Posts filed under 'books'
Over the holidays, I read Phil Dusenberry’s One Great Insight Is Worth a Thousand Good Ideas. If you are a brand/ad geek, you’ll enjoy this book. I’ll likely do a few posts with lessons and examples from it.
I wanted to start with one story that I think most of us can use immediately… use emotive words… words that excite. The example:
Best Cellars, a wine store near Phil’s home in Manhattan, doesn’t use regions or grape varietals to mark their sections, but rather words like juicy, smooth, big, fizzy, fresh, and soft.
I want a wine store like this in my area. I can feel these words, and I can’t feel Pinot Noir. I’ve stared at hundreds of bottles of Pinot Noir, trying to remember anything I could about the different regions where they are grown, the particular years that made them taste different ways, the vintner’s specialties, etc. I need something that helps me connect and Best Cellars words bring out more emotion for me.
This reminded me of one of my favorite shirts that Lukasz has. It is a black shirt that in silver type simple says:
focus
Again, this brings out emotion!
I’m looking forward to working with the team to think of creative ways to apply this at Spreadshirt. Easily, we can have categories in our stores, and allow categories for shop partners, that express the emotions they had when creating the shirts, the emotions that they think people will get when buying them, the emotions that folks want to evoke with a gift, etc.
Question for you… Have you seen great examples of the use of emotive words? I’d love to know what’s worked for you.
So, let’s see, what’s on my shirt today?
I’m feelin’ it!
January 8th, 2007
Lukasz and I had a wandering conversation as we were both working way too late Saturday night. As we talked about business goals, it intertwined with personal goals and he asked who my hero was. I said Herb Kelleher… clarifying a bit ”on the business side”. My parents and grandmothers are heroes to me on the whole person side. And, many more people who have inspired me, I would add to my hero list, but before I make this a list of truly awesome people (note to self… another post idea), let me get to Herb.
In case you don’t know him, Herb is the founder of Southwest Airlines, which is the largest US carrier in terms of total system passengers, particularly remarkable considering the other major carriers have international operations included. What I find amazing is how he built the top performing business in one of the most established, heavily unionized businesses around with the industry fighting him at every step… and kept a sense a humor through it all. Now, I love Ben & Jerry’s – having a tremendous respect for what they did and how they ran their business — but they were selling premium ice cream, a nascent industry at the time they started. Southwest has the same feeling and spirit that Ben & Jerry’s did, and Southwest is an AIRLINE… stodgy, old, grumpy, set in their ways, competitive, etc.
How did Herb do it? In my opinion it actually boils down to one thing… not one simple thing, but one thing. I’ll use Herb’s own words to explain it:
I keep telling them that the intangibles are far more important than the tangibles in the competitive world because, obviously, you can replicate the tangibles. You can get the same airplane. You can get the same ticket counters. You can get the same computers. But the hardest thing for a competitor to match is your culture and the spirit of your people and their focus on customer service because that isn’t something you can do overnight and it isn’t something you can do without a great deal of attention every day in a thousand different ways.
I’ve bolded what I think is the crux of this statement. This is what I aspire to do:
- Separate the tangible from the intangible (harder than it sounds)
- Focus on people and customer service
- Inspire them in accomplishing their job every day
On my shirt today:
I work for you
Reminding me that as a leader, I work for my employees, customers and stakeholders… one of whom I’m likely standing with during every minute of my work day.
Related books I recommend:
December 19th, 2006
Andreas, who runs our brand evangelism, gave me The Starfish and the Spider to read. I agree with him that the book isn’t a big WOW, but has some nice points. My favorite in brief…
Peter Drucker consulted with General Motors in his early days. He suggested to the GM management that they:
Ask customers what worked for them and what didn’t; and incorporate that feedback into corporate strategy.
Note, Drucker didn’t say, “incorporate that into the product design“, but rather, “incorporate that into corporate strategy.” So, while many companies aren’t even doing the former still today, Drucker understood the power of the latter… oh so many years ago.
And, after his thoughts were rejected at GM, he took these and more thoughts to Japan. He said they embraced this theory:
Top management is a function and a responsibility, rather than a rank and privilege.
Think about this to drive understanding and actions from management-to-employees and employees-to-management.
Why are these my favs? The simplicity in both statements. Do you have any other Drucker-isms you live by? I might add it to my shirt, which on the front would say…
Drucker rocks!
P.S. If you want to read a great book with new business ideas, get Mavericks at Work by Bill Taylor and Polly LaBarre.
December 6th, 2006
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