The Agile Scaleup

Planet Tan Sold; Biggest Opportunity to Ever Face Business; Apple's Operational Excellence; India Thriving So Far

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES: (Happy Thanksgiving in the U.S.)

Congrats to Tony Hartl on the Sale of Planet Tan -- most importantly, he received 85% of the price in cash! Announced on November 19, he sold to a strategic buyer Palm Beach Tan. The purchase makes them the largest in the tanning industry by revenue. Noted Tony, in an email to me last week, "I decided to sell to a very strategic buyer and could not be more excited to finally realize the 14 years of effort to bring this to exit. You were very helpful and encouraging along my journey and I think it is important to thank and appreciate your advice and motivation." Tony, you ran a superb operation and are a great student of business. BTW, he's taking a six month trip around the world and plans to write a book! Here's a link to the announcement.

Single Biggest Opportunity to Ever Face Business -- with all the doom and gloom, there's good news -- and I've seen it first hand on my travels through Asia -- 1 billion additional people moving into the middle class between now and 2020. Going after this opportunity saved Eric Zuziak's $11 million architectural firm; it's helping bolster our business. Please take five minutes and read my latest "Growth Guy" column which outlines the opportunity and keys to going after it -- reprinted under DETAILS below.

India Appears Least Effected by U.S. Recession -- with a 20% savings rate (vs. 2% in the U.S.), the India banks have a lot of cash. More importantly, as my partner in India, Raghoo Potinii, said to me a couple days ago "it's only ten years ago I had just the clean shirt on my back -- all of us in India still remember and know what it's like to have nothing." And having just come from China, the contrast is night and day. China, with all their infrastructure and lifestyle, they have a lot to lose. In India, you get a sense that if everyone lost most of what they have they would just keep on doing what they're doing -- it's a country that knows how to survive on very little -- a spirit I worry is somewhat lost in the U.S. and other developed countries.

Genius Behind Steve Jobs -- this is the title of FORTUNE magazine's article about Apple COO Tom Cook -- he's been the guy behind Apple's almost flawless execution. My favorite story is how he decided to lock up the supply of a critical flash memory component until 2010 when the Nano was introduced in 2005 -- the same strategy Soft Soap used to thwart P&G. Here's a link to the article

Happy Thanksgiving in the U.S.!

20 Customer Calls; Roger Hardy Congrats; Google Job Swaps; Facebook Influencers; Road Rules; Return from India

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

Road Rules by Andrew Sherman -- Nov 19 was the official launch of Andrew's latest book -- and his first self-development book vs. the dozen other purely business books he's launched. As legal council to EO, regular speaker at the MIT exec programs, and dear friend I'm excited to see him share his years of wisdom on personal life balance and success. Subtitled Be the Truck, Not the Squirrel: Learn the 12 Essential Rules for Navigating the Road of Life, take this holiday season, read Andrew's book, and remember it's more about the journey than the destination!

20 Customer Calls per Week -- this has been a key to $100 million Vancouver-based Coastal Contacts' ability to innovate and differentiate itself in a commodity market. Congratulations to Roger Hardy, CEO and president, for making the cover of this month's Canadian Profit Magazine.

One Idea Increases Business 60% -- those of you that have heard me speak in the last year know that I'm pushing top executives of companies to make customer calls each week. And 99% of these calls won't result in any huge breakthrough, which is why most companies stop them. But you're looking for the "black swan" -- that one comment that increases business 60% as it did for Roger in one of his markets -- read below under DETAILS.

Using Facebook to Identify and Market to Influencers -- and here's a link to the entire story that highlights how Roger uses these calls to drive differentiation. Under DETAILS below I also share a detailed explanation from Roger how they use both NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys and phone calls to discern customer ideas -- along with how they are using Facebook to identify and market to influencers! Take 5 minutes to read the story and info below and then implement within your own firm!

Core Values Land 2 New Customers -- and this note from Erik Hinson, CEO of Tennessee-based Falcon Worldwide Distribution "Our team has read and has been applying the principles of your book since May of this year. I feel we have a clear strategic direction and have extremely effective daily and weekly meetings. And by simply having and executing our Core Values and Top 5, it has allowed us to gain 2 new customers for the single reason that we communicated those values to them during the courting stages."

Core Values Eliminated Potential Partner -- Erik continues "But I also had an experience where I shared the Core Values with the owner of a potential distribution partner and his response was to toss them aside and ask about the 'numbers' (i.e. the money of the deal). This gave me a good indication this is not a group I wish to work with."

P&G and Google Job Swap to Learn More About Targeting Customers -- and take another 2 minutes and scan this November 19 CNN/Money article. Think about job swapping with a major customer or firm you most admire -- it's all about learning from customers and others.

Join Me December 9 -- 10 -- I'm returning to the states from India to teach the last Rockefeller Habits public workshop for 2008 where I'll also share what I've learned so far on my travels throughout Asia and the Middle East.

Jellies; Fastest Daily Stand-up; China Update; Atlassian Core Values Video

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

HEADLINES: (from Shanghai)

Calculating Billable Utilization Rate - for professional services firms, this can be a real challenge.  Here's a link to information on how to do this.

"Jellies" for Telecommuting and Freelance Workers - and this from the Herman Report - I must be behind the times but this is the first I've heard of "Jellies" -  a common place for young computer workers to co-mingle so they don't get so lonely and can share in the camaraderie of others - read up on it concerning some pitfalls and how you might put them to work for you.

