Tiffany Cooper Gueye, BELL’s Chief, on Giving Feedback – NYTimes.com

Tiffany Cooper Gueye, BELL’s Chief, on Giving Feedback – NYTimes.com.

Here is a leader  talking about the necessity of direct feedback. I forget sometimes that telling people clearly and immediately what you expect is more important to success than all of my strategies and tactics combined. Not even the best ideas work unless we are willing to provide direct and measurable feedback to those we lead. 

Rapid Growth: First Answer “Why”

If you want your company to grow rapidly, you must first answer the question of why someone would passionately believe in your company.

The video above (Simon Sinek’s talk at a TED conference) explains what I believe about marketing and what we are trying to get our clients to understand. I think it is well worth your 18 minutes to check it out.

If you consider any companies that have a passionate following, you realize that they have transcended the “what we do” for the “why we exist and what we believe.”

Let’s discuss a few examples (and there are many, but here are just a few): Starbucks is not merely a coffee seller; it’s a lifestyle of better experiences and elevated thought. Disney isn’t simply a theme park and movie company; it represents family and the magic that can happen in everyday life. Southwest is not just an airline; it’s the belief that travel should be, and can be, fun and affordable to everyone – not just the rich.

Check out the video above. Then take a few minutes more to think about Why you do what you do. That is the first step to not only extraordinary marketing, but also creating an extraordinary company.

Rapidly Growing Your Business: Tina Fey Has Some Great Ideas

Tina Fey, the writer, producer, performer, has been one of the most successful people in the highly-competitive entertainment industry.  An important key has been great hiring and managing of staff.

She downloaded her wisdom, much of it learned from mega-successful producer Lorne Michaels, in the New Yorker. I loved what she had to say, and if you change the word “actor” to “employee” this is very practical business advice.

Here are some things she learned from Lorne Michaels while working for him at Saturday Night Live:

• Surprisingly, most times managing is about discouraging creativity. Sometimes actors have what they call “ideas”
• Figure out if there is something you’re asking the actor to do that’s making him or her uncomfortable
• The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s eleven-thirty
• When hiring, mix brainy educated nerds with street-smart improvisers and stir. The staff of Saturday Night Live has always been a blend of hyper-intelligent Harvard boys (Jim Downey, Al Franken, Conan O’Brien) and gifted, visceral, fun performers (John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Jan Hooks, Bill Murray). You need a diversity of talents and backgrounds to get the best results
• Don’t make any big decisions right after the season ends
• Don’t hire anyone you wouldn’t want to run into in the hallway at three in the morning
• Never tell a crazy person he’s crazy

What You Should Learn From Selling Diapers… No Kidding.

Amazon beat out Wal-mart to buy Diapers.com for $540 million. Really?!? Do they sell that many diapers? No. But they have an amazing database of new parents with money. And you have a valuable database too – or at least a potentially valuable database.

Here is the point: You have a database of clients now. You should focus on building that database. Why? Because you can sort their similarities using a simple CRM-type technology and then find a whole lot more people just like them that want to buy what you are selling.

Don’t have CRM or have any idea what is? It stands for Customer Relationship Management. CRM programs sort and segment customers and prospects to find those magical traits that the profitable ones have in common.

A quick suggestion we have for clients and other friends who want to try CRM, is to start with an automated email contact system like InfusionSoft. It has some of the same traits as CRM, will help you sort cold leads from hot leads, and is easy and cheap to get started. (We are not associated with InfusionSoft in anyway. We just love what their product has done for some of our clients.)

At the very least, start to build a database by just sending out direct response email or snail mail to prospects that have similar traits to your current customers – then start measuring the response rates.

Why is diapers.com so valuable? Because of their database. You should have a great database too.  When you do, you will be sitting on a goldmine.

Business Growth Is All About Targeting: 3 Easy Steps

DirecTV Group Inc. is rolling out “addressable ads,” initially allowing advertisers to reach close to 10 million homes with commercials tailored to each household. But this is just the beginning. Dog owners, for instance, could see ads for dog food, not kitty litter, while families with children could be shown minivan spots.

