I want to outsource more of my time sucks, so I tried using Exec to pick up a few things for the office. The guy who did the job gave me a receipt and even took a photo of the parking meter he used to prove that it cost 77 cents to park. These guys deliver a first class experience.
From Neil’s recent post
It’s not worth it.
On the other hand, charging premium prices has these four benefits:
This is exactly what founder Matthew Wensig of StormPulse figured out. His company had a lot of small paying customers, but changed their focus on big organizations like the White House. This narrowed their customer base but raised their revenue.
At 10:11am, the site had this big headline:
At 10:18, the site had this headline:
Orman on Twitter reminded me of this great story from my interview with Jermaine Griggs, the guy who’s generating over $3 million from teaching people how to play music:
I’ll tell you a quick story, my first course was shot with my barber’s brother in the hood. He’s like, “yeah man, my brother can help you shoot this. He’s got some nice Sony cameras.”
We didn’t even have a tri-pod.
We didn’t have two cameras, so every time I talked he’d come up and shoot my face. And then every time I’d play the piano, he’d come down and shoot the piano.
I mean, you can get sick watching…you can learn, but you might be a little dizzy. But you know what, customers later would tell me that was the most revolutionary program.
The system that I taught them, regardless of the quality, it was [the ideas] I was getting across … So I’m a proponent of getting started and done is better than perfect.
I was at one of Warren Buffett’s annual meetings and watched him stop everything to tell his shareholders to go shop at the local stores, which he owns.
He also encouraged everyone to buy cans of Coke. They didn’t have to drink the soda, but since he owned a big percent of the company, they should at least crack the cans open.
And a few minutes ago I noticed that his web site links to a store where you could buy swag, like this deck of cards which feature his photo.
When I hesitate to promote something, I have to remember how he keeps selling, selling, selling.
As I type this, a group of entrepreneurs are meeting an a mansion in Mammoth, California because of something Dane Maxwell did in his Mixergy interviews. I’ll tell you what’s up in a moment (but what I can’t explain is why one of them is wearing a clown wig in the video they shot).
If you’ve heard my interviews, you know what I demand from all my guests, right?
I want them to 1) teach something that has impact on the audience, and 2) be open.
To Dane, that comes naturally. So he talked about how to find great programmers on message boards instead of waiting for mediocre ones to respond to help wanted ads. He taught how to get skeptical online buyers to whip out their credit cards and buy. And he even revealed his vulnerabilities, like when he talked about how lonely entrepreneurship is for him — especially since he lives in Iowa.
(I never understood why he lives in Iowa, by the way, but that’s a conversation for another day.)
So, when he put out an idea at the end of his latest interview, dozens of them signed up. He said that he was putting together a Software Roundtable that would meet online to help each other build software-based startups.
I just found out that members of that group got together for an in-person meeting, as you can see in this video.
I just read this on Snopes:
It was about money. … In 1990, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, mired in debt, took the unusual step of trademarking their name. Henceforth, anyone using the word “Kentucky” for business reasons — inside or outside of the state — would have to obtain permission and pay licensing fees to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
It was an unusual and brilliant scheme to alleviate government debt, but it was also one that alienated one of the most famous companies ever associated with Kentucky.
The venerable Kentucky Fried Chicken chain, a mainstay of American culture since its first franchise opened in Salt Lake City in 1952, refused as a matter of principle to pay royalties on a name they had been using for four decades.
After a year of fruitless negotiations with the Kentucky state government, Kentucky Fried Chicken — unwilling to submit to “such a terrible injustice” — threw in the towel and changed their name instead, timing the announcement to coincide with the introduction of new packaging and products to obscure the real reasons behind the altering of their corporate name.
From my interview with Robert LoCascio, founder of LivePerson:
I’ve been keeping a journal since I was 15 years old. I read the journals every now and then and they’re funny.
It’s like, “Oh my god, we signed a customer, we’re going to stay alive!”
A week later, “oh my god, we’re going out of business. I don’t think I can make payroll.”
A week later, “oh my god, I can’t believe it, we signed another customer!”
A week later, “I got to eat a good meal because we signed a customer.”
Next week, “I don’t think we’re going to make it.”
The normal thing [in business is to have these] the up[s] and down[s]. What I think the journey of the entrepreneur is a very specific journey…. It’s not designed for everyone, and it’s got a lot of walls….
The walls are designed so not everyone can make it, and that’s the way it is….
So, only 1% of people who start out in their businesses [make it]. I think they said about 90% go out the first year. They fail.
It’s because when people hit the first wall, [they say,] “Forget this. This is too tough.”
Read the full interview here.
