"...keeping you great"
HEADLINES:
Oops: 13 Management Practices That Waste Time and Money -- Aubrey Daniels, the world's leading human behaviorist as it applies to running a business and Harvard prof, has just published his latest quick read book (he's also one of the faculty for our Oct 20 -- 21 Growth Summit in Dallas along with Jim Collins, Hermann Simon, David Allen, and Lynne Twist). As a quick reading guide:
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I just
sent a copy to the CEOs of our top clients and we're already getting back
excellent feedback -- it's worth a quick read
Help Each
Other -- many of you keep asking for more examples of completed
One-Page Plans -- especially using our new format -- and Quarterly Themes.
Please, please, please forward last quarter's or last year's plans and themes
(we'll black out ALL the numbers and post, so you don't have to do anything but
email them) so we have more examples to share on our One-Page Strategic Plan and Quarterly
Theme wikis -- and you can go to the wikis to see the samples we
have.
The Shipping Bloke: Brad Skelton -- if you think
blogs are just for consumer driven businesses, check out Brad Skelton's new
blog for the heavy equipment shipping industry. Founder and CEO of
Brisbane-based Skelton Sherborne,
he's revamped the company and his personal websites and is
focused on controlling the ink in his industry. Many of these initiatives came
out of his strategy session with Bob Bloom, famous author of Inside
Advantage and retired CEO of the fourth largest ad agency in the world
(you, too, can engage Bob's services). Under DETAILS below I share his blog
launch letter -- I particularly like this line "This blog isn't about Skelton
Sherborne or me. It's about you and making sure you are kept up to date with
interesting, informative and thought provoking ideas that are relevant to
anybody moving heavy equipment around the world." This is why his blog is better
and different than most.
Mistakes in Pricing -- and I
just received Mark Holden's latest Pricing blog this morning -- it's worth a
quick read -- especially the second story (Quiznos pricing which caused revenue
to jump 26%) and the short story about C F Martin Company which makes medium to
high priced guitars. Seriously consider reading their blog regularly.
Amazon buys Zappos, Seth Godin's Take -- Amazon's
biggest deal to date, there was plenty of press yesterday and today after the
Wednesday announcement, so I don't need to rehash the $880 million all stock
deal ($40 million cash). It was Seth Godin's thoughts that most intrigued me and
had me thinking about our own ability to create market value. Take 60 seconds to
read his blog; and take your next longer meeting to discuss
how you're building a company others might value highly.
Driving
Business Valuation -- after Keith Ferrazzi's webcast (Who's Got
Your Back), I decided to get serious about building an elegant business and
finding someone to push me on building the valuation of Gazelles, so I've asked
a close friend with experience in this area to think with me and push me to
increase Gazelles' valuation 10 fold -- he's starting by valuing, from an
investor's standpoint, Gazelles today. Part of the reason for this push is that
I figure I can't fight the government in terms of dramatically raising our taxes
to the highest in the world (what's proposed already pushes us past France and
Italy), so instead I need sufficient wealth to weather the storm. You can't be
stuck in the middle!
See you in Atlanta -- my last
public half-day workshop in the U.S. before moving to Barcelona is next
Thursday, July 30. You have six, maybe 18 months, to grab market share -- I'll
be sharing the tools and techniques to take advantage of this
once-in-seventy-years opportunity.
DETAILS
Here's Brad's launch letter for his blog -- I delayed
sharing because I wanted to make sure Brad was serious about keeping it alive,
which he has:
Monday, June 22, 2009
Personal invitation to subscribe to "The Shipping Blokes
Blog"
You have received this invitation because you are a personal
friend, colleague, client or supplier to my business, Skelton Sherborne - "The
Choice of Heavy Industry."
A major overhaul of Skelton Sherborne's
and my personal website has just
been completed. There are numerous new resources that are relevant to heavy
equipment shipping decision makers and it's been re-engineered so it is quicker
and more intuitive to navigate than ever before. We also have some new
initiatives about the way we communicate with everybody and how we can improve
your overall shipping experience.
One of these initiatives is the launch
of this Blog. This blog isn't about Skelton Sherborne or me. It's about you and
making sure you are kept up to date with interesting, informative and thought
provoking ideas that are relevant to anybody moving heavy equipment around the
world. It also seeks to provide a platform for shippers of heavy machinery to
connect and provide comments that our peers can see and increase awareness of
issues that are affecting us. I promise to take these comments on board and try
and champion whatever change I can to make shipping easier, more cost effective
and safer, wherever possible.
If all this sounds interesting to you, then
I hope you will subscribe to The Shipping Bloke's Blog by Email.
The
first Shipping Bloke's Blog will be posted later this week and I hope you will
find it interesting reading.
Kind regards
Brad Skelton...The Shipping
Bloke.