Seven Reasons You Might Fail to Become the Best in the World
- You run out of time (and quit).
- You run out of money (and quit).
- You get scared (and quit).
- You’re not serious about it (and quit).
- You lose interest or enthusiasm or settle for being mediocre (and quit).
- You focus on the short term instead of the long (and quit when the short term gets too hard).
- You pick the wrong thing at which to be the best in the world (because you don’t have the talent).
By “you,” I mean your team, your company, or just plain you, the jobseeker, employee, or entrepreneur. The important thing to remember about these seven things is that you can plan for them. You can know before you start whether or not you have the resources and the will to get to the end. Most of the time, if you fail to become the best in the world, it’s either because you planned wrong or because you gave up before you reached your goal.
Even worse than quitting in the first six cases: not quitting. Settling. Sticking with it but not succeeding.
Is it possible that you’re just not good enough? That you (or your team) just don’t have enough talent to be the best in the world? Sure, it’s possible. In fact, if your chosen area is the cello, or speed skating, then I might even say it’s probable. But in just about every relevant area I can think of, no, it’s not likely. You are good enough. The question is, will you take the shortcut you need to get really good at this?
April 10, 2007
Zaki points us to the phenomenon of the Dabbawalla. These men deliver thousands of lunches every single day in Mumbai… from the person’s home to their office, hot and fresh.
The reported error rate is one in six million.
How is this possible? How do you create and run a service with thousand of employees, no technology and a poorly-educated workforce and have better than six sigma quality?
Simple: the dabbawallas know their customers. If they rotated the people around, it would never work. There’s trust, and along with the trust is responsibility. By creating a flat organization and building relationships, the system even survives monsoon season.
That’s what florist David says is the value of marketing to recipients of flowers. Zero. Useless.
What a great way to get a post out of me!
You can market by telling or you can market by showing. There’s no doubt that interactive marketing, marketing where you actually deliver something of value, is far far more powerful than telling. Telling is just bragging. Telling is ignored. Showing, on the other hand, is about me. Me, me, me! It’s about providing an interactive experience that touches me.
What a great opportunity to do just that. I might be crazy, but my guess is that people who get flowers are also people who give flowers. And my guess is that giving someone an extraordinary experience when they get the flowers is the best way in the world to turn that person into a sender, too.
[Visitors to the office building where you are the landlord are more likely to rent space in an office building. People going to a funeral are more likely to be buying a plot or a service soon. Guests in a restaurant are more likely to be hosts at a restaurant. You get the idea.]
After I tracked down the local florist, I pointed out the condition of the flowers (that’s a genuine, unretouched photo). The florist said, "Oh, those stems are very soft. They’re supposed to be that way."
Useless marketing, indeed.
April 9, 2007
I wrote a note to the Strand bookstore, inquiring about an old set of encyclopedias. Here’s the entire response:
Dear Customer
Thank you for your recent order/inquiry.
Unfortunately, the title(s) you requested are not in stock. Please
consider the search completed.
Thank you again for thinking of Strand Book Store.
Strand Bookstore.
Oh. Well, see you later.
At the same time, political candidates are viewing even the slightest gesture on your part (an encouraging email, for example) as proof that you want to receive daily fundraising emails for the next two years.
There’s a middle ground, one that is not computer-decided. It’s based on a human being treating another human being the way they’d like to be treated. And it’s easy to see how just about any organization, at just about any scale ought to be able to make thoughtful decisions about setting expectations and then meeting them. (and doing it profitably.)
The Strand walked away from hundreds of dollars of orders, all because they couldn’t write a more encouraging standardized note.
Political campaigns extinguish plenty of goodwill because they instantly move from 0 to 60 miles per hour.
Permission has never meant ‘access to my email.’ It’s a privilege, one that you earn or lose.
There are now three cities confirmed for May: Philadelphia, Chicago and now, New York. Details are here.
Durian is a fruit from Southeast Asia that can be charitably described as smelling like stale baby vomit. It is also revered by millions and served with pride in many Thai and Malaysian households. Most of all, it’s a great way to learn about marketing.
Songpol Somsri, a scientist fascinated by the durian, has spent decades cross-breeding more than 90 varieties of Durian and come up with a stinkless variety. No odor.
This is what most marketers do. They listen to complaints from non-customers ("why don’t you buy from us?") address them and wait for the market to grow. After all, if the people who don’t eat Durian don’t eat it because of the smell, then removing the smell ought to dramatically increase the size of your market.
Except this almost never works.
Non-durian eaters don’t have a ‘durian problem’. They aren’t standing by, fruitless, impatiently waiting for Songpol Somsri to figure out how to make a stinkless one. Nope. They’ve got cantaloupes and kiwis and all manner of other fruits to keep them busy.
The feedback you get from non-consumers is rarely useful, because the objection they give is the reason they don’t buy from you, not the thing that will cause them to affirmatively choose you.
Will stinkless durian revolutionize the marketplace? Possibly. I’ve been wrong before. But if I were a durian farmer, I’d work hard to make durian stinkier.
A florist dropped off a few dozen flowers at my house. The card had our name on it, but nothing was printed, there was no way to tell which florist brought them by.
I can just see the discussion at headquarters. "We’ve been getting way too many customer complaints. People get the flowers and they’re not happy with them, so they call and want a refund or replacement. It takes a lot of time and hassle."
"I know! Let’s just take our name and phone number off the card."
Sort of like having heavier than usual call volume, or hiding your contact info somewhere deep on your website.
April 7, 2007
Eric points us to Jott.
You call a toll free number from your cell phone, leave yourself a message and it types it and emails it to you. Perfect for creating to do lists.
Even cooler, you import a bunch of friends or colleagues and you can send them all an email at once via your cellphone.
I have no clue how they make money, but as we say online, they’ll figure it out later.
BONUS: Phoebe points us to this very cool, very cheap way to make a website. I will probably steal this idea one day, but wanted to be fair and point out that this is where it came from.
April 6, 2007
Happy to announce New York for May 29 in the morning. (details here). There are only 120 seats in this theatre.
And Rajesh is working with a few people to set up a gig in Silicon Valley. If you think you might be able to help sponsor the event (by guaranteeing a set number of people, for example, or getting your company involved), drop a line to deepika.
Thanks!
