SAMBA Blog

Have you drunk the Kool-Aid?

In the Secrets of Selling Success, Zig Ziglar talks a lot about believing in your product, believing passionately that it is the best thing your prospect could buy to solve their problem.

Are we buying that? Do you really need to drink the Kool-Aid in order to sell something? Do you need to be passionate about the product?

I’m passionate about helping people solve a problem. That’s part of sales.

I’m passionate about communicating well. That’s part of sales.

I’m passionate about learning new things. That’s part of sales.

Does this mean I can be passionate about sales? Yikes! It would seem so. But that passion will only come through if I have a product I can believe in. Not one that I have to be passionate about, but one I can represent with authenticity and integrity.

I don’t have to drink the Kool-Aid myself, but I do need to ensure it’s worth serving to others.

Graphics and such

In business we often talk about shapes. Boxes and lines and filling vacuums. Drawing yourself inside or outside the box, stepping outside of the lines, and filling up space when there is space to fill.

And we've all heard the famous "We've come full circle." 

These shapes describe simply and elegantly our framework for how we view the world. You're not left ruminating about what type of a person you are, or where you should stretch yourself, or where you feel most comfortable.

You're either inside the box or on the outside. You either fill the space or you don't.

Sometimes you're a square, sometimes you're not.

Shapes put a moratorium on thinking and analyzing and anxiety. They tell you quietly and directly what shape you should take next. Maybe your current shape is confining something another shape may enhance.

They motivate without being in your face. They're just shapes, after all.

Sometimes it's not intellectual discourse that you need, or analysis or feedback or lessons. Sometimes it takes a shape to help you see what you already know. A box or triangle or line that helps you come "full circle."

I don't know what I want to do with my life

I love talking to people about what they want to do with their lives. I'm obsessed. And when I ask people about it, the most common response I get: "I don't know what I want to do."

I'll pause, and they'll launch into a story about how they're weighing their options, or exploring what they want or...and here's my favorite one..."trying to find themselves." (why? when did you lose yourself to begin with?)

But before they can get too far into their story I deliberately interrupt them... and I quickly ask them the classic (and at this point cliche) question, "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?"

If you time that question just right, so it comes completely unexpectedly, you'll immediately get a response. It's like magic.

"That's easy! I would be an astronaut! (other common responses include: rock star, pro athlete, and President of the United States).

What happened? A second ago, they had no idea what they wanted to do...but now after asking a slightly different question, they responded quickly and congruently.

"What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail" is a brilliant question. It gives people permission to tell the truth. It does so, by temporarily taking our greatest fear off the table, "Am I good enough?"

I have a hunch that people generally do know what they want to do, but they dismiss it because it sounds silly, unreasonable, risky, or just not practical.

Which is absolutely fine. I honestly think there's value to consciously choosing not to strive for your first choice for one reason or another...but don't lie to yourself. Don't tell yourself you don't know what you want to do. Tell yourself the truth:

"I do know what I want to do, but I'm afraid to pursue it because I don't think it's achievable and it's just not practical enough. So I'm searching for a safer second best option."

Much more difficult to say isn't it? Well...you always have another choice: Become an astronaut.

How To Impress a Girl

"If you want to impress a girl, take her on a date to the Oscars... And then win."

That's what Peggy Orenstein said yesterday on NPR. It's very reminiscent of Stephen Colbert's advice to recent college grads:

"The best career advice I can give you is to get your own TV show. It pays well, the hours are good, and you are famous."

It's funny to think that just fifteen years ago, telling a recent college grad that they should start their own company would fall into the same category of amusing fake advice. But fast forward a few years and we have all these people like Seth, Guy, DHH, pg, etc. explaining step-by-step just how it's done. And, more often than not, organizing communities that make things happen.

Al says that we have all these people who won't admit to themselves that what they really want is to be a rock star, pro athlete, TV host, etc. because they don't think they can succeed. And maybe they're right. But if they are, I suspect not for long.

What's happened in the last ten years for entrepreneurs is about to happen for astronauts, wine makers, and race car drivers. Leaders will form tribes, tribes will offer advice, and the best of that advice will be collected and made available to everyone.

Winning an Oscar may never be sound advice for picking up a girl, but telling someone they should go out and make an Oscar-quality documentary will no longer come off as laughable. It'll just be what you do next after college.

"Of course."

Scarcity and making money in the economy of FREE

Supply and demand...remember that?

High demand with low supply = high prices.

But what about when the supply is infinite?

In the FREE economy, infinite will be free. Things that are scarce will have a fee.

If you charge for something that's infinite you'll have a difficult time competing against your competition who's offering it for free.

