Are You Ignoring Your Fan Club?

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Are you ignoring your Fan Club?

It’s one of the biggest mistakes people make in business, and it’s easy to see how it happens. We all like something new, don’t we? It’s like the kid at Christmas (or whatever gift-giving holiday you celebrate)—he’s giddy with happiness when he first opens his presents, and bored to death with them an hour later.

Some of us treat our customers the same way. Maybe it’s the thrill of the hunt, or of the conquest, but ...

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Customer Service, Producing Results

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If It’s Not Broken, Break It!

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“When everything is running smoothly, there’s no impetus to change, to grow, to progress. It’s only when things stop running smoothly—when they break—that we suddenly look at alternatives and discover, often to our amazement, that there’s a better way.”

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Oh, I know—you’ve got enough problems to deal with without tinkering with the stuff that’s already working. “The water’s already choppy,” you ...

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Change, Creativity, Producing Results, The Beatles

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Why Don’t We Take More Risks?

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We all love a risk-taker, don’t we? The business owner, the entrepreneur, the CEO who has a big idea, then boldly rolls the dice with a “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” attitude. We look at them with wonder and envy, and jealously applaud them when they make it big. We hear people tell us, “You have to take ...

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Change, Leadership, Producing Results, The Beatles

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Don’t Ignore the “Small” Opportunities

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How many opportunities (including BIG ones) are you leaving on the table because you’re ignoring the small game?

I was just reading an interview with Paul McCartney’s bass player, Brian Ray (and what kind of pressure must that be—playing bass for one of the greatest rock bassists of all time?!). The interviewer asked the obvious question: “So, how did you get the McCartney gig?” I think Brian’s answer is a great business lesson for all of us. Here’s what he said:

“In ...

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Change, Communication, Creativity, Customer Service, Producing Results, Work Ethic

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The Crucial Thing Your Customers Can’t Tell You

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So I was reading an online article yesterday about the iPad (because, as we all know, there haven’t been enough articles about the iPad). The article itself wasn’t earth-shattering—something about how the iPad is outselling Mac computers—but I thought one of the comments was hugely insightful. The thread was about why Apple products, particularly the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad, are so immensely popular. The comment that caught my eye (or, in AppleSpeak, my “i”) was this:

Everybody else is ...

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Customer Service, Producing Results, The Beatles

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Stop Lying About “Going to Work”

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There’s a guy at my gym whom I call Burl. Not because he’s burly, like you’d expect a gym regular to be, but because he looks like Burl Ives. (For you younger readers, Burl Ives was a rotund, congenial-looking man, whom you may know as the voice of Frosty the Snowman. He was not known for his rock-hard abs.) Burl is there every morning, sitting on an exercise bike, watching TV. Not actually exercising, mind you. I’ve never seen him ...

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Creativity, Producing Results, Work Ethic

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Does Your Business Have a “Hook”?

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You’ve got a nice little business with all the things that a nice little business requires: a great product or service, a company web site, maybe even an expensive sales and marketing campaign. The only problem is, you’re not getting the customers. You’ve built it, but they’re not coming. What’s the problem?

You have no hook.

One of the primary reasons for the Beatles’ enduring success is that, above almost anything else, those boys could write a hook! Some little musical idea ...

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Customer Service, Producing Results, Work Ethic

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Stop Lurching Through Your Business!

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As a professional speaker, I get to visit with many different businesses in a cross-section of industries. I’m noticing some trends that I find encouraging—trends that I’ve confirmed with several of my speaker colleagues. Now, I’m not going to sit here and try to convince you that we’re completely out of the economic doldrums. You’re too smart to fall for that (except for you—the guy in the yellow flowered shirt—you’ll believe anything I tell you). But in broad terms, ...

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Leadership, Producing Results, The Beatles, Work Ethic

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Do Your Customers Feel Like They Belong?

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I went to hear a Beatles tribute band last night. That, in itself is not remarkable. I see a lot of Beatles tribute bands. But here’s what struck me. I got to the venue a half hour early, and there was already a line. But this wasn’t a line waiting to get in; this was a line hoping to get in. See, the venue was already filled to capacity, and they weren’t letting anybody else enter. (Fortunately, by virtue of ...

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Producing Results, The Beatles

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Why You Don’t Need to Solve Every Problem

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How much time are you wasting trying to solve problems that could simply be eliminated?

I once spent nearly an entire summer trying to solve a problem. But when I finally came around to eliminating the problem instead, the “solution” seemed so simple! Here’s what happened.

I was the producer of a sketch comedy TV show in Seattle called Almost Live! We were a one-hour show, airing Sundays at 6pm (a terrible time for sketch comedy, by the way). In addition to ...

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Change, Creativity, Sales, The Beatles

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