I love Campo restaurant in Reno. I’ve tried both their lunch and dinner menus; the food is excellent and the service is very good and at times brilliant. Campo’s owner, Mark Estee, is more than a chef in the restaurant – he is also an active and visible leader in his business.

I have not always loved Campo. My very first visit to Campo did not go well, and I blogged about the experience in my post entitled “The Cycle of Service Starts at Your Website.”

Since finding my blog about his restaurant through a mutual friend on Facebook, Mark has left three separate comments in response to both my original observations and the thoughts shared by some of my readers. In all honesty, I was very indifferent about returning to Campo; however, Mark’s comments on my blog motivated me to give his restaurant another chance, and I’m glad I did. Mark’s responses on my blog were exactly what they should have been.

Mark gets his social media and inbound marketing advice from Abbi Whitaker of Abbi PR. Mark is fortunate to get solid advice from someone that practices what she preaches – something all too rare in social media marketing and PR. And frankly, Abbi is fortunate to have a client like Mark because he is willing to blog at his website, post simple but effective videos to Youtube, and personally participate on Facebook. Together, I think Abbi and Mark are creating the foundation for what could become one of the most effective social businesses in Reno.

I would much rather spend my money with business people that I recognize and trust, and I like what Mark is doing through his employees with his business in Reno. The next time you are in Reno, I highly recommend you give Mark and his folks an opportunity to impress you with their continuously improving operation.

What do you think? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below!

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I purchased and read “Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge From Small Discoveries” by Peter Sims because Bob Sutton gave it a glowing review at his website. As usual, Bob was right. I did not love it as much as Bob, but I liked it enough to recommend it to you.

The main point of the book is the power of experimental innovation. Experimental innovators don’t begin with a few big brilliant ideas. Instead, they discover what they should do via a series of “little bets” and small wins.

Learning by doing and having fun in the process are cornerstones of the experimental innovation process. This is nothing new. But he also highlights the importance of immersion, which I think people would be wise to pay a lot more attention to:

Take the time to get out into the world to gather fresh ideas and insights, in order to understand deeper human motivations and desires, and absorb how things work from the ground up. (p. 14).

When you understand why people do the things they do you have the ability to create unique solutions that force others to try to copy what you are doing. If you don’t understand how and why things work, the best you can ever hope to achieve is strategic parity.

I don’t normally like business books with lots of stories, and this one has lots of stories. But Sims does a very good job of telling a few interesting stories that support his main points quite well. I loved his story in Chapter 6 of how Muhammad Yunus immersed himself in the problem of poverty in Bangladesh and ultimately formulated the microfinance solution.

By absorbing poverty from the worm’s eye view, asking lots of questions, and being open to changing his assumptions, Yunus could understand what he could not from a bird’s eye view. (p. 102).

If you have entrepreneurial aspirations, you should read this book. Even if you don’t think you want to be an entrepreneur someday, if your success as a leader requires enabling your people to continually produce creative insights and innovative solutions, I’m betting you will find this book worth your time.

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My review copy of Jennifer Prosek’s new book entitled “Army of Entrepreneurs: Create an Engaged and Empowered Workforce for Exceptional Business Growth,” was provided for free by the publicist. With a title full of trendy keywords, an introduction that promised an “easy to follow, replicable plan” (p. 3), and an opening paragraph that touted “my new management model,” (p. 7), I wondered if I’d be able to keep my lunch down while I read this book. I fully expected to hate it, but much to my surprise, I liked it and am glad to recommend it.

In a nutshell, Jennifer advocates making every employee of your business responsible for helping to grow the business. It’s everyone’s job to be thinking about finding new customers and remarkable employees to impress those customers. Jennifer’s approach is not hollow rhetoric, she shows you how to enable your employees to think and behave like entrepreneurs, how to measure progress, and how to share the rewards as your team experiences success.

