I recently spent $900 each on two totally different purchases and it got me thinking about the value relative to payment. Essentially both complied with Law of Value (The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann) but for seemingly different reasons.
The first purchase was three big dump truck loads of gravel; roughly 30 cubic yards for our 200 yard long driveway. It was ¾ inch crush which means it had to be what is […]
“When you play the game of thrones you win or you die. There
is no middle ground.”Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones
Something similar is true in business, you either earn a
profit or your business will eventually die. There is no middle ground.
The difference is that there can be multiple profitable businesses
in the same market.
And if your business dies, you don’t need to perish with it. In fact, you can try again.
Any business that becomes sustainably profitable generates
happy owners […]
Did you know that something like 90% of drivers think they are above average drivers? Almost half of them are wrong.
50% of doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class? Does that scare you?
Many, maybe even most, business owners think they have above average employees… that their employees are their competitive advantage.
Average: Add up the individual measures of each sample and divide by the total sample size.
Mean: The value for which half the sample is […]
One of my favourite quotes is from a well-known fictional movie character:
“Do or do not, there is no try.” ~ Yoda
This seems to imply that merely trying things will not be successful. There are certainly a lot of success gurus out there that tell you to avoid “trying” and just “do it”.
In reality there are many shades of try (is it 50?) and […]
The shortest path to achieving your business goals may not be to aim directly at the destination.
“Always aim for the Moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
― W. Clement Stone
The meaning of this is that if you aim big, even if you miss you will still achieve great things.
But what if you actually want to hit the moon?
Aiming your spaceship at the moon is not the shortest and fastest way to get to the moon. […]
Watching how people drive can tell you a lot about how people think. My hypothesis is that people tend to predominantly think a certain way across multiple areas of their lives.
I am not talking about the ages old good versus bad driver. Most people consider themselves to be above average drivers and statistics say half of them are wrong.
This observation first hit me on the long drive from Calgary to Edmonton watching someone else drive. Much of the highway is two lanes in either direction and the speed limit is mostly 110 km/hour. The challenge is to maintain a constant […]
We've all heard it.
"Everyone in your company or organization who interacts with a customer or provides a product or service to a customer is in customer service."
The same is true for marketing. Or branding.
If you extend this to include everyone inside your organization who could impact the reputation of your organization; you pretty much include everyone.
Zappos starts everyone out in their call center. I read that WestJet expects employees and spouses flying for free or on discounts to help clean the plane.
[…]
I work in Calgary. On the evening of June 20th, 2013 and into the weekend, Calgary flooded. Many low lying areas along the Elbow and Bow rivers received a lot of damage. 10's of thousands of people were evacuated in less than 24 hours.
On the 25th of June I decided to take the shuttle bus downtown to our office building (which fortunately was undamaged and had power). The Calgary Transit light rail tracks were damaged on the south line.
As […]
I know quite a few artists.
Musicians. Dancers. Writers. Painters. Creative types.
In the broader sense of art that Seth Godin uses I know far
more artists. People making a big difference in the world by pouring themselves
wholeheartedly into what they do. Creating art.
Some artists suffer from pain (ranging from clinical, sensitivity,
to heartbreak) and practice their art as a release. It brings them respite, joy
and gives meaning to their world.
Some artists are struggling through the hard work of both
mastering their craft and finding enough people […]
I recently heard about yet another local business that seemed to be doing really well a few years ago but recently shut its doors.
It wasn’t the economy. It wasn’t incompetence in their craft.
The service they offered is still in demand. In fact, they were riding a big wave created by other big fish.
They didn’t have to invent a market.
Ultimately, the owner could not figure out how to successfully grow or scale their business.
Burn out.
Or the realization they could make […]