"It's a rare day that you'll see someone pining to do a specific activity at which she is consistently mediocre."

From Go Put Your Strengths to Work

So I’m returning from my duties in the chipmunk relocation program (it’s long story), listening to XM Radio – there’s an interview with Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina, guys whose music I’ve enjoyed for several decades.

They’re talking about how they wrote the song Watching the River Run. On a Thanksgiving morning years ago, Kenny (I think it was Kenny) started with the line:

If you’ve been thinking you’re all that you’ve got

Then, without any discussion about what the song was going to be about, Jim followed with:

Then, don’t feel alone anymore

Kenny fired back:

When we’re together then you’ve got a lot

And in the back of taxi on the way to Madison Square Garden for a show, the magic happened:

Cause I am the river and you are the shore

It occurred to me that their process was a lot like a great business. Someone comes up with an idea – a first line. And someone else builds on that first line – tweaks the idea a little or takes it off in a new direction. And after a couple of verses, there’s a business.

Ideas that become great businesses seldom arrive fully formed. The path requires listening and learning and yearning – so as Kenny and Jim said:

And we have just begun watching the river run

Listening and learning and yearning to run river run

Strange as it may sound, this week in 1972, The Candy Man by Sammy Davis, Jr. was at the top of the music charts. (I know this because I heard the song and the fact on the radio.) Now for those of you born in recent decades who have never heard the song, trust me – it is pollyannish and, well – saccharine. And yet I remembered, quite fondly, watching Sammy Davis, Jr. perform the song in the showroom of a Las Vegas casino. And I was puzzled by that positive emotion. Here's what I've come up with.

In the early seventies, showrooms in Las Vegas still had a certain intimacy. There was far less spectacle, and much more up close and personal. You could hear the tap of Sammy's shoes (even without a mic) and you could see the sweat on his brow – without benefit of a giant video display. I think it was that intimacy that conjured up such warm feelings.

Today, intimacy is in short supply – everything is big, SUPERSIZED! I love CostCo, but it's like a gajillion square feet. I love Hollywood movies, but most of them are so effects-driven that they've excised most of the humanity. And what ever happened to those little bottles of Coke and 7Up my grandparents kept in their refrigerator?

Maybe I'm not the only guy who misses the intimacy. Certainly, intimacy is not completely absent in business – would a Starbuck's store feel the same if it was 20,000 square feet instead of 2,000? I don't think so. Apple stores are kicking butt (sales per square foot: $4,032 - compared to around $400 per square foot for average retailers and $1,000 for GREAT retailers). Apple stores offer what might be the most intimate retail experience on the planet – The Genius Bar – personal one on one service – FREE. And Whole Foods isn't doing too bad. At Whole Foods, produce employees carry around knives so they can slice a piece of fruit or a vegetable for you to sample. Pretty darn intimate.

Maybe intimacy is something people really value – maybe they even long for it. And from what I can tell, they'll pay for it. Might be worth thinking about.

"Does your culture give you a competitive advantage? It had better. If not, it's just a frill."

From Leading for Growth – How Umpqua Bank Got Cool and Created a Culture of Greatness

Actually, I don't hate cocktail parties – I hate the insipid, shallow conversations I have at cocktail parties. It occurs to me that my inane conversations aren't the fault of the party – could be my lack of skill in this area. So, when I stumbled across Scott Ginsberg's article 55 GREAT Question to Ask Someone You Just Met – I was suspicious, but hopeful.

It's not really an article – it's really more like ... 55 Questions. But there are some really good questions. Fun, interesting, thought-provoking. I just can't hardly wait until the next cocktail party.

A May 28th cover article by Nadira Hira in FORTUNE magazine has been on my mind for several weeks now. Entitled "Manage" US? Puh-leeze: Today's twentysomethings have their own rules. You just don't understand them :-), the article was both an explanation and a defense of a generation that confounds many Boomer executives.

