Gazelles.com - Scaling Up

01/08/2010

The Big Con; Agassi's Wrong BHAG; Family Vision Boards

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

00's The Big Con -- Frank Rich at the NY Times, beat me to the label (I
added the word "big"), but in reflecting on the last decade, it felt like
one big con job! 9/11, Wall Street, Big Pharma, the Government; plus
Madoff, Woods, and the space-balloon fiasco -- I've never felt more lied to
and deceived than in this last decade, though the increased transparency
provided by the internet likely means the big cons are just being exposed
more. "The Great Awakening" is my hope for the coming decade. Big lesson?
Big is ALWAYS bad!

Andre Agassi Had the Wrong Big Goal (BHAG) -- I thoroughly enjoyed reading
Andre Agassi's autobiography entitled Open: An Autobiography over the
holidays. Critics are calling it the best sports biography ever written
given Agassi's candor (he has always hated tennis, lied about his drug use,
wore a wig when he had long hair, etc). A major turning point in his career
was when he realized he was pursuing the wrong long-term goal (BHAG) for
himself. Rather than pursue winning the most Grand Slams, he focused on
winning a Career Grand Slam (all four majors), something only one other
player at the time, Rod Laver, had ever achieved. This change in goals
changed everything -- his training, scheduling, and focus. And with his
Olympic Gold win in 1996, he's the ONLY player in history to win the Career
Golden Slam -- all four majors and the Olympics. It made me rethink
Gazelles BHAG during our planning session earlier this week. Are you
pursuing the right BHAG for you and your company?

Andre Agassi's Vision Boards -- Agassi benefited from several accidental
vision boards. The most ironic was Brook Shields' (Agassi's first wife)
posting of Steffi Graf's picture as she was preparing for their wedding.
Shields wanted to get in shape for her wedding and felt that Steffi Graf
had the best looking legs. Little did Shields know that Agassi would later
divorce her and marry Graf, who is the only woman to ever win the Career
Golden Slam as well -- a piece of sports trivia I never put together. BTW,
do any of you know Agassi? Trying to get him to speak at the Sales Summit
since he's based in Las Vegas.

Vision Boards for the Family -- taking a lead from Keith Ferrazzi of Who's
Got Your Back fame, who hosted a vision boarding exercise with 30 friends
over the holidays, our family is taking this weekend to put together vision
boards for the coming decade. Search the internet for pictures and images
that represent your long term goals and post them on a board. Then mount
the boards where each member of the family can see their individual board
daily.

The Complete Vision Board Kit by John Assaraf -- Assaraf, featured in The
Secret, author of The Answer, and keynoter for the Sales and Marketing
Summit in Vegas April 20 -- 22, has a Vision Board Kit book -- I downloaded
it to my Kindle and will be using it with the family this weekend -- it
walks you through how to properly create vision boards. Here's a link to
Amazon. I've used visions boards and they work. There is no better way to
kick-off the new decade!

Tropicare Achieves Vision -- Record Revenues and Profits -- planning pays
off for Johannes Brinksma's Dutch-based Tropicare, a leader in global
travel healthcare. Double digit growth (which exceeded their plan); record
profits due to a focus on improved procurement; and more cash by reducing
A/R days from 40 to 32 (something they reviewed DAILY!) for 2009. Notes
Brinkma "last year we went to your seminar in Washington in December
(2008). We applied the principles and worked on the One-Page Plan,
structure, and data. It's not easy, but we kept going and it paid off. For
(2010) we've determined goals...and happily we also found Spark in Holland
(Gazelles coaching partner) that can support us as well with the
Rockefeller Habits and more."

Executing Big Goals/Visions -- and this note from Steve Kendrick with
Structures Building Company, custom and luxury home builder in Charleston,
SC "We recently built a show house for Coastal Living Magazine in 4 months
using your daily/weekly meeting format. We'd never have succeeded without
it. They told us we were the first builder that actually finished one of
their homes on time and on such short notice! Coming out of the recession,
lean and mean, we now look forward to implementing new goals and your
suggested meeting regimen to take our company to the next leve!!"

