Jim Collins New Book; Best Guerilla Marketing Campaign; Come Drink

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

Jim Collins New Book -- his long awaited next book, How the Mighty Fall And Why Some Companies Never Give In, arrives in bookstores (and ships from Amazon) next Tuesday, May 19. And an excerpt from the book will be in the May 22 Business Week that hits the newsstands tomorrow (Friday, May 15). This is the new material Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last, will be sharing in a four hour presentation at our Growth Summit Oct 20 -- 21 in Dallas. Mark your calendars.

Chocolate Covered Grasshoppers -- talk about "lumpy mail" -- GotVMail just changed their name to Grasshopper and to highlight the change and guerilla market their company (they provide virtual phone systems for entrepreneurs) they FedEx'd out 25,000 chocolate covered grasshoppers to influential entrepreneurs and received Fox News coverage. And it's working. I spoke to the EO Chapter in Chicago yesterday where several members were talking about the chocolate covered grasshoppers they had just received and whether or not they had tried them!

Entrepreneurs Can Change the World -- CEO David Hauser and the Grasshopper team also produced an excellent video on how entrepreneurs can change the world, part of a viral marketing campaign -- take a few minute to watch this inspiring piece and share with other entrepreneurs and your children. BTW, this is the same company that got actor Gary Busey to do the YouTube video piece on their core values and uses Post-it-Notes to share their values around the office -- they continue to find clever ways to market internally and externally. Thanks to their Gazelles' coach Les Rubenovitch for alerting us to these innovations.

Looking to Expand Into New Zealand? -- Rockefeller Habits practitioner and fan, Adrian Low, is between gigs and looking to see if any other companies aligned with our techniques is looking to expand into New Zealand. Low would like to help you rapidly grow and expand your business in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. Contact Low at Adrian.low@duffillwatts.com.

6 Critical Success Factors for Managing a Successful Acquisition Program -- white paper available. Gary Moon, BOGer, Rockefeller Habits practitioner, and M&A guru and his team have developed their buy-side acquisition program methodology across hundreds of transactions including best practices from today's most prolific acquirers, developed specifically with Gazelles mid-market client companies in mind. Here's the link.

Should you be considering acquisitions today? Most of our client companies have done well in identifying new markets, developing new revenue streams, and growing their companies organically -- but they often overlook an equally important path to growth - Acquisitions. The more successful a company gets, the more likely they will need to acquire in order to develop new and varied streams of growth and earnings. When the economy turns and the recovery shifts into full swing, the playing field in many industries will have shifted, sometimes dramatically. Companies can either participate in this reordering, or risk watching it happen around them. Acquisitions in today's environment create an unprecedented opportunity to separate from your competition in this time of uncertainty.

Frequent buyers consistently outperform non-buyers -- Bain and McKinsey studies have shown that companies that pursue an active balanced program of acquisitions create more shareholder value than those with passive, or no M&A strategies. They also show that constant acquirers - or those that buy consistently through economic cycles, and recession acquirers -- or those that increase their buying in recessionary times, consistently outperform growth buyers -- those which buy principally in growth periods.

Yet, why do such a high portion of acquisitions fail? According to many studies, up to 70% of acquisitions fail to create value for owners, yet it is virtually impossible to build a world-class company through organic growth alone. Most firms should engage in disciplined, strategy driven deal making, which usually means both buying and selling, and need to bring on specific deal expertise to increase probability of success. Get some help by finding the right "who."

Are you Playing Not to Lose, Or Are You Playing to Win -- My Last Two-Day Rockefeller Habits Workshop This Season -- June 9 -- 10, DC. Before I move the family to Barcelona in August I'll be personally leading a two-day Rockefeller Habits workshop. You have a six to twelve month window to grab market share and take advantage of your competitors' weakened business. I'll be working with you on five strategies for doubling revenue in the next twelve months and providing specific updated tools for reducing by 80% the time it takes for you to manage the business so you can spend more time on market-facing activities. Join me in DC (next to Dulles airport) June 9 -- 10.

Comments

[Dan]

You are moving to Barcelona? Wow! Very curious what the reason for such a choice is...