"...keeping you great"
HEADLINES: (grow while others are shrinking!)
When you are through changing, you're through. Bruce Barton, founder of BBDO ad agency
Xander Heijman Uses Purple Cow to Drive Change and Revenue Growth -- founder of Dutch firm Axoft, Heijman has already seen revenue grow over 20% in January for his 36 employee IT services and hosting company. Noted Heijman in an email to me this week "our EO chapter purchased a copy of (Seth Godin's) Purple Cow for all the members and we received it during our yearly Christmas party in December...I then presented Seth's ideas in combination with the economic crisis to all my employees. I told everybody that we have to be different in marketing and in products."
Finding Purple Cows -- Heijman further explained to his employees "If we find the Purple Cow every day and we all act accordingly we will become stronger than our competitors and we will grow the planned 20% this year." After his presentation, 4 employees immediately emailed or came to him with ideas like:
* Xander I found a cow, we have to change this in our product
* Xander if we change this in our process we can invoice more this month
* Xander we can improve our service by...
...and then they signed their emails "The Blue Cowboy" or "The Brown Cow" etc.
"If they come up with ideas like this and it helps us to reach our monthly goals they get an incentive like lunch / dinner / book / iPod." The key is to engage the brains of your employees! Teach them, incent them, and then turn them loose!
Speaking of Different -- Funniest "contact" page on a website -- Scott Giesler, "The Supremo" for Queensland-based PizzaCapers, contacted me last week. In looking at his website, I found a company that embraces "different" -- is a Purple Cow among the hundreds of me-to pizza joints. I particularly got a chuckle looking at their Contact page where they give customers three options: Good Comment; Bad Comment; No Comment -- you have to click on the No Comment link! Also check out the verbiage on their Caper Club page "...like a secret society, without the goats..." -- it's time to be different, to stand out, or take a stand.
Big World-Changing Ideas Have Had Three Cycles -- this is how Seth Godin, the world's top marketing guru, starts his TED Conference interview yesterday. And it's about taking a stand and creating a movement like Tom's Shoes -- again, could easily be another me-to shoe store chain (11 stores in as many countries) except they've also created a movement to donate ten-of-thousands of shoes to the needy -- i.e. "buy one pair, we'll donate another. "Take five minutes and read Seth's interview on the three cycles and how you can participate in the third wave.
"Teach Your People" -- Seth Godin's LIVE online program, Feb 10 -- join the preeminent marketing thinker of our time and author of seven books including Purple Cow, Permission Marketing, All Marketers are Liars, and his latest Tribes. Stimulate the minds of your people -- everything they do is about marketing. Here's a link to sign-up for next Tuesday's February 10 program, 11:58am -- 2pm EST (and on-demand). Give us two-hours per month and we'll expose your people to the new and different ideas powering companies that are growing vs. shrinking.
"I try to give my family 100% of me" -- and this from George Contos, World Wide Metric Inc., North America's largest inventory of metric products. He participated in Pat Lencioni's webcast last week where Pat took the last 15 minutes to address the need for families to have core values, a theme, and meeting rhythm. Notes Contos "I went home and did the whole family thing with my wife....it was great and timely. I am so busy all the time and I try to give my family 100% of me when I am there, but all too often...we forget...so thanks to Pat for reminding me what else is important in my life and to make time to plan and strategize with them as well as my colleagues!" Pat's presentation is available "on-demand."
"Drilling this stuff into everyone" -- continued Contos "I need to get more of my staff involved in the webcasts -- it was just me for Pat. In fact, I just came from facilitating a sales meeting for a friend's company and found myself using aspects of Pat's stuff...so this is what I need to rollout to others in my organization. I want to upgrade and buy all 3." No problem, George. For just over $300/month you can educate your entire company, taught by the top business thought leaders of our time. Don't miss the ideas possibly powering your competition.
Teach Them, Incent Them, Turn Them Loose