Why is this important to you? Because if you advertise on cable TV or not, those entrepreneurs that spend time and money to accurately profile their prospects, then focus laser-like targeting with their “media” will be grow very quickly and profitably.

(BTW – I am defining “media” as any of the ways you use to get a message to a customer or prospect – salespeople, email, events, or anything can be “media.”)

So, how can you laser-focus your targeting with media in order to increase your sales and profits in a short amount of time?

1. Name your target. Just like the FBI profiles serial killers, you need a profile of your ideal customer. Start with their name (we call ours “Jerry”). Then fill in their likely other defining information about family, fears, what other products to they buy, how do they spend their free time, and on and on…  The more you get to know your “Jerry,” the faster your business grows.
2. Define your “Why” Don’t tell “Jerry” how good you are, or your Unique Selling Proposition, or Features & Benefits BUT tell him what you believe. The reason what you do is important. The passion that drives you to go to work every day. Then when you target your “Jerry” he will be a prospect that believes what you believe and shares your passions – the best customer of all.
3. Give an easy opt-in. It is not good enough to do great targeting, the target needs to know what the next step is to begin a conversation with you. A downloadable white paper, a webinar, or at least a please-contact-me form. Great targeting without a clearly-defined next step is worthless.

CASE STUDY of Successful Launch: Trust Your Gut Then Test Later

Thinking about something super-VC Fred Wilson said recently: launches should be guided by your gut passions. After a launch, then you can start testing customer opinions.

You see, you simply cannot do research on something that never previously existed.

Via David Pogue, the tech writer in the New York Times, is an interesting case study for all new product or company launches:

“An utter disappointment and abysmal failure” (Orange County Design Blog). “Consumers seem genuinely baffled by why they might need it” (Businessweek). “Nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks” (Bloomberg). “Insanely great it is not” (MarketWatch). “My god, am I underwhelmed” (Gizmodo).

Good heavens! What a critical drubbing! Whatever it is must be a real turkey. What could it be?

Only the fastest-selling gadget in the history of electronics: the Apple iPad.

Apple went on to sell 15 million units in the next 9 months, created a huge new product category and is has the copycats in a fury to cash in on similar tablet products.

Pogue goes on to say  that apparently it doesn’t pay to bet against the gut of an entrepreneur like Steve Jobs. I would guess it never makes sense to bet against the gut of an entrepreneur like you either.

Being True to Your Company’s Identity: What You Can Learn From the Butler Way

Your company needs to stay true to who you are in order to see maximum results from your team’s efforts. Here’s why:

I’m not a huge sports fan, but it’s hard to ignore the recent success of Butler Basketball considering the university is just up the road from our office. Operating on a total budget of $1.7 million (tiny compared to big school budgets upwards of $10 million), the Butler Bulldogs exemplified that resources don’t make or break you: your mission does.

The truth is, the foundation of the Bulldogs’ success is their commitment to five principles they call “The Butler Way.” And while it may sound odd for me to relate business growth to sports, there are some key takeaways that struck me about how these standards can be applied in business and foster positivity.

The Butler Way is associated with the five principles of Butler Basketball that are posted in the Men’s Basketball locker-room.

1. Humility – know who we are, strengths and weaknesses
2. Passion – do not be lukewarm, commit to excellence
3. Unity – do not divide our house, team first
4. Servanthood – make teammates better, lead by giving
5. Thankfulness – learn from every circumstance

Consider these things principles. Would your organization look different if it was committed to a similar vision that was personal in nature to what you believe?

The fact is that Butler will never have a budget like Duke… and that’s okay. In fact, that’s a good thing. And along those lines, your business will never be something it’s not. But it can be true to what it is by being founded on consistent shared values that drive your staff toward achieving greatness and ultimately allowing you to do less with more.