"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy
HEADLINES:
Financial Crisis Update below -- but first...
Doubled Profitability -- Hema Raney, CEO of Mumbai-basedAyushakti, a leading provider of Ayurveda (traditional India medicine based on herbs, massage, and yoga), doubled the profitability of their 8-country operation since attending our first Rockefeller Habits workshop in May 2007. Hema brought her team to my recent workshop in Mumbai and shared with my audience that she only had 4 items checked on our Rockefeller Habits Checklist when she first attended sixteen months ago and now they have over 20. Results? Besides doubling her profitability, the habits freed up her time to work on growing the business!
Do You Have the Discipline -- each quarter I encourage companies to take a few minutes at their next weekly or monthly meeting to "rate their discipline" by going through the Rockefeller Habits Checklist --please take five minutes, complete the checklist, and pick a couple habits to focus on this coming quarter. These habits have proven over decades to save significant time and increase profitability. Why wait!!
4th & 3 Football Video Theme -- Notre Dame fans will love this one -- John Ratliff, founder of Appletree Answering Services, who doesn't even like Notre Dame football, nevertheless used their tradition of each player touching a "Play Like a Champion" sign as they go onto the field to design their fourth quarter theme "Think Like a Customer." Here's a no cost video they created to help kick off the theme. By thinking like a customer their goal is to reduce customer attrition to 3% in the fourth quarter. As a side note, Ratliff noted "every company should have one Mac machine to produce their themes!"
Sportscast-themed Video and Collateral -- Ratliff also professionally produced a more extensive 7 minute introductory video (cost $5k), structured like a sportscast, to announce the theme to his employees across their twelve U.S. locations (including Puerto Rico). Photos show examples of their scoreboards and the location of their various "Think Like a Customer" signs. They also created an extensive "playbook" that outlines the priorities for each position in the company. It was printed by Apple for about $11/playbook.
Join Pete Scott of NASCAR.com in racing FORMULA Cars -- 2 spots left for our Maverick Business Adventures Race Day the afternoon of October 20 in Atlanta, just prior to our Growth Summit. Pete Scott is Executive Director of digital partnerships for Turner Sports where he oversees NASCAR.com, NBA.com, PGA.com and PGATour.com, as well as broadband channels TNT OverTime on NBA.com and TBS Hot Corner on MLB.com
Financial Crisis Update -- entitled "The Accounting Rule You Should Care About" CNNMoney published an important article this week on the "Mark to Market" rule that has created this crisis -- the point I made in last week's Insight -- and I believe its cash flow that matters, not market value. Three key points and a link to a critical video under DETAILS below.