Achieving Business Excellence

I have some very strong beliefs about what it takes to run a highly successful business and right at the top of my list is: Whoever “owns” the voice of the customer and uses that information to build an organizational culture of Extreme Customer Focus will own the marketplace.

Here’s why: When you focus intensely on your customers and provide customer service that truly meets and exceeds their specific needs, you win their loyalty at a level that is nearly impossible to shake—even when that competitor down the street is offering giveaways and steep discounts, or your market is crowded with dozens of me-too products or services.

Simply put, Extreme Customer Focus produces unparalleled customer service, and unparalleled customer service creates an unfair advantage for you. And what business owner wouldn’t want an unfair advantage? Continue reading “The Secret to Owning Your Market” »

I am extremely thankful this week because a group of college students have restored my faith in the leadership potential of the next generation. This semester, in partnership with a great company in my hometown called TutoringZone, we offered a special leadership training program called “Let The GATOR Lead” in conjunction with the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida. Every other week or so, a group of students would get together with a student facilitator and go through a chapter in my book: “Excellence by Design: Leadership – the six key characteristics of outstanding leaders,” and talk about the principles I put forth and what those leadership characteristics meant to them as college students.

Out of the 250+ students that originally signed up – more than 130 wrote essays that were judged by me and several senior executives from Fortune 100 companies in order to choose three winners that received cash scholarships as well as donations to their favorite charity and a small reward for the rest of the people in their discussion group.

All-in-all the essays added up to about 500 pages of reading, and I must say it rivaled the best leadership books I have read in the last few years. The essays were thoughtful, focused, provocative and entertaining – I could not be more thankful for all the wonderful ideas and feedback these amazing students gave to me about how they view leadership and the way they want to lead their generation. Below you will find the top three winners and two honorable mention recipients, I think there’s some wonderful stuff here that you will enjoy great deal – and I have to say that it is a shame I cannot put all the essays here on my blog – the students did an incredible job and I’m very, very thankful for what they taught me!  Continue reading “I am VERY thankful for…” »

Some great, quick tips from guest blogger – Bert Doerhoff

 Your business may be successful because it makes an excellent product, has excellent customer service or has excellent employees. No matter what it is that makes your business a success, it is not enough to make your business excellent. Excellence is something that is used to describe a business that not only succeeds in one area, but in all aspects of business.

Is your business excellent? If so, what makes it that way? If not, what changes, whether big or small, do you need to make to ensure you will reach excellence? Here are some tips collaborated from the Web that will help make your business truly excellent. Continue reading “Tips for Small Business Excellence” »

I hope you enjoy this video, I think it has some extremely important ideas about what every person needs to do to create job security/career security in the face of even the most challenging economic times. If you find value in the ideas I share, please send a link on to your friends and colleagues so that as many people as possible can hear these suggestions. Thanks so much, I look forward to your feedback and comments – John

This first video is in response to a request from my good friend Hiro who asked me to recommend a few of my favorite books on branding. Hiro and his business partner Song run two amazing sushi restaurants in Florida, Dragonfly Sushi and Sake Company, and he is getting ready to update the brand on those wonderful restaurants and the franchise idea he has called Rolls ’n Bowls. So here are six books that I think are superb for helping you build a stronger brand…  Continue reading “Two New Videos: Branding & Impatient Customers” »

**** IMPORTANT****

Please be sure to join me tomorrow, November 1 —  at 1 PM Eastern Standard Time (10 AM PST) – for a very special teleseminar that I will be delivering entitled: The Master Keys of Career Success. Although this particular teleseminar series is aimed at professional women and female entrepreneurs, I absolutely assure you that every idea I present will be valuable regardless of gender! If you would truly like to understand how to increase your career success, how to be seen as an expert in your field, how to position yourself for a major leap forward… I’m going to hit on all of the very best ideas I’ve collected over the years on how to create a more successful, happy, balanced and joyful career and life. I absolutely guarantee it will be a good use of your time – I’m going to present some extremely valuable ideas, tools and concepts. Please be sure to click on the link below to sign up for this event – and it would be wonderful if you would send the link around to all of your friends and colleagues – I would love to get as many people as possible on this call – it is 100 percent FREE – and I am positive you will take pages of notes.

Click on this box to sign up right now… 
 

Just a few weeks ago I had the great honor of presenting a program at the Apple Specialist Marketing Conference. My talk was entitled “The New Normal” and focused on how these folks, who sold such incredible Apple products, could continue to be successful