But here's what struck me: Contrary to what the title of the article suggests, this generation needs management, wants management and can be inspired by management. Now, it better be GREAT management to be sure – but it's management just the same. Here's part of what the article had to say:

The key (to getting and keeping Gen Y employees) is the same one their parents have used their whole lives – loving, encouraging, and rewarding them. What that amounts to in corporate terms is a support network, work that challenges more than it bores, and feedback. "The loyalty of twentysomethings is really based on the relationships they have with those directly above them," says Dorsey the Reality Check author."

Which is exactly what we've been saying for quite some time.

"Good ideas or strategies really work only if they get better once you turn them over to others. In other words, once you turn your back on them they must get better if they are going to be sustainable. If they don't take on a life of their own and improve, they usually die ..."

From Leading for Growth – How Umpqua Bank Got Cool and Created a Culture of Greatness

In the June issue of Fast Company, Chip and Dan Heath (authors of Made to Stick) offer up what they call the 105% Rule. Here's what they say:

"... it's virtually impossible to discuss an experience that is 5% better than the norm on all dimensions. People don't talk like mystery shoppers ... People talk about exceptions, the unexpected, the highlights."

That's true and here's an example. Saturday morning, I'm running errands and decide to duck into the drive-through at a Starbuck's. Now, I don't know about you, but I've never, ever had a great experience in a drive-through of any kind. Until this moment. A voice, as warm and friendly and full of life as I've ever heard said, "Hi, I'm Katherine – welcome to Starbuck's." I mean, I had no clue a voice on the other end of a squawk box could be so welcoming. The very sound of her voice made me smile.

Katherine's greeting wasn't 5% better – it was an order of magnitude better. It absolutely transformed the experience. I would never have believed it – but it happened.

How to do more and sell more – that's a pretty good description of the ground covered in Bob Prosen's Kiss Theory Good Bye. Even though this book was sent to me by the smart and delightful Nettie Hartsock, I was a little put off by the title. I like theory. I think theory can be immensely powerful in helping people understand the context. But I put my bias aside and from the first sentence in this book, I was hooked:

"Business leaders need less talk and more action."

I couldn't find much fault with that. And then, the first sentence of the introduction:

"What are your top three objectives and how do you know you're achieving them?"

I didn't answer that one to my complete satisfaction – maybe you won't either. So I plowed ahead and was well rewarded. Lots of good stuff, actionable stuff. One of my favorites is the Probability of Winning Tool. It's a way for sales professionals and sales managers to address the reality of where any prospect is in the sales process. Not too much as important as that.

"... each of us is at our most creative, our most innovative, and shows our best judgment precisely in our areas of greatest strength. You don't focus on people's strength to make them happier. You do it to make them better performers."

From Go Put Your Strengths to Work

A few days ago, I spent a couple of hours with David Thomson and a few fast-growth entrepreneurs. David wrote Blueprint to a Billion, and on this day he was leading a workshop to help the entrepreneurs chart their course using the 7 Essentials outlined in Blueprint.

Essential #1 is Create and Sustain a Breakthrough Value Proposition. What's that mean? To me that means your product or service is so much better or so much different or so much more valuable (in some way) that, for practical purposes, your customers and prospects don't even seriously consider another alternative.

I'm thinking that's a tall order. But if you want to build a great company – I mean if you seriously want to Kick-Butt – ya gotta do it. If you don't, you're always in a dogfight. Maybe you win the fight, but chances are, you end up bloody – even in victory.

This is the single most important issue for your business and mine. Stay tuned. We'll work on this together.

Confession: I almost didn't read Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide by John Jantsch. Maybe I thought I was too experienced or too sophisticated or maybe even too smart to benefit from a practical small business marketing guide. Complete BS from yours truly.

As I've read this terrific book, I've been constantly reminded: It's not what I know – it's what I do that has the power to propel my business and my life. Here's one quick snippet from the book, a definition of marketing. I blew right by it the first time, but a couple of days later, it was still rumbling around my head.

"Marketing is getting people who have a specific need or problem to know, like and trust you."

It seems too simple, at least it did to me. But you know what? If your marketing does, in fact, get people with a specific problem (that your product or service solves) to Know, Like and Trust you – then you have yourself some seriously Kick-Butt marketing.