Chapter 7 on Using Technology and Chapter on Maintaining Momentum were my favorites. Jennifer takes blogging seriously, and I think every business owner should pay very close attention to her advice:

Blogs will make or break your business. They have the power to disseminate information and host global conversations on any topic…I believe that blogging is a critical technology option for an entrepreneurial company. It’s both conversational and permanent. As such, it’s a technological innovation in communications strategy. (pp. 100-101)

As the leader in her company, Jennifer uses blogs to communicate with both her customers and her employees. That’s very smart. And I love what she has to say about how to pay so people will stay:

In addition to being clear, a good compensation system must be blog and creative. At our company, we want excellence. We want radically better performance. To that end, we offer market salaries- sometimes better. If you want the best, you have to demonstrate in the traditional income category that you are willing to pay for it. If you demand excellence but offer only mediocre salaries, that disconnect will be apparent. (p. 147)

If you are a business owner or business leader, you need to read this very unique book and give very careful consideration to Jennifer’s counsel for creating an army of entrepreneurs in your business. If you are willing to change your mind, you might just be able to radically transform your business.

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Linda Finkle’s book “Finding the Fork in the Road: The Art of Maximizing the Potential of Business Partnerships,” is not one I would normally read, simply because I don’t have a specific interest in business partnerships. But Linda sent me a free copy of her book to review, along with a very nice handwritten note, and she followed that up with several nice, personal e-mails. That goes a long way with me, so I read the book and I’m happy to say I can recommend it if you are involved in or considering a partnership.

Linda focuses on the interpersonal aspects of having a partner in business. The book is very well written and includes 19 checklists that address all phases of the life cycle of a partnership. If you currently have a partner or are considering going into business with someone, you and your partner can work through these checklists together and prepare for all the major issues you are likely to encounter as you build your working relationship.

The book includes a lot of sound advice about communicating with your partner. I love this quote from Francis Garagnon that Linda includes in her book:

Between what I think I want to say, what I believe I am saying, what you believe you understood, and what you actually understood, there are at least nine possibilities for misunderstandings. (p. 92).

In her chapter on building a healthy relationship through communication, she shares Finkle’s Rules of Engagement (p. 96):

1. Remember you are adults, not children. Children are taught not to scream, accuse, throw things, call names, stomp out of the room, tattle, etc. Don’t be guilty of these things.

2. Follow the golden rule. Be respectful and treat others as you want to be treated.

3. Time out is OK. If emotions are high, its OK to agree to stop and come back to the discussion.

4. Listen more than talk. It really isn’t all about you.

5. WAIT. This stands for Why Am I Talking? Ask yourself whether you have something significant to say or you’re talking just to be heard.

6. Keep a clean sweatsock handy. If you can’t control yourself stuff the sweatsock in your mouth.

7. Clearly state your objective. Whether it’s a decision, to share information, ask for input, etc., lack of clarity on your part will result in assumptions by the other party.

8. Be honest, not brutal. Honesty is essential, brutality is not.

9. Care more about the outcome than being right. Who cares if you’re right? All that matters is a successful outcome.

The book has a lot of sage advice just like these rules of engagement. It’s a quick read, and even if you are not considering a partnership, you should find useful tips on how to get along with others at work.

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Does engaging in political activity via such things as campaign contributions, lobbying, or executive testimony before legislators and regulators affect an organization’s performance? Yes, according to a study recently published in the Journal of Management entitled “Mixing Business with Politics: A Meta-Analysis of the Antecedents and Outcomes of Corporate Political Activity.”

The meta-analysis in this study incorporated the findings of 78 previously published studies on corporate political activity from 1976 to 2010. Firm economic performance was measured using accounting-based outcomes like return on assets and return on investment.  The authors point out that while political activity can affect the performance of your organization, the effect is no larger than other things that can also affect organizational performance, such as human capital investment and strategic resources.

The study also found that firms were more likely to engage in political activity if they were large and in an industry where government regulation could significantly affect the company. The politicians they were most likely to attempt to influence were incumbent Republicans.

If you own or operate a business, the results of this study suggest that it is smart for you to be politically active on behalf of your company. At a minimum, you should ensure that your state politicians and those that represent your state in Congress know your name, face, e-mail address and phone number.

This does not mean that you should try to influence the political activity of the employees you’ve been given the privilege to lead. I think you should be open and transparent about your political activities on behalf of the company, but allow your employees the freedom to draw their own conclusions about how they too might or might not want to engage in political activity on behalf of the organization.

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People are talking. Ensuring they have something good to say about you and are motivated to share it with as many people as possible is very good for your business. The things your increasingly connected customers and employees say online not only last forever, they also spread farther, faster, and have greater impact than ever before.

