Last week, a friend sent me an interesting study from the University of North Carolina. It showed that infusing a job with purpose and significance can drastically improve employee performance.
Not rocket science, but it’s always nice to see quantifiable data in support of a concept that seems to be common sense. Especially since (in my experience) many leaders could do more to employ this “common sense” when dealing with their teams…
The study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, took a team of fundraising solicitors working at a University and split them into three groups.
The first group was asked to read stories from other employees describing personal benefits to the job, like compensation and health insurance. We’ll call this group the “Personal Benefits” group. Keep reading →
Have you ever read any of Malcolm Gladwell’s books? He’s written a few bestsellers including Blink, The Tipping Point and Outliers. Why do I ask?
Because he’s a true master in using show don’t tell. And put simply, this is one of the most important techniques in sales and marketing.
In fact, I don’t think any other single tactic can have a more substantial impact on the success of your business. I’ve literally seen companies go from $1M (annually) in sales to almost $12M simply by using show don’t tell… Keep reading →
The day was September 28th, 1962 and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was set to deliver a closing speech at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
The room was full of civil rights leaders representing seventy five different chapters of the organization from across the south.
But there was one man in the audience who didn’t belong.
He was a 24 year old white man from Arlington, VA named Roy James. Roy was a member of a different organization – the American Nazi Party.
As Dr. King walked to the podium and began to speak, Roy James did the unthinkable… he lept to his feet, ran to the front of the room and hit Dr. King in the face with a mighty blow.
The crowd was in utter disbelief as King spun around and Roy James continued punching him in the back, over and over.
Bruised and battered, Dr. King managed to turn back around and face Roy James as the audience was becoming enraged.
In the 1950s IBM looked much different than it does today. Back then they produced punch card systems. Exciting stuff…
In fact, the company repeatedly rejected developing computers because the CEO at the time, Tom Watson Sr., thought them overpriced and unreliable.
In 1952 Tom Watson Jr. took over as President of IBM. Under his leadership the company went from $275M in sales in 1952 to $734M in 1956. That’s a 267% increase in just four years!
In the early 1960s Tom Jr. oversaw a project called System 360 which produced a new line of computers that (for the first time) ran the same software and devices.
Fortune magazine called it “IBMs $5 million gamble.”
The gamble paid off… and revolutionized the computer industry. It was the catalyst for Tom Watson Jr. to maintain an almost 30% increase in sales for the entire 20 years he was at the helm of the company.
Watson was famous for his unique vision, not just when it came to making major business decisions, but also with his employees. One story beautifully illustrates his ability to see things differently:
A young executive at IBM had made some bad decisions that ended up costing the company several million dollars (a huge sum of money in the 1960s).
The employee was called to Watson’s office and upon entering said, “I suppose after all of those mistakes you’ll want to fire me.”
Watson was said to have replied, “not at all young man, we have just spent several million dollars educating you, I’m certainly not going to fire you now.”
For the next few weeks, I’m going to plunge into the topic of leadership like a cool lake on a hot summer day. In this first post I’ll give you a satellite view and outline what, to me, makes an effective leader.
To that end, allow me to begin by sharing a quick story with you…
A man was walking through a rock quarry busy with workers excavating stone. The man went up to one of the workers and asked, “What are you doing?”
The worker responded with contempt, “I’m breaking my back to break these stones!” Keep reading →
Check out my interview with the guys at We Mean Business and find out for yourself! (I recommend the whole show, but if you’re in a rush the interview starts at about the 4min mark)
If you live in Montgomery County be sure to check out the show on MMC-TV (Channel 16 on Comcast & Verizon) Monday’s & Wednesday’s @ 6:30pm
One of the most common mistakes I see in businesses is that many attempt to make a sale too fast. It’s like meeting someone and proposing marriage before asking them out on a first date.
Good marketing is like a relationship. And it has a life cycle of its own.
First you need to find prospects that are looking for what you’re offering.
For instance, if you’re a devout Catholic you might have better luck finding a potential partner at church versus, say, a Buddhist meditation center.
Likewise, marketing iPhone apps to senior citizens probably isn’t going to work – call it a hunch…
The good news is that there are a number of ways to find people who are already dealing with problems that your product or service can solve.Keep reading →
OK, so that headline might be a bit misleading… as crushing as it may be, I did not actually find the fountain of youth.
Now I know you’re disappointed, so – instead of a map to eternal youth – I’m going to make it up to you by sharing my roadmap to writing blockbuster headlines for your products and services (easily the next best thing).
Call it my way of saying “I’m sorry” for the deception .
Even better, I’m going to reveal the 5 Critical Components to Writing Powerful Headlines. And that’s especially valuable because a headline is by far the most important part of any marketing piece. Keep reading →
My good friend Steve Dorfman once told me that all buying decisions are emotional and then we back those emotional decisions up with logic to support them.
Seems kinda bass ackwards if you know what I mean…
But the fact is that emotions are what sell a product or service. And tapping into the emotions your potential customers are feeling can unlock a whole new world of opportunity and success for you and your business. Keep reading →
As you know, we are in the middle of a perfect storm. We’re still in an economic crisis, an environmental crisis, an education crisis, a healthcare crisis…
And that’s on top of all our personal crises.
At first glance these disasters seem unrelated. But I invite you to consider that they’re not.
In fact, some experts believe that root cause for each is the exactly the same.
The problem isn’t that complex, in fact it’s incredibly simple. You see… Keep reading →
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