Here’s a small entrepreneurial project I am currently undertaking. Yes, growing some herbs and veggies.
It’s something all of us should do for good reason. So please invest the 3 minutes it will take to read this link – which I wrote almost a year ago.
Grow your business.
“It has to start somewhere, it has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?”
Brands are the personification of things and services. In fact they are the amalgamation of a group of people, which creates an organizational culture and eventually, a set of brand values. Values which in real terms are like those of a person.
In the spirit of the reasoning above here’s an interesting question:
Does your brand have good manners?
That’s actually what we’ve been getting at during this Business 2.0 Post Industrial Complex Devolution. We’ve been getting back to basics. The basics of acceptable behaviour. Moving away from the school yard bully – (read here – large inconsiderate conglomerate) – to something which deserves our attention.
In case we happened to forget – here’s a ready reckoner of ‘Good Manners’
– Listen to others
– Have patience
– Wait your turn to talk
– Never interrupt
– Ask for permission
– Always say ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’
– Be honest, truthful and pure
– Be punctual
– Be tidy
– Never be rude to anyone – older, younger, richer, poorer
– Keep out of bad company
– Be kind to those around you
– Don’t be selfish, but share your good things
– Don’t cheat
– Be polite at all times
Here’s the ironic thing…. some of these sentiments and ideals came directly from the Children’s National Guild of Courtesy – a Good Manners chart which was distributed to elementary / primary schools in UK and Australia from 1898 until approx 1950.
You can download the PDF here: goodmanners
And yet it’s akin to the language we are now hearing from business re-inventionists. In real terms, we’ve just realized that often with success comes bad manners and attitude. Then after the bad manners and attitude comes the inevitable decline. This is why the new world brands are winning – they simply have good manners.
Startups – if we personify our brands, then let’s ensure they have ‘Brand Manners’.
If I could give one piece of advice for anyone who has reently escaped their cubicle of the large corporate scene to start up it would be this:
…and be quicker than they are.
if your startup is in the same industry you worked in…
Do the opposite of what you ‘were told to do’ within your large company.
To beat them you must focus on momentum. We most not do what they do, we must not compete on their level.
To gain momentum, we simply cannot behave the way they do.
Unless you are from the US – you have never even heard of any of the 10 oldest businesses in the USA. Nope, not one. There’s not a sexy brand among them. They include boring industries like, banking, ingredients, manufacturing inputs and insurance.
You can check it out by clicking here.
The important insight for Start Ups and investors is this:
The boring stuff is almost always more profitable than the sexy.
Why: Because exciting, sexy stuff attracts lot’s of competitors and people want to play there. They want to play there because it’s fun, it’s in the papers, it’s featured in business forums and leverages over-riding social trends. Then it gets busy and the cream disappears – (read here abnormal economic profits) . It’s no different to the house prices rising in popular suburbs and the yield declining. Simple economics discovered centuries ago.
So what? It’s vital we know the difference between sustainable & exciting. The most important factor for survivial is profit – end of story. Sure, profits can be made in any industry, but chances are there’s more profit in the areas everyone else forgot about.
Rambo First Blood part 1, is a movie all entreprenuers ought invest 2 hours watching.
The key lessons is simple: The ultimate resource is creativity. It’s game winning. John Rambo single handedly defeats an army choc full of resources, through ‘creative boostrapping’. Bootstrapping which then invented new tactics the competitors didn’t even consider. Key words that come to mind are; Insight, Passion, Risk, Mind Control, Tenacity, Belief and Courage. This film should be the first lesson in any entrepreneurial learning forum. Be like Rambo and win.
25 years on this film still rocks. There are so many cool scenes I won’t ruin it here by explaining them. Better yet, go watch it, then tell us your favourite scene and why in the comments below.
Fact: The average youtube video only gets watched for 6 seconds.
The average Youtube video lasts for 5 minutes. It’s a rare event indeed for a video to get watched until the end. That’s why most view counts are so low, only those watched until completion count.
With almost 90 million videos on the site;
Start up blog says: Review your Youtube videos. Make it clear what they’re getting in first few seconds, or they wont have the patience to ever find out.