The reputation of your business is path dependent. That means you have to earn it over time by the things that you choose and refuse to do. Reputation is a very valuable source of competitive advantage for your business because it’s hard for your competitors to imitate. Even if they can figure out what you are doing to cause so many people to say such good things about you, it’s going to take them time to catch up, and while they’re pursing competitive parity you’ll continue to build operational excellence.

Want to build a stellar reputation with customers?  Then you better be just as concerned about the reputation you earn as a place to work. Your employees make or break your business. But is your business making or breaking your employees? Gary Vaynerchuck articulates this concept well in his new book, “The Thank You Economy”:

Too many leaders invest insufficiently in their employees for fear of losing out when the employee leaves. Any investment you make in your employees will be safe if they believe that you really care about them and their future. Create a culture that rewards people who show that they care. Seek the input of people who have a tendency to take risks and share big ideas. Prove that you value your employees above all else by giving them the freedom to ask for what they want, to experiment, and to be themselves. (pp. 100-101).

Here is something else Gary says in his book that I really love: “I care more about my employees than I do my customers, and I care more about my customers than I do breathing.” (p. 91).  Cha-ching! Gary is loving his employees all the way to the bank.

Create a system that attracts and retains remarkable employees and then enables them to impress the socks off your customers. If from time to time an ambitious employee leaves for a different opportunity, don’t worry, because the system you’ve created to impress your employees will attract a steady stream of equally talented folks to replace them.

Underdeveloping and undertrusting your employees is the path to operational malaise. There are multiple paths to earning a reputation as a great place for great people to work, but they all head north, not south.

Which path are you and your company on?

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If you’ve never seen Gary Vaynerchuck in action, take a moment to watch this interview which aired with him this morning on Morning Joe. If you and your business are not embracing the strategic opportunities presented by social business, then you should listen very carefully to what Gary has to say. It’s easy for him to be passionate about what he is saying because he truly believes it, and he believes it because he lives it daily.

Don’t miss Gary’s new book, The Thank You Economy. Order your copy today!

]]> http://www.bretlsimmons.com/2011-03/gary-vaynerchuck-on-morning-joe/feed/ 4 http://www.bretlsimmons.com/2011-03/book-review-gary-vaynerchuk%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9cthe-thank-you-economy%e2%80%9d/ http://www.bretlsimmons.com/2011-03/book-review-gary-vaynerchuk%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9cthe-thank-you-economy%e2%80%9d/#comments Tue, 08 Mar 2011 05:10:59 +0000 Bret L. Simmons http://www.bretlsimmons.com/?p=5046

If your business still has not embraced the tremendous strategic opportunity of the massive cultural shift being driven by social media, then you need to read Gary Vaynerchuck’s new book “The Thank You Economy.” Even if you have gotten started with social business, you might not be doing it correctly or at least have great room for improvement. This book can help because Gary articulates the powerful operating principles as well as anyone because he practices that he preaches.

For the record, I asked Gary for an advanced review copy of the book but he told me he was out. I got my hands on one anyway through one of Gary’s employees, Kade Dworkin, who always has Gary’s back. Thank you, Kade!

Gary writes exactly the way he speaks. He is passionate about what he believes and he does not pull his punches. I love that! The book is full of great quotes – here are two about social business that I really like:

When you know without a doubt that you’ve made good hires, it’s easy to give employees the freedom they need to give the kind of one-on-one customer service that will resonate in The Thank You Economy. Create a culture of openness. Let your employees blog and tweet as much as they like. And let them be themselves. Authenticity is a huge part of what makes social media initiatives work. (Chapter 4)

Quality content is king. Always. But from now on, quality content must be followed up with quality engagement. You had better be ready and waiting to engage your consumer online when they start Googling and tweeting Facebooking to find out more about the awesome content they just experienced, because that’s how our consumer culture works now. (Chapter 6)

Gary understands that operational excellence is the foundation of customer engagement. Gary’s core message is that you have to care – about your customers, about your employees, about your brand – with everything you’ve got. People will only care about you to the extent that you care about them.

There’s only so low you can go on price. There’s only so excellent you can make your product or service. There’s only so far you can stretch your marketing budget. Your heart, though, that’s boundless. (Chapter 1)

Thank you for saying that so well, Gary – I strongly concur. Take the time to read Gary’s new book. You will be thankful that you did.

