Tag: entrepreneurship

Reading Update January 2016

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One of my personal projects for the year is to read (listen to – I’m an Audible.com freak) 24 business books.  Please check out my Reading board on Pinterest for other books I love.

January was a good month for reading.  I cranked out 4 books.  This is all part of my master plan for having an outstanding, amazing, breakthrough year!  Below is a quick summary of each one.

Content Inc. - By Joe Pulizzi

Content Inc is all about how business is changing and how content and the internet is the platform to this new game.  If you have a content vacuum, how can people (more importantly your current and future customers) understand who you are and what you have to offer.  Perfect example is Joe’s site promoting the book.  How many books that you’ve read have their own movie trailer?  Joe’s approach is to build an audience first!  Align your passion, ensure that you have a unique offering, develop your style & tone, build your base and then reap the rewards for all the hard work!  Must read.  It has to be part of your business model.

OverSubscribed - by Daniel Priestley

I swear I didn’t do this on purpose but Oversubscribed was the perfect follow up book to Content Inc.  Daniel Priestly authored one of my all time favorite books – Entrepreneur Revolution. This new book Oversubscribed didn’t disappoint. Oversubscribed tees off on the same principles as Content Inc. Content is critical to building your audience and filling the vacuum of what you and your organization are all about and then the book goes takes that model so much further. Its all about supply and demand.  Its all about building anticipation with your audience and then celebrating your customers!  What can be more powerful that actually celebrating your customers?

Outside In - By Harley Manning & Kerry Bodine

Again I don’t think I could have picked a better book to come next.  I’ve been following Kerry Bodine and Harley Manning on social media for some time.  Outside In is an insane blueprint to what my company Zuggand is doing to help our customers deliver Digital Customer Experiences (DCX).  Again this book is in alignment with the previous two books in that we have passed out of the Age of Information and into the Age of the Customer (and execution).  Being customer centric (or obsessed) is the new differentiator.  The authors take a research based approach (which I love) to systematically designing customer experiences.  I love the examples in the book.  And we aren’t talking about little websites you’ve never heard of.  This book has the Forester brand, research and army behind it and is working with amazing customer-obsessed companies like USAA and Fidelity.  So many takeaways and it lays out a plan for any business to go through this customer experience transformation. It can also be used as a brilliant career development plan for any person that aspires to be a Chief Customer Officer or a Chief Digital Officer.

Crush It! - Gary Vaynerchuck

I read about Gary Vaynerchuk and his Wine Library store years ago.  An amazing story about how Gary help build and transform his family store into an impressive enterprise.  It wasn’t until about a year ago that I first saw him on youtube with his new brand though.  I’ll admit that at first I was a bit turned off.  It’s funny because before I even started writing this article, I saw this post on Instagram from Gary today.

 

GaryVeeInfluence

I love a good F-Bomb like no one else, but when I heard him drop it in the first minute of a video it shocked even me. (Did I mention that I LOVE a good F-BOMB???) Maybe it is his “east” cost style that rubbed my “west” coast style.  But then I saw this video on 6 MINS FOR THE NEXT 60 YEARS OF YOUR LIFE – A RANT.  And now (and I can’t believe I’m going to say this) I am (BIG sigh) part of the Vaner Nation. (f*#* I said it!)

Again, this couldn’t have been a better book for me right now.  Its his oldest book that is on Audible so I decided to start there and catch up.  Gary stays true to his DNA, as he loves to say.  He knows his strengths and he plays to them.  He is a master of his craft.  In his DailyVee video on January 27th The Family Business (you can jump to 6 mins and 54 seconds if you like) he articulates what he does for a living.  “I day trade attention.”  That’s what this book is about.  That is what Gary is all about. That is what each and everyone of us should be about!

 

 

Startup – action, motion or direction?

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startup
1. the action or process of setting something in motion.
2. a newly established business.

Combining the two definitions you get – the action of setting a new business in motion! I started this blog to help me communicate the journey of our new business venture Zuggand. In this article I’d like to look at the other two other very critical words in the definition: Action and Motion!

Action! You have to get the ball moving.  There is a ton of work that goes into just creating the new business. Licensing, tax id, name of the company (ohh my goodness, there is another post for you), bank accounts, business cards, website, office space, accountants, attorneys, and the list goes on and on and on.  And with all this work you haven’t even moved the business off of the starting line. (Picture in your head a big ball representing your business, still sitting on the start line.  People running all around it trying to get it all ready and you still haven’t even moved an inch.)  All of this action is critical and is required over the course of this race, but it really hasn’t added any value (or dollars) to your bottom line.

But before you all get behind your ball and start pushing, do you know for certain that you are pointing in the right direction?  Do you know for sure that you are even on the right race track?  Are you positive beyond a doubt that you are in the correct game?  Those are huge questions!  Questions that you shouldn’t take lightly.  What if you push your ball and it rolls down a big hill and then you find out that it was the wrong direction?  Will you have enough energy and resources to get it back up to the starting point?

I’m attempting to make the point that direction is just as important as action or motion.  Maybe it is even more important (that’s a strong hint that it is more important).  Take the time and figure out what game you are playing and how you are going to play the game.  The best thing about this is that you get to make up your own rules and as long as someone finds value in what you are doing you could play a brand new game and be the first piece on the board and get a massive head start.  Doesn’t that sound so much better than being a one in a million.

But why isn’t “in the right direction” part of the definition?  Maybe that is why so many startups struggle.

Motion, oh yea, that is critical too.  Don’t spend too much time asking all these questions or you could starve.  Sooner than later you have to get all of your resources behind your ball and get that sucker moving!  So to answer my own question you need all three: action, motion and direction! (see I changed the rules to my own question) Updated startup definition: the action of setting a new business in motion in a specific direction.