Just published today, you can get the PDF right here.
It’s free and it’s sharable. I hope you enjoy it.
Aside: the changethis.com website was started by a few interns and me several summers ago. And we got caught in a Dip. Not because the site isn’t great (I think it stands up to this day) or that it isn’t a great idea (we broke books like Blink and Freakonomics and Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start) but because we didn’t push hard enough after we’d done all the ‘hard’ work. The folks at CEO READ are doing a great job of stewardship and the site continues to grow, but that Dip–becoming the most popular way to distribute short manifestos–still looms.
May 9, 2007
Chris points out this article, all about a woman who sells tumbleweed online.
She’s grossing more than $40,000 a year, almost entirely to organic search engine traffic.
I would imagine that the slow shipping option would be pretty cheap, as long as you live downwind from her.
37 Signals has a nice review of James Dyson’s autobiography. He’s a bit of a nut, but he truly understands the Dip.
Last Wednesday, the Times ran an article (okay, it was more of a puff piece) about a new gelato shop in New York. (It hadn’t even opened yet). This little shop, called Grom, was the first US outpost of a successful chain in Italy.
I took a few friends on Saturday night, which was opening day. There were more than 50 people waiting in line on the sidewalk. It had been that way all day. While we were waiting, they completely ran out of product. All gone.
Gluttons for punishment and always eager to do research for my valued readers, we went back Sunday afternoon. Another 40 people in line.
Is Grom a purple cow? Or was it a combination of perfect weather, the perfect street, the perfect time of day and the best buzz rollout ever? If they’re busy in February, it means they’ve got more than just buzz.
Which brings us to the Fugees, a refugee soccer team in Georgia. These are kids who were lucky enough to find a wonderful coach… it’s a great story. The team got a write up in the Times a few months ago. Which led to a book deal, and a movie deal and a guarantee of more than $2,000,000 for the movie alone. That’ll put a lot of kids through college.
There’s no denying th power of this effect. The real question is this: can you count on it? Plan on it? Scale it?
The answer is no. It’s a little like planning your retirement by hoping to win the lottery. Nice work if you can get it.
May 8, 2007
I visited the world’s first Starbucks today (there are more than 12,000 of them now). It’s a little surreal, because you can see the original elements still poking out from under the splashy current veneer. The best part of the visit, though, wasn’t the really cool people that worked there… it was seeing the stores that are just down the street. There were two or three other coffee shops, a juice bar, a french bakery, a scone shop and a pierogie stand. Any one of them (well, except for maybe the pierogies) could have become Starbucks. But didn’t.
Why?
Because of the Dip. Howard Schultz took a really good (but my no means unique) coffee shop and pushed it through a Dip that got it to 100 stores. That Dip eludes almost every small businessperson. It’s too scary. The end of the tunnel is just a little bit too far away, a little too intimidating. So most people don’t try.
This intimidation is exactly why getting through the Dip is so valuable. Starbucks succeeds largely because they’re Starbucks. Ubiquity is their friend. If everyone could be ubiquitous, it wouldn’t be worth anything at all.
… is almost a useless thing to say.
If you want to end a conversation with a teenager, just ask, “How was school today?”
If you want to end a conversation with a customer, just ask if you can help. Instead, ask, “can I get you a hot drink?” or “what’s the worst thing about your insurance company?” or “one slice or two?”
Content is getting shorter. Much shorter. Call it snack culture if you want. (Josh sends us this one. Of course it’s fake.)
At the same time, advertisers are tempted to get shorter as well. To run shorter pre-rolls and shorter ads and pay to get their jelly-bean-sized logos in the corner of the screen.
I think the answer is to do the opposite. To make loooonger ads (put em on YouTube, they’re free).
I heard an argument about the Presidential debate from last week. 90 minutes for ten people. Impossible!
Why not start the Debate Channel? 20 hours a week of live debate available online. Get a cable network to run three or four hours of highlights every week as an inducement to the candidates, but it will really be about the Net. If a candidate doesn’t show up, the others get more time to talk. Use a chess clock to be sure no one bullies the conversation.
A huge portion of our lives (as marketers, as consumers, as voters, as citizens) has been dominated by the fact that there were three or twenty TV networks. That this was a scarce resource. It’s not. Not any more. So, if there’s unlimited real estate, what are we going to build?
[it seems from the trackbacks that I wasn’t as clear as I could be, so here goes: the reason you wanted shorter commercials is that they were cheaper to run and you had a shot at stealing attention. But now, you can’t steal attention and airtime is free (online). So, since the only people who are going to watch your commercial are the people who WANT to watch it, might as well give them something at least as long as they want to watch…]
You can find the PDF right here.
May 7, 2007
Most people in the US can’t cook. So you would think that reaching out to the masses with entry-level cooking instruction would be a smart business move.
In fact, as the Food Network and cookbook publishers have demonstrated over and over again, you’re way better off helping the perfect improve. You’ll also sell a lot more management consulting to well run companies, high end stereos to people with good stereos and yes, church services to the already well behaved.
We begin to close the reservations for my US speaking gigs this week. Every attendee gets 5 free copies of my new hardcover and the ticket price is $50. I’ll be speaking about my new book for about 40 minutes and then taking questions and having a discussion with the audience for up to an hour or so.
The cities: Philly, Tempe, Salt Lake, Silicon Valley, New York and Chicago. The details are right here. I’m trying to be able to offer seats at the door, but it’s logistically difficult, so I’m hoping that if you are planning to come, you won’t hesitate. See you there.