An MP3 of a song is infinite...so it will be free.
Attending a concert to see a live performance is scarce...so it has a fee.

Sometimes you get to decide how scarce something is. By creating scarcity you can increase the value.

Showing up somewhere in the google search results is infinite, so it's free.
Showing up as one of three sponsored spots in google search results for a popular search term is very scarce (and in high demand), so it's very expensive.

Those who master scarce and infinite will be the winners in the economy of FREE.

Matt points us to this post by Mike Masnick from 2007 with a much more in depth discussion of these ideas.

Who is your anchor tenant?

In real estate, before a shopping center is built, they establish the anchor tenants. These are the stores that will be the big draw to bring consumers and more importantly, attract smaller stores to the shopping center. The anchor tenants are often enticed to the shopping center with discounted cost per square foot and other benefits. The theory is the anchor store will bring in millions of consumers. Smaller stores will want to take advantage of these consumers and they will want to establish in the same vicinity/shopping center as the anchor tenant. Then, If store B and C are going to be there, other stores do not want to miss out on the same opportunity and then it will make it an easier sell to store D.

A perfect example of an anchor tenant is Walmart. Walmart brings in millions of consumers each year. Stores establish near Walmart because it is an easy sale to be in the same vicinity as millions of consumers. In a small town once you have one or two customers move to the new Walmart shopping center, it is easier to convince the others as they do not want to be left out.

This practice can be applied to any business or service. One example of creating anchor tenants is customer references. When you are coming out with a new product or service, a way to establish the anchor effect is to establish an anchor reference. Some companies offer a discounted price to attract a larger customer to try a new product. The thought is once they have their ‘anchor customer’ other companies will look at using the product. Then, once you sell the product to the anchor customer and two other examples, it will be easier to sell to your third company.

When you are starting your business or service, go after your anchor tenant first and the remainder of the sales will come easier.

Awaiting instructions?

So when it comes time to take action in the world, are you this kid?

Are you just sitting around "awaiting instructions"?

That's fine to a point. As long as you're willing to let others dictate the course of your life. As long as you just want to coast through and leave no evidence you were ever here. As long as you are happy with letting others take all the responsibility (and credit and blame!) for the big things.

Do you want to take instructions or take initiative?

The Evolution of the Dunk Contest

The Slam Dunk contest used to be the crown jewel of the NBA. It drew more enthusiastic fans than any other basketball event, and it arguably catupulted the careers of stars like Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, and Dominique Wilkins. But in the 90s, the NBA had a big problem: The contest became terribly boring.

All the best dunks had already been done. Fans were getting so tired of seeing the same dunks over and over again that the NBA decided to cancel the contest for 3 years.

In 2000 the NBA finally decided to bring the contest back. But it wasn't until last year that the contest really made a comeback due to one man, Dwight Howard.

Dwight was an incredibly good dunker, but that's not how he changed the game.  Dwight was funny, charismatic, and creative. He realized that the dunk contest was less about dunks and more about telling a story.

He performed outrageous dunks that relied on theatrics and presentation just as much as skill. Some of his dunks included placing a sticker on the backboard (while dunking), dancing in the middle of the court, and donning a cape while embodying the persona of Superman for his final dunk.

Dwight Howard turned the dunk contest, into a personality contest.

This year, Dwight Howard (Superman) gave a repeat performance. He was even more outrageous with even more props, only this time another athlete, Nate Robinson told an even better story. Nate is only 5'9" and told the story of the underdog (David vs. Goliath). And this year in order to outdo Dwight's Superman story, Nate wore a green and yellow costume to represent kryptonite (he called himself "Krypto-Nate").

If the dunk contest has any chance of future success, players are going to have to continue to tell creative stories that fans want to hear. They have to realize that fans have never come to the dunk contest for the dunks. They come for the experience, they come for the personalities, they come for the stories.

Give them what they want (Hint: They want the best)

I was amazed to find the story of "Gloomy Gus" the shoeshine man in Zig Ziglar's "Secrets."

Seeing Zig approach the shoeshine station, Gloomy Gus asks "Well, I suppose you want the regular shine?" (as opposed to the "Best shine" or "Spit shine" etc.)

Zig-(incredulously) "I can't believe you said that! Why would you offer me the Regular instead of the Best?"

Gloomy- "People don't pay for the Best on rainy days because their shoes get muddied up later."

Zig- "It seems to me that if the Best shine gives the best protection and your business is down on rainy days, you would work awfully hard to increase the sales of your Best shine."

It sinks in a little for Gloomy. Zig gives him a few words that improve his sales pitch and Gloomy feels better.