Fastest Daily Stand-up Meeting - Scott Farquhar, co-founder of $35 million Sydney-based Atlassian sent me a link this week to their "day in the life of the Confluence team" blog post - it's 74 seconds long and features the fastest daily stand-up meeting I've ever seen!  Confluence, a simple enterprise wiki designed for team collaboration, is one of their main product lines used by over 13,000 customers in 106 countries.

Core Values Video - noted Farquhar "We then held a competition (posted internally on our wiki!) asking our staff to create a video that showed what it was like to work at Atlassian. John Rotenstein instead came up with a video about our core values and interviewed our staff about them. The first time I found out about it was when it was finished. We have followed your articles about core values and followed Jim Collins' articles on creating them.  I just wanted to share with you where it can lead and how employees then adopt them themselves."  Here's a link to their 6 minute Core Values Video (PG-13).

China Update - the 200 plus executives in my Shanghai and Beijing workshops were upbeat - though they acknowledged that increased domestic competition is forcing a focus on productivity and management effectiveness not required until recently - thus the intense interest in the Rockefeller Habits.  My host, Fred Crosetto, founder and CEO of Ammex , a major manufacturer and distributor of rubber gloves, is another excellent case where a Seattle-based entrepreneur has set-up direct operations in China not only for manufacturing but for the creation and production of much of his sales materials; has his outbound and inbound global sales being handled by his call center teams in the Philippines (who often outsell his U.S. teams) and has moved his family to Shanghai where his children are learning Mandarin.  He's taking advantage of global resources to make his firm competitive domestically and internationally.

China Taxes - and learning from the lessons of Hong Kong, which has had 50 years of sustained economic growth, China on January 1, 2008 reduced corporate taxes on domestic companies to a flat tax of 25%, giving them a further advantage over U.S. firms that pay some of the highest corporate taxes in the world.  Hong Kong has had a flat tax of 16% on individual income, 16% on real estate profits (after a mandatory 20% deduction for maintenance), and 16% on corporate profits (17% for some) without the double taxation we experience in the U.S. - in turn there aren't a bunch of complicated deductions or additional business-paid taxes on behalf of employees though personal top bracket income tax rates are still high at 45%.

No-Compromise Leadership; Monthly Meeting Agenda; Cash Webinar; Complimentary Books to Save Cash

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

HEADLINES:

Monthly Meeting About Cash! -- My latest "Growth Guy" column discusses the specifics for running a monthly meeting (I didn't do a good job in my book).  This meeting is KEY to getting your DNA passed down to your middle management and strengthening their understanding of the business.  And at your next monthly meeting, take a couple hours and discuss how you're going to generate more cash in the next twelve months -- cash is king, particularly now!  Here's a link to the article and it's also reprinted below under DETAILS. (http://www.gazelles.com/columns/middlemanagement.pdf)

Save Cash! -- Complimentary Holiday Gifts -- We're offering to pay for your holiday business gifts again this year (Canada and US only because of shipping costs).  Send us a list of your best customers, suppliers, and entrepreneurial friends and we'll send them an autographed copy of my book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits as a gift FROM YOU!  During tough times the disciplined win -- hopefully they'll see this gift as a way to strengthen their business which will help your business. (http://gazelles.com/business_growth.html)  Please email Joanne Costello with your list: [email protected].

Increase Cash! -- "Cash" Webinar Dec 5, 12:28pm -- 1:30pm -- participate in the last of our four part complimentary (save cash) webinar series based on our Four Decisions model -- People, Strategy, Execution, Cash -- and our four one-page tools.  Rich Russakoff, who authored chapter ten in my book on bank financing, will be joining me.  He's continuing to get banks to compete to give loans to his clients, even during these tight financial credit times while focusing on strategies for generating internal cash - again, cash is king during times like this.(https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/775463127)

No-Compromise on Cash! -- and if you're looking for an excellent quick read, get a copy of Neil Ducoff's new book No-Compromise Leadership: A Higher Standard of Leadership, Thinking, and Behavior.  I particularly liked Chapter 5 where he focuses on profit and cash.  Highly endorsed by gurus Jack Stack, John DiJulius, Bo Burlingham and dozens of other growth company thought leaders, I like his strong message about "just not compromising" on performance, customer service, cash flow, etc. - it was a message I needed to hear myself!  Just do it! (http://www.gazelles.com/book-no-compromise.html)

Spend a Little Cash! -- Success for Teens --  I received this note from Vernon Menard III, co-founder of Charlotte-based Choice Translating who went back after the Growth Summit and introduced the Success for Teens book into a local high school (50 books for $50 which includes workbook): (http://www.choicetranslating.com/) (http://www.successfoundation.org/)

 "I wanted to share a quick story about how "can-do" people can work together to make a real difference in the world.  I know a Teach for America volunteer at West Charlotte High School. I gave him a copy of the Success Foundation book I got in Atlanta (Growth Summit) to evaluate and told him that if he felt the program might work in his class or throughout his school, Choice Translating would provide as many books as needed. He reviewed the book and he LOVED it. He proposed the idea to his principal... and he LOVED it. It seems we may have the entire student body of West Charlotte High School in the program starting January 2009. (http://www.successfoundation.org/)

Also, a good friend of mine is a good friend of Dr. Peter Gorman, the superintendent of Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, and CMS is a Choice Translating client. There is a fair chance we can have a rather large number of schools participate if the West Charlotte experiment delivers results.

At Choice Translating we like to say that we "change the world, one word at a time." I'll keep you posted on our progress. Thanks for allowing the Success Foundation to speak at the growth summit!"

Vernon - thanks.  It is entrepreneurs that will change the world!