for  motivating employees.  Stephen Shang, CEO  of Falcon Storage   sent me the following note on Monday "Our BHAG is "To be the Southwest Airlines of  the portable storage industry." I had always thought that this was just a 'rallying cry' for our Boxperts (what we call our employees).  What I didn't realize was that it was a way to share the dream of Falcon Storage with the world, and when they are on board, they help make that dream come true in ways I never dreamed possible."

Enter Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest  Airlines -- continues Shang "You see, I've been doing a lecture at the University of Texas Entrepreneurship program.  When asked where I envisioned our company in 30 years, it was only logical to mention our BHAG.  Well one of the professors knew Herb Kelleher, and recommended that we meet.  We had lunch this past Friday and needless to say, it added JET FUEL to our BHAG!!!  The meeting helped us really flesh out what it means to be the Southwest Airlines of our industry; we gained so many nuggets of wisdom from Herb.  For Falcon's culture, this meeting will be one of those legends that we tell for many years to come.  Most importantly, it helps us gain a laser like focus on this Big Hairy Audacious Goal." Here are a couple photos of Herb and Shang's team and a poster they  presented to Herb with all their Boxperts' signatures.

Best Tagline -- and I love Falcon Storage's tagline "It's a box... you put stuff in it!" You  don't get any more basic than this!

Capturing Employee  Intellectual Capital -- Lee Rosen, President of Raleigh-Durham based Rosen  Law Firm, launched an internal company wiki. Note's Rosen "I used a $1000 contest to encourage our lawyers and staff to contribute to the wiki and within a year we had over 4000 pages of intellectual content!" Rosen also pointed me to the recent Inc. article about how companies are using wikis which provides more details behind Rosen's use of their wiki.  BTW, check out Lee's video segment on their home page -- an excellent example of how to  use imbedded video to help your customers and establish credibility. 

Less  Employees Paid More Even for Schools! -- my favorite article since my  last insight (and my personal favorite so far in 2008) is this NY Times piece on Lee Vanderhoek's bold experiment with a new charter school in NY where he's cutting out administration, laptops, elective courses, and increasing student/teacher ratios and then taking the savings and offering teachers six figure salaries, in many cases twice what they make now. Quoting Vanderhoek in the NY Times article "I would much rather put a phenomenal, great teacher in a field with 30 kids and nothing else than take the mediocre teacher and give them half the number of students and give them all the technology in the world." BTW, Vanderhoek, a 31 year old Yale graduate and former middle school teacher, built a test preparation company that pays its tutors far more than the competition -- once again, showing the power of entrepreneurs to lead and change the world.
   
Employee  Education -- and this note this week from David Rich, founder of  ICC/Decision Services, a leading customer experience management and measurement  company, "Wanted to let you  know that we bought your Rockefeller Habits DVD and have put it to good use. At the beginning of each weekly staff meeting we show a section. It is a great review for those who have attended the workshop and a great introduction for those who have not. Over the years I probably have had 80 hours of Rockefeller Habits (BOG, YEO, EO, plus THREE Gazelles 2-Day Rockefeller workshops)....HOWEVER I always gain motivation to do something a little better with each viewing/exposure." Repetition is the key to mastery.
   
Principles  of Persuasion -- persuasive skills are crucial in dealing with employees, customers, and the rest of your stakeholders/people. For everyone that raved about Dr. Robert Cialdini's two-hour presentation at the last Growth Summit (the finest presentation I've EVER seen), I encourage you to participate in one of their two-day workshops. I sent three of my team members to their workshop this week in Phoenix. They are also hosting a workshop in Montreal April 10 -- 11 in conjunction with the McGill International Executive Institute. FYI, it's a workshop highly recommended by Charles Munger, Warren Buffett's partner. Enough said! For more information, please visit www.hrdpop.com.

Name Price First

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES:

Negotiators Who Name Price  First, Win!!  We've posted a short video  from Dr. Victoria Medvec's presentation from last year's Sales and Marketing  Summit where she outlines this critical point -- you'll see it in the right hand  column of our Gazelles.tv website. Take three minutes and watch this video -- attendees at last year's Summit have shared with me story after story how her four-hour program has made them millions of dollars and particularly her point about naming price first. There's a reason Goldman Sachs is one of her main clients -- and now her entire four-hour workshop is on an interactive DVD. John Ratliff, CEO of Appletree Answers, who had the fastest growing company in the 2007 Private Company Index (PCI), has been putting all his key leaders and managers through her DVD interactive course (also online) with great results.

Sales Superstar Checklist -- one of the complimentary  tools for this year's upcoming Sales and Marketing Summit faculty is Jack Daly's "Sales Superstar Checklist." Jack, from my viewpoint, is the top sales management trainer. It's sales management (or lack of) that is at the root of most sales function challenges. I'm always excited to hear Jack -- it's like I need my yearly dose of "Jack." Here's a  link to the tools. 

"Five People you MUST Meet" Update -- I made a huge mistake in programming our IntroNetworks system which eliminated a bunch of obvious "matches." If you already posted your profile, please log back in and take a look at your push pin diagram -- there are likely several people in our network that are close matches to your interests, questions, etc. (those with pins in your "inner circle"). Take a look at their profiles and find out why there was a match. I, myself, found a critical match to a key question for our company -- that person has agreed to give me a hand in solving our problem -- thanks Jim. And if you haven't posted your profile, then take five minutes and join the "Gazelles  Community" and find the five most important people you MUST meet  -- for User Type leave as "Member" unless you're planning to attend the Sales  and Marketing Summit, then make it "Member@Summit" since we're going  to make physical connections at the event.

Long Lost Friend Found -- Brian Wolf, CEO of Baltimore-based Activus Technology Corporation, sent me this short note "I registered for the intronet your company put together.  I want to thank you for doing so.  While looking over some of the other members of the network, I came across someone I knew years ago but had lost contact with.  We've been able to reconnect, and renew a friendship.  Much thanks!"

FORTUNE Small Business Magazine Focus Groups -- FSB is going to run some more focus groups at the Sales  and Marketing Summit -- a way to garner feedback from leaders of small to mid-size firms. Those that participated last year had a blast and enjoyed seeing how the "pros" run these focus groups -- let us know if you would like to participate in a focus group session -- they will run from 5:30pm -- 7pm Tuesday, April 22 in Orlando at the Summit.

Old-School Networking Best Practices -- Matt Heinz, Senior Director of Marketing for Verdiem  sent me this note last week  re: our networking system "Good stuff.   I published a column this morning on old-school professional networking  best practices, thought you might enjoy it given the topic..." -- thanks Matt. I particularly enjoyed his detailed list of activities toward the end of the article. BTW, Verdiem is a green technology company focused on reducing the carbon footprint of every IT device worldwide i.e. a way to manage the electrical usage of your various PCs. Check them out and "go green."

Why Not the Sales and  Marketing Summit? -- during my "council" meeting Monday morning (you do have a "council" yourself -- if not read pages 114 -- 116 in Jim Collins book "Good to Great") the key question we explored was "given the competitive environment and the economic challenges and the importance of sales and marketing, we're surprised not EVERYONE in our network of 15,000 aren't attending the Sales and Marketing Summit." Even though we're on pace to have a record turn-out, it pales in comparison to our network. So I thought I would just ask you! Where ideas are the most important thing an executive of a growing company can provide the company, why aren't you taking two-days to hear from the top thought leaders and getting away from everyday challenges to give yourself some time to think? All feedback is appreciated.