The lesson behind the story woke me up. Why do we sell (or pitch, or talk about) anything less than the best for our clients and consumers? Why do we assume they don't want the best for themselves?

I think it's because we're scared. We're scared that we're not delivering the best and that consumers know it. We stretch to sell (reluctantly) because we don't believe we're delivering value to the customer.

What if we switched our framework slightly? What if we realized it's about confidence, yes, but also about the inherent belief that we're delivering something of value to the person; that we're helping them acquire something they need. That we're not only selling them something, we're helping them by selling them something.

Gloomy's assumption that people wouldn't want to pay for the Best shine undermined his profession, his respect for himself, and the respect for the customers. He should have understood that people want the best for themselves and they're willing to pay for it. Why undermine it when they aren't?

When you think about it this way, it feels lovely to want to sell. To want to get the other's permission and give them what they want.

How often have we sold to people with a lackadaisical attitude, a less-than-enthusiastic pitch, not believing what we're saying? How many times have we decreased our chances because we assume someone wouldn't want the best for themselves?

The Name Game

Start playing the new Name Game. It's free and you can play everyday. Here is how it works:

Throughout the day, every time you interact with a person who has a name tag on, casually glance at it when they’re not looking. Then, look them in the eye and use their name.

“Thanks, Casey.”

“Have a good day, Jessica.”

Watch their reaction. 95% of the time, you’ll get a surprised smile. Most are in the middle of a shift of hundreds of generic, scan your item, pour your coffee, punch your ticket transactions where nobody knows or cares what their name is.

With one simple word, you can humanize the transaction and brighten their day.            

Diving into a Market

We seldom invent something entirely new and unprecedented when it comes to business models. Much of what we do as entrepreneurs or change-makers are simply derivatives, refinements, or shameless imitations of existing business models. In fact, we're constantly entering markets that already have fierce competitors fighting over market share.

Diving into a market to take share from current market leaders is a Herculean task and few succeed. The typical way to grab market share is to lower prices but that only sparks a price war where everyone loses, except maybe the customer. Even that is debatable as low prices and razor-thin margins limit a companies' ability to deliver great customer service.

What is an entrepreneurial marketer to do? You have to create new market share by expanding the pie. How do you do this? You likely will not invent a new business model. You aren't going to create a competing product that is cheaper and higher quality; that's magic and real magic happens rarely. You tell a new story and create a new product to match that story. When you succeed in artfully crafting a new story, the product doesn't even have to be qualitatively different than what already exists in the market. The Porsche Cayenne is practically the same car as the Volkswagen Taureg.

When you tell a compelling new story, you attract new people into the market and make the pie bigger. Most of us thought skydivers were just crazy people with a death wish. Then somebody succeeded in telling a story of skydiving as self-help, as a way to discover yourself. Now, many more of us have skydived at least once.

The most important graph in education

Like most kids my age would have, I assumed that because I was in the advanced fourth-grade reading-class I was smarter than everyone else. That is, not only had I achieved more, but I also had more potential. I was going places.

I don’t remember ever taking a test. But I assumed that there was one and maybe I had forgotten about it. Or maybe there wasn’t, maybe there was some secret rubric that I had maxed out on due to my luck, pluck, and virtue. It didn’t matter. I had potential and I was going places and that was that.

Or maybe not.

A 1994 study led by Aaron Pallas compared the standardized test scores of first graders to their reading-group placement. The results were shocking.

One would have expected that the test scores for the advanced reading group would have been the highest, followed by the normal ability group, followed by the remedial reading group. Instead, Pallas found that the test scores of all three reading groups were virtually identical. Students in even the most advanced reading group had only a slightly greater chance of having greater than average test scores.

The implications here are huge. To quote from the study, “Ability grouping in classrooms has traditionally been viewed as a rational way for schools to organize instruction. There is a growing body of evidence, however, that (1) ability-group placements are fallible, in that students with similar levels of academic potential may be placed in different ability groups, and (2) that placement of children in different ability groups may heighten inequalities in children’s academic achievement.”

“We found that first-grade ability-group placement can have persistent effects on children’s achievement in school over a period of several years and may shape the expectations of children’s performance held by significant others, such as parents and teachers. Whether these effects are instructional, social, or institutional, they are real, and they have implications for children’s future schooling trajectories. […] Instructional grouping may have the unintended effect of increasing inequalities in educational outcomes, largely by creating inequalities in educational resources and rewards.”

That is, students who started off at exactly the same level of measured ability in first grade will have vastly different levels of ability by the end of high school. In my own experience I know that my peers in my advanced fourth-grade reading group were the same ones that got into the best colleges almost a decade later. Were we really smarter to begin with, or were we made smarter after being accidentally selected at random as a by-product of a broken system?