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I really enjoyed Guy Kawasaki’s new book “Enchantment: The art of changing hearts, minds, and actions.” I received my copy of the book free from Guy. For me, the last seven chapters were better than the first six, but I think the entire book is worth your time and effort.

Guy defines enchantment as “the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization, or idea. The outcome of enchantment is voluntary and long-lasting support that is mutually beneficial.” (p. xix). I like that a lot. People that are delighted behave entirely differently than those that are simply satisfied.

If you want to earn the enchantment of others, you are going to have to change your own behavior. Anyone can create enchantment, but not by wishful thinking.

“Enchantment” is very well researched, which I really appreciated. At the end of the book, Guy lists the 20 books about influence and persuasion he consulted to write “Enchantment.” He cites Robert Cialdini’s classic book so much that he even includes a note right above the index that says “I hope Robert Cialdini checks this index.”

Chapter 10 is about how to enchant your employees, and it is my favorite. Guy really nailed this one. Here are some of my favorite quotes from that chapter:

• Bakatare means “stupid” or “foolish,” and it’s the perfect description of people who think disenchanted employees can enchant customers. (p. 151)
• If you don’t enable your employees to please your customers, you create disenchantment. It means they cannot feel good about themselves, and you are putting them in the position of getting hammered by irate customers (p. 153).
• Judge yourself by what you’ve accomplished and others by what they intended (p. 153).
• Maybe your shortcomings caused the shortcomings of those who work for you. There’s a saying that if a manager has to fire someone, maybe the company should fire him, too, because the situation should not have reached this point. (p. 154).
• An enchanting boss makes sure that her employees know they are valuable and they are appreciated. Remember the words “We want you.” (p. 160).

The next chapter on how to enchant your boss contained some interesting advice. When Guy advocates underpromising and overdelivering, he comes right out and admits he is advising you to sandbag your boss. Some of his best advice in this chapter is to deliver bad news early:

“Good bosses want bad news early so that there are more opportunities to fix the problem. Bad bosses only want good news, however, because they prefer to live in a bubble. The problem is, when the bubble pops, you’ll go down with the bad boss.” (p. 171).

I liked this book more than I expected to. I think you will too. Take Guy’s Realistic Enchantment Aptitude Test (GREAT); if you pass, then skip the book. If you don’t do so well, then you will be delighted with “Enchantment.”

BTW: Guy practices what he preaches in this book. He is a very busy dude with a lot of demands on his time, but both the request to review the book and the follow-up to make sure I got it came personally from him. Most business “gurus” don’t operate that way. When I asked for an interview to post at my blog, he responded personally and promptly while in flight, which after reading the book I’ll assume was either Virgin Air or United.

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Last night I had dinner with Art Petty at Monti’s in Phoenix, Arizona. Art lives near Chicago, and I live in Reno, but we met on Twitter. We’ve been talking for sometime about how we might be able to work together on a project, so we finally scheduled this face-to-face meeting in Phoenix to get the ball rolling.

I remembered Monti’s from a business trip I took to Phoenix about 16 years ago. It came highly recommended by one of my colleagues at the time. I could not remember it was called Monti’s but I clearly remembered the steak house at the end of Mill Avenue across the street from the big white flour mill.

This morning I posted my review of Monti’s on Yelp! That social object auto-posted to Twitter, and my Tweet of the review auto-posted to my Facebook page.

Within an hour, the social object prompted a direct message from one of my Facebook connections what went to school in Tempe and knew the area well. I also got invitations to connect on Twitter from both Monti’s restaurant and a guy named Michael L. Monti, who I assume is connected to the restaurant. Michael Monti also runs a very current blog branded after HIS NAME.

Michael Monti is doing social business darn near exactly the way I encourage people to do it! I am very encouraged that Michael blogs under his own name. My only advice to Michael would be to focus his content a little less on his specials and more on his customers and community. But Michael has won the hardest part of this battle – he is in the game. He produces his own social objects around his brand, monitors what others say about his brand, and responds personally and quickly. Well done!

What are you and your business waiting for? All of the opportunities I describe here to connect with people will remain elusive to you if keep your head firmly buried in the sand.

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