Uncommon thoughts on creativity, ideas, innovation, and marketing
Beantown Web compiled a neat list of lists of the Best Business Books of 2009.
Congratulations to Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. Their NYT bestselller Trust Agents made four of the lists.
I’m following Julien’s advice and trying to read one book a week in 2010. I am currently on track and have read some absolutely amazing books in January.
Reviews coming soon…
[photo credit: blu blue]
Woody Allen used to say 90% of success in business was just showing up.
He’s right. Now more than ever.
In the social web, showing up is 90%. The other 10% is knowing what to do when you show up.
It doesn’t mean tweeting about your latest product or service or why someone should do business with you.
It means listening and engaging.
It means reacting quickly to negativity.
It means being generous. To a fault.
It means being transparent and building trust.
It means being a Connector.
It means being there before the sale.
It means being consistent and reliable.
Showing up isn’t hard but it’s critical. It means more than it ever has.
There is a lot of friction in buying a new house. Agents. Lawyers. Notaries. More agents.
I recently helped design a social media campaign for a client. The campaign was less successful than it could have been because there was too much friction. The process to participate had too many hurdles and some people abandoned it before completing.
One of the most effective things to do to improve your business (not always the simplest but the most effective) is to remove as much friction as humanly possible.
Then remove a little more.
I know a lot of companies that ‘secret shop’ their competitors. Many should secret shop themselves first, with an open mind and a critical eye toward removing friction.
Mint.com beat Intuit’s Quickbooks because it was web-based, but they weren’t the first web-based money management system. A tool called Wesabe was around first. But to use Wesabe (back then), users had to download a .csv from their bank’s website and upload it to their Wesabe account. (I can’t fathom the meeting where that level of friction got approved.)
Friction killed Wesabe.
The lack of friction made Mint.com millions. $187m to be exact.
Netflix took share from Blockbuster by removing friction. With Blockbuster, you had to drive to the store. With Netflix, you just had to go to your mailbox. (Blockbuster quickly followed suit.)
Redbox is taking share from both by removing even more friction. With Redbox, you don’t need a mailbox or even an account.
Think of the amount of friction in a typical Verizon store. Now think of the lack of friction in an Apple store or a Chipotle or a Starbucks.
The simple act of not having to sign certain credit card transactions under $25 removes friction and saves both the retailer and the customer time, saving companies like McDonald’s and others millions of dollars.
Most airlines did a decent job of removing some friction with online check-in and handy touch-screen kiosks. Unfortunately, they stopped there.
Think of the loads of friction in a typical primary care doctor visit. My friend Jay Parkinson is completely reinventing health care delivery, and he’s doing so by removing friction from the process.
I can stop by my local dry-cleaner, leave my shirts on the front counter and smile and wave to the owner in the back. In three days, I come back and my shirts are clean with light starch.
If he can remove friction from his business, you can too, right?
Do you constantly hang out with the same people?
The concept of Dunbar’s number is an interesting one. Recently, I have seen more discussion on it and how it relates to social connections.
In short, Dunbar suggests there’s an upper limit to the amount of relationships we can maintain. That number, for the record, is 150.
You can read much more about Dubnbar’s number at Wikipedia.
Mashable wrote about how it relates to Facebook.
Jacob Morgan wrote an interesting piece on how Dunbar’s number is irrelevant and the importance of weak ties.
Chris Brogan talks about beating Dunbar’s number.
Personally, I think it’s all very interesting, but since I’m not a Ph.D., I’m not going to add any scientific arguments to the fray. I’m going to bring it down a level.
If you always go to the same networking events, switch it up. Try some new ones. Meet some new people. Your current network won’t (really) exclude you and you’ll probably meet some new people and learn some new ideas.
If you have a big social network, go out of your way to meet some of them in person or “IRL” (In Real Life – a popular abbreviation on twitter). Often, some of the real-life contacts can introduce you to other real-life contacts.
I have a list of people I want to meet this year, in real life. Some are people I’ve connected with online, others I haven’t. Others are a handshake or two away. It’s an aggressive list but I’m confident I can get it done. To do so, I’ll have to pass on some networking events that are frequented by current friends. In the end, I think they’ll forgive me.
While I find Dunbar’s number interesting, I’m not particularly concerned about managing my 150. I’d much rather venture out and meet some remarkable new people.
Quick. Take 30 seconds and list your main competitors.
(don’t worry, I’ll wait)
Done?
Good.
Sorry, but your list is wrong.
Unless of course, you listed Zappos, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, Trader Joe’s, Wegman’s, Netflix, The Container Store and Apple.
Your customers are doing business with these companies, who are constantly raising the bar on engagement and customer delight.
Every time your customer’s online order arrives earlier than expected from Zappos…
Every time your customer chuckles at a Southwest flight attendant who weaves humor into the emergency exit script…
Every time your customer feels a human connection with a checker in line at Trader Joe’s…
Every time your customer is glad that there are so many helpful colored shirts at the Apple Store…
It’s happening right now. Your customers are experiencing this kind of interaction (notice I didn’t say transaction) today.