Pallas himself suggests the latter: “Children in higher-ranked reading groups were perceived by their parents and teachers as more competent than were similar children in low-ranked groups, often independent of their actual performance.”

Not to get all angsty, but I do often wonder how much of my identity– intelligence, personality, experiences, etc. – has nothing to do with anything intrinsic within me, but is rather the result of a series of stochastic events and selections.

That's what I like about being an entrepreneur; going forward I steer.

Pallas et al. “Ability Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institutional?” Sociology of Education 67 (1994). Fig. 1, p. 36.

Karaoke in Cambodia

NPR had a great segment last month about how karaoke videos are teaching safe water techniques in Cambodia. Mickey Sampson of Resource Development International Cambodia saw that there was a small village near his home where a number of kids were dying from diarrhea caused by bacteria from their wells. The people of the village could not read and were accepting water born disease as a way of life. One day he heard a villager singing the Barney song, “I love you, you love me.” He realized that they were learning new songs through karaoke videos. Sampson, thought outside the box and created a karaoke video that tells the story of love with information about the dangers of arsenic and bacteria in some hand-dug wells. They drive karaoke vans around to villages and are spreading the message subliminally to the villagers to solve the problem.

Mickey is doing a few things right:

1. He is thinking outside the box. He understands that brochures and verbal warnings are not going to solve the problem.
2. He is speaking their language. How are people learning? How are they receiving information and spreading information. That is where he needed to put his message!
3. He delivered the message to the villagers in their ‘world view.’ It was critical that he had a persuasive message, since they were beginning to accept this problem as a way of life. He had to speak to their emotional side, in a way comfortable to them, to change their point of view. He did this through the story of love portrayed in the Karaoke video.

When approaching a difficult marketing problem, think about Karaoke in Cambodia. If you need to spread a message to your village/tribe, think outside the box, speak their language and to their world view.

Listen to NPR recording here.

Amazing Gadgets: Pulse from LiveScribe

As the self-appointed Minister of Really Cool Gadgets here at SAMBA, I get to try out lots of exciting new toys...sorry...I mean productivity tools.  Seth just returned from TED, where he received a LiveScribe Pulse smartpen.

I have to say this is one of the best gadgets I've ever played with.  The Pulse is slightly thicker than a regular pen and is used with special notebooks.  The notebooks are very reasonably priced and are available from Amazon or directly from LiveScribe.  I just ordered a couple of Moleskine like notebooks specifically designed for the Pulse.

Here are some of the benefits of the LiveScribe:

The Pulse charges and syncs via a USB dock and works with a PC or Mac (although the Mac app has limited features :-( as it's still in beta).  If you're using the audio recording feature built into the pen you can tap on any area in your notes to hear what was recorded while you were taking those notes.

To get an idea of just how amazing this device is check this out (play in full screen without the shadow in the background).

P.S. This isn't a paid endorsement, although if LiveScribe wanted to send each of the SAMBA participants a Pulse I'm sure we'd talk about it.

Contribution Company

The barrier between consumers and makers has been destroyed by the internet. In its place is the direct relationship of consumer to consumer, person to person. Now that we have transformed into this new market, the spam factories of ole make no impact at all, aside from being a nuisance. The consumer’s voice has been amplified, and if your service, product, or organization sucks, be prepared for obscurity or, at least, expensive conflicts. If your business needs to resolve the conflicts it has with the "new consumer", I suggest you read Ben and Roz Zanders The Art of Possibility . When you get to the bit about transforming conflicts into rewarding experiences, think of this blog. Without a doubt, there are conflicts fogging our personal and business relationships, obscuring any hope for resolve, more or less reward.

The Zanders suggest we achieve transformation by “naming oneself and others as a contribution” producing a shift from self-concern to an “arena for making a difference”. Instead of focusing on the familiar measurements of progress, ask your business to consider the new barrier-free market as a place to contribute. Then become a contributor. At the same time, do not deny the consumer the opportunity to contribute; this is the beauty of the suggestion box and responsible customer service. Take them seriously. Or least tell a story at your customer that insists their concerns matter to you. If you can't do this, go away. I imagine many old model organizations will have to restructure their entire mission to transform dramatically to tell the new story of contribution. I think big organizations will not succeed at this. My bet is that as the new market starts to gain even more momentum, the big company models will tighten up and rethink their scale.

Do you want to change your life?

Really? Truly?

Because know that change isn't hard. But it isn't easy either.

In fact, if you want change, if you aren't happy with the lot you've been dealt, you have exactly two choices. It's that simple.