EDUCATION:
Sales and Marketing Summit

Sales and Marketing Summit
April 20 - 22, 2010

Growth Series Webcasts

PEOPLE -- Geoff Smart - 21 Jan '10
STRATEGY -- Jeff Jarvis - 18 Feb '10
EXECUTION -- Chip Heath - 25 Mar '10

Growth Workshops - Four Decisions: SuperGreen Execution

Spring 2010

Jan 21 - Richmond
Jan 26 - Ft. Lauderdale
Feb 16 - San Francisco
Mar 2 - Atlanta
May 25 - Houston
Sep 23 - New York City
Oct 7 - Portland

Summits & Conferences
National Growth Summit '10
17 & 18 February 2010, Sydney

Great Game of Business with Jack Stack
Gazelles DVD/Online Learning Products -- Gazelles.tv
PEOPLE
What's the Secret to Providing World Class Customer Experience
Topgrading

STRATEGY
High Stakes Negotiations
The Art of Advantage

EXECUTION
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
Execute Without Drama
Did you miss previous insights? - read here

01/12/2009

Hiring the Right #2; Hiring the Right #3; Hiring the Right #4; etc
"...keeping you great"


HEADLINES:

Hiring the Right #2 -- "Jemma is a great barrier to protect the team from
my overzealousness and enthusiasm," notes Naomi Simson, founder and CEO of
Sydney-based RedBalloon, on her #2. "She balances all my 'brilliant? ideas
with a focus on making them process driven." Take five minutes and read how
she and other CEOs found their right #2s, one of the most important hiring
decisions an entrepreneur will ever make, in my latest "Growth Guy"
syndicated column.

Hiring the Right #3, #4, etc. -- Gazelles is hiring; we're excited many of
our clients are hiring; and it's still a great time to acquire critical
talent. But it's no time for amateur hour when it comes to recruiting and
interviewing. The ONLY selection and hiring technique found to give a 90%
success rate is the Topgrading methology. The rest of the methods: testing,
behavior-based interviewing, or "passing the breath test" have between a
30% and 60% success rate -- too costly! Join us for the #1 selection
process if you're going to hire at least one person in 2010:
| |Geoff Smart's "Who: The A Method for Hiring" |
| |LIVE online seminar |
| |Jan 21, 2010, Noon -- 1:30pm ET |


"19 Appointments with the Right People" -- and this note from Mark Dover of
Canadian-based warehouse supply firm Doverco "I wanted to share the success
we have enjoyed as a result of the Webinar we participated in several
months ago given by Chet Holmes. Following the model of his 'Best Buyer'
program, we conceived of a program of 10 monthly letters directed at 165
'Best Buyer' prospects. Each letter contained industry intelligence
(teaching is the highest form of selling as related to us by our Gazelles
coach Les Rubenovitch) and our related capabilities. And every other letter
had a small, low cost, attention grabbing gift related to the theme of the
missive. We are at letter #6 and have already been able to secure 19
appointments with the right people! We have reached our objective and we're
only 60% through the project. Thanks to Les, Chet and Gazelles for making
us smarter. BTW, the (Dr. Robert) Cialdini Webinar on 'Influence' was
awesome."

Keeping the Right People Smart -- commit to 90 minutes of first class
executive education each month using our monthly online seminars -- LIVE or
archived; alone or with your team (perfect for the monthly management
meeting). Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? is our February 18
online seminar; and Chip Heath, author of Made to Stick and Switch is our
March 25 online seminar. These are the #1 business thought leaders of our
time that would cost you $25k plus in speaker fees and travel expenses --
now delivered right to your desktop for a fraction of the cost.

Vision Board Update -- the children loved the experience of putting vision
boards together this past weekend and I especially enjoyed sitting with my
6 year old daughter who surprised me with her desire to be a high board
diver, something my wife always wanted to do but had never shared with any
of us. We used Google image and lots of magazines to find the appropriate
images for the boards -- and appreciated the guidance given by John
Assaraf's The Complete Vision Board Kit

EDUCATION:
Growth Series Webcasts

PEOPLE -- Geoff Smart - 21 Jan '10
STRATEGY -- Jeff Jarvis - 18 Feb '10
EXECUTION -- Chip Heath - 25 Mar '10

Sales and Marketing Summit

Sales and Marketing Summit
April 20 - 22, 2010

Growth Workshops - Four Decisions: SuperGreen Execution

Spring 2010

Jan 21 - Richmond
Jan 26 - Ft. Lauderdale
Feb 16 - San Francisco
Mar 2 - Atlanta
May 25 - Houston
Sep 23 - New York City
Oct 7 - Portland

Summits & Conferences
National Growth Summit '10
17 & 18 February 2010, Sydney

Great Game of Business with Jack Stack
Gazelles DVD/Online Learning Products -- Gazelles.tv
PEOPLE
What's the Secret to Providing World Class Customer Experience
Topgrading

STRATEGY
High Stakes Negotiations
The Art of Advantage

EXECUTION
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits
Execute Without Drama
Did you miss previous insights? - read here

01/14/2010

Dinner with Buffett; China #1 Now; FSB Shuts Down; Vision Board Placemats

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

FSB Magazine Shuts Down -- if you haven't already heard, Fortune Small
Business magazine published their last issue this month. The great news is
that we're now partnered directly with Fortune magazine, losing the "small
business" label which I've never really liked. So our Summits will now be
called the Fortune Sales & Marketing S