Coloring Outside the Lines. Jeff Tobe
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Название: Coloring Outside the Lines
Автор: Jeff Tobe
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Маркетинг, PR, реклама
isbn: 9781613392959
isbn:
It would be naive and foolish of me to say “Don’t compete”. I realize that anything you can do nowadays to beat your competition to the punch, can give you some small advantage in the marketplace. Though you will gain one-time “one ups” on your competitors by facing them head-on, competing will never present the breakthroughs that you are going to need to really move ahead of the pack nor the staying power you need to survive in your business.
Remember, every new and innovative idea in any business has always---ALWAYS---broken with tradition. I love to repeat the advertising copy of one of the large auto-makers from years ago, ‘THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER’S OLDSMOBILE”.
This is not the way your business has been conducted in the past. I have enjoyed challenging many audiences to “stop looking in their rear view mirrors to see how it has always been done in the past. Start looking through your windshield to see what is coming down the road ahead of you in your profession.” If you spend your time considering the way things have always been done in your organization, you are not prioritizing your energies.
Start asking yourself, “How can I present my company’s ‘experience’ differently than all the others professing to be in the same business?”
By changing the rules to the game, you get outside of your comfort zone and begin looking at volatile business challenges from a whole new perspective. We are not going to be comfortable any longer and we can either accept the challenge or get left behind. Wayne Gretzky, one of the all-time greatest hockey players, was once asked by a reporter how it was that he always managed to be where the puck is. With much thought, Gretzky replied, “I’m not always where the puck is. I am always where the puck is going to be!”. Are you where your profession IS, or are you where your profession is going to be???
Helen Keller once said, “The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision”. Rather than looking at the competition that IS, why not start to create what ISN’T?
LESSONS FROM THE PUMP
Do people go Out of Their Way to doBusiness with You?
On a business trip to Washington, DC, I experienced one of those days where everything went wrong from beginning to end. Not only were the day’s business dealings a complete flop, but the 250 mile drive back to Pittsburgh PA looked like it was going to be a disaster as well. As I approached the halfway point---an exchange on the Pennsylvania turnpike called ‘Breezewood’---I glanced at my gas gage and realized it read empty. I decided to treat myself and I pulled into a full-serve bay; a luxury of which I rarely partake!
Before I could even get my car into park, a young man of about 14 years, threw open the service station door and ran to my car in the pouring rain. I repeat---HE RAN TO MY CAR! From under the brim of his oil stained and rain soaked ball cap, his eyes gleamed and he smiled as he greeted me.
“Hiya sir! Can I help you?”
I was in no mood to be friendly. “Just fill it up”, I said rather flatly.
As he approached the rear of my car, he began to whistle loudly. Now, understand that it was freezing outside, this kid is getting soaked and he is whistling. I looked in my rear view mirror and panicked as I watched as he proceeded to jam my gas cap into the nozzle to make the gas empty into my car on its own accord. Why the horror? I realized that this left him free to come back up to talk to me. I didn’t want to talk to this kid—he was a little too friendly for me.
“So, havin’ a bad day are ya?” he deduced. “What do ya do for a livin’?” I wasn’t going to get into training and consulting with a 14 year old, so I proclaimed myself a motivational speaker.
He smiled a knowing smile and proclaimed, “SO AM I”!!!
NOW HE HAD MY ATTENTION. I immediately asked, “How are you a motivational speaker”? He looked me straight in the eye and explained, “Well, I’m not really a speaker, but I am motivational!” He continued, “Isn’t your job to get in front of people and get them up and going?” I nodded in agreement. “My job is to stick the nozzle in and keep them going!!!”
I would agree that his answer was a little bizarre. This young kid had taught me two very valuable lessons in life. The first is simply to look at what you do from a different perspective. The second, and most important, is that people want to do business with people who seem to enjoy what they do for a living. This kid obviously enjoyed what he did for a living and for the past few years I stop at that gas station in hopes of getting that kid to pump my gas. And the sad thing is that he doesn’t even work there anymore. He’s in college. I’m just hoping he will graduate and come back to pump gas!!
Do people go out of their way to do business with you? Is the experience such a memorable one that they will keep coming back?
THE ROCK
As Long as Your Goal Doesn’t Change and They Use the Tools
You Give Them—Who Cares How they Get There??
In another lifetime—and I don’t mean a “Shirley MacLean” other lifetime—I was a manufacturer’s representative. One year, the powers-that-be of the company I represented, decided to get creative. Instead of bringing all of the territory managers to the factory to see the new line of goods, they decided to subject us all to an Outward Bound experience.
For those of you unfamiliar with this, Outward Bound has numerous locations and offers a leadership/team building experience based around a certain activity depending on where in the world it is located. The Outward Bound program in which we participated, was based in Leadville, Colorado, and was centered around rock climbing.
Please understand that, in my lifetime, I never had any ambition to climb a ladder for fun, never mind a large rock! But it was one of those things where the company said “be there” and you had better show. For the first five and one-half hours on the first day, they took us out and positioned the first four of us at the base of a sheer ninety foot rock face and proclaimed, “You are going to climb to the top”.
This may not sound like a lot of rock to some of you, but just imagine nine stories of jagged rock rising straight above you. I needed more of an incentive than some guy just telling me to climb the rock…so I made one up!
I turned to Craig on my left and challenged him. “I’ll bet you twenty-five dollars I can get to the top first”, I proclaimed. Craig didn’t hesitate. “You’re on”, he said confidently. I hadn’t even considered my other two colleagues on my other side, but they chimed in that they were in the race as well. Now it was nine stories of rock worth a hundred dollars! I had my incentive.
Each one of us had an individual guide from Outward Bound. I will never forget Joe, my rock climbing mentor, because, at that point Joe whispered in my ear; “For fifty bucks, I’ll get you there first”! I guessed that this was the teambuilding that they referred to in the brochures! I shook on it.
Joe took me aside and explained in a whispered tone, “Don’t let the others hear. Do you see that rock sticking out at about two and a half feet?” I nodded. “When you start, stick your right foot on that ledge and boost yourself up. Next, see that rock, right here at eye level? Grab that rock with your right hand and pull yourself up. The secret to winning, Jeff, is that branch СКАЧАТЬ