Change what you want.
Change what you're doing.

The first is anathema to most of us. After all, to change what we want is to change who we are, right? To settle for less than is possible.

Which leaves you with changing what you're doing. Changing your job. Changing your location. Changing your attitude.

As Einstein said, we can't solve our problems with the same level of thinking that got us there. Something has to give if you really want change.

I don't know why...but I just don't like you

Sometimes when we don’t like someone, we have a really good reason. Other times, we just can’t explain why? Well here’s one possibility:

Most people don’t realize that when we interact with people we’re not just interacting with that person in the current moment, we’re unconsciously interacting with all the people in our past that this person reminds us of.

That mailman you got into a fight with for no reason…he had the same smile as your cheating ex-boyfriend. The candidate that you didn’t vote for…their voice tone reminded you of your mother’s (when she used to scold you as a kid). And the guy across the street you despise, he raises his eyebrows when he talks just like your mean old boss.

The brain is a prediction machine. It’s contantly trying to guess what’s going to happen next, based on what’s happened before. Most of the time this serves us, but other times it’s just silly.

So when evaluating anybody, we owe it to ourselves to focus on the present. "The best thing about the past is that it's over."

Banging on the Keys

After a concert, a woman gushed to Beethoven about how enthralled she was by his music.

"Oh, sir, I wish I could play like you! It's genius the music you create!"

Beethoven: "Well maam. If you want to practice 8 hours a day for 30 years, you could most certainly play that way also."

She didn't expect that.

To Beethoven, his performance was not a one-off coincidence where talent met opportunity. To him, it was the culmination of effort and sweat put into his practice daily. The woman, only aware of the performance, didn't give the process the respect it deserved. Honoring the process matters. It's the thing that matters.

Good bloggers are good because they practice. They refine their skill and tone and do it everyday. They battle perfectionism and procrastination and just sit down and do the work. Artists and real writers do it everyday even if it's just one line or one a stroke of the brush.

Don't fret if you're not where you want to be with your skills yet. That's not the hard part.
Fret when you don't want to practice those skills everyday. Fret when you invent stories to escape practicing.

Hamster Burial Kits & 998 Other Business Ideas

Ideas are a dime a dozen. The money is in the execution.

Need proof? For Seth Godin's Alternative MBA program, this week the nine of us came up with 111 business ideas each. But ideas are only valuable when someone (like you) makes something happen.

What follows are our 999 business ideas, free for the taking.

1. Prepackaged school supplies based on the lists from the school districts
2. Incubator site providing office space, hosting, etc. for startups that are seed funded.
3. In-grocery store prep service (buy vegetables first and drop them off to be chopped to your specs - pick them up on the way to checkout)
4. A website that you can submit your design and work with vendors to manufacture your own clothes line.
5. Online discount brokerage that has no closing hours and provides access to all exchanges throughout the world and handles currency and legal issues automatically.

Marketer as Leader

The Fortune 500 - the biggest corporations in America - by definition produce products for the masses. These are the industry leaders, the category killers, that have dominated their particular market and have legions of customers for their goods and services. A few have amazing stories to tell a gigantic tribe - but most have ordinary commoditized products sold to the big fat middle. Many of these behemoths are run by seasoned CEOs from the more "formulaic" corporate functions. There is a sizable cohort of chiefs from accounting and finance backgrounds. Many are the "general management" types from Harvard Business School. Often, the COO is the heir apparent and gets promoted to the top spot because he knows how things are run. But what about the marketer? Why are there so few CEOs with marketing backgrounds? Why is this? There is a deficit of imagination in the boardrooms of Corporate America. The industrial revolution ushered in a focus on efficiency and cost control. If a CEO could reduce costs, maximize manufacturing capacity, and deliver on time through the supply chain, his job was done and he could reap the big bucks. A good CEO back then basically commoditized a product faster and cheaper than his competitors. The residue of this thinking exists to this day. Directors on boards still see the world through the eyes of Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford. In a world of commoditized products, it makes sense to promote the bean counter who knows where costs can be cut. The finance guy knows how to lead in a world of almost uniform interest rates and razor-thin profit margins. The operations guy is intimately familiar with the clockwork factories. But we're living in a new world where the rules have changed. The digital world makes commoditized products nearly unprofitable - there is little to no room for profit margins. If what Seth Godin says is true, that only companies that tell compelling stories to tribes of loyal customers will succeed, that "marketing is the new leadership," then we need to promote the CMO to the top spot. We need boards of directors to see the world through the eyes of Branson, Jobs, and Knight, finding marketers at heart who know how to tell great stories and command a premium for their products.