The bar has been raised.
What are you going to do?
“With every drink order, you get a free pizza.”
It sounds crazy. Or at least backwards.
But that’s the deal at Crocodile Lounge in the Gramercy / East Village neighborhood of New York City. With every single drink order, you get a ticket for a free pizza. All the time.
It’s not just a story, it’s a story that spreads. Friends tell friends. Friends bring friends.
They tweet about it.
They Yelp about it.
They blog about it. A lot. Photo credit by Smack Factor.
They check in on Foursquare.
.
Crocodile Lounge isn’t even active in social media themselves. They gave their fans a story that is easy to explain and fun to tell and the fans are carrying the message in person and online.
People are incredulous when you tell them about the free pizza per drink deal. “That’s impossible?! How do they make any money?”.
This only helps the story to spread, of course.
For you spreadsheet and ROI jockeys (I used to be one) here is my take on the short version of how it works (I’ll guess conservatively on the #’s):
Costs
The two guys who make pizzas all night probably make $10 / hour plus tips. Call it 10 hours per day * $10 / hour * two guys = $200.
Dough is cheap. The raw materials to make all the pizzas in a night probably costs about $200.
So, being conservative, the incremental cost of Crocodile offering free pizza is $400 per night.
Revenue
A tap beer is about $5.
Cost to the bar = less than $1.
So at a profit of $4 per beer, once the free pizza gimmick brings in an incremental 100 drinks per night, it’s now making money, at a very high profit margin.
Plus all the word of mouth, social mentions and positive press.
Once you do the math, it’s no longer crazy. It’s not backwards. It’s brilliant.
[NB: They also have two skee ball lanes in back. Here's the throwdown. I can beat any of my readers in skee ball. If I lose, I'll buy you a pizza.]
What crazy and backwards idea can think up for your business? What story can you give your fans to tell?
One of the best websites in the world just got even better.
TED.com recently rolled out a “Best of the Web” section, designed to be a “one-stop portal to the very best talks on the Internet”.
You can view some of the early selections at the TED Talks page here. In the ‘Show by Event’ selector on the left, scroll down to the bottom to “Best of the Web”.
Martin Luther King Jr.: I Have a Dream
Steve Jobs: How to Live Before You Die
Michael Sandel: What is the Right Thing to Do?
Robert Sapolsky: The Uniqueness of Humans
and the famous “last lecture” of Randy Pausch.
Wisely, TED is crowdsourcing new content for the page from their intelligent and connected tribe. If you find video worthy of TED’s new page, email contact@ted.com with “Best of the Web suggestion” in the subject line, and a link to where the talk can be seen.
One video, two lessons.
1) Never give up. (Which is different than strategic quitting, as outlined in The Dip.)
2) If you’re going to make ads, don’t drone on about your features, low price or celebrity endorsers. Tell a story. Make us laugh. Make it memorable and remarkable so we want to tell others (like I just did).
How many car commercials have you seen where the car winds up a curvy mountain road while displaying the latest price. Hundreds? Thousands?
Contrast that with this. It’s impossible to watch this video and not smile, laugh AND remember the brand message.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go order some Nolan’s Cheddar.
If you can’t see the video, click here.
At every presentation, the level of understanding of the subject matter by the audience varies widely.
If you’re giving a presentation on social media, some people are well educated and understand it’s place in business (and it’s not always the people live-tweeting your thoughts). There are others who know a little but are less familiar than the first group. Still others may know little to nothing.
The audience’s knowledge and experience lies along a wide spectrum.
So what is a good presenter to do? How do you make sure that the experts aren’t bored and the others aren’t left behind?
Use inspiration, not information.
Use the information to illustrate a key point or concept. Tell a story. Take them to a place.
Sir Ken Robinson presented to a room full of TED folks who knew (in varying degrees) that our current education system is sub-optimal.
Steve Jobs presents to hundreds of thousands of people, in person and online, who have literally been predicting and prototyping what he’s going to tell them.
Don’t give information. Give inspiration.
Then, you’ll have the whole room.
When I first learned to snowboard, I fell. Often and hard. I fell on my wrists. I fell on my ass. I was black and blue and wet.
The second time, I got a little better.
The third time, something clicked. A light bulb went on and I realized the two things that make snowboarding easier.
Speed and edges.
Speed
Unlike learning to downhill ski, you need to build up a certain amount of speed in snowboarding for your edges to work. Starting on the bunny hill doesn’t work for snowboarding because it’s hard to build up enough speed to make a turn.
Edges
You’re always on your edges. This simple truth is the one thing I would tell any beginning snowboarder (and the one thing I wish someone had told me). The only time your snowboard is flat against the mountain is when you’re transitioning from one edge to the other. You go from heel edge to toe edge and back again. It’s only when your board is flat against the snow that it’s easy to catch an edge and fall hard.
The same is true in business.
Inertia kills.
Going faster is actually safer.
Speed begets speed and allows you to find and use your edges.
What can you do to go faster?
[Photo credit: Gatto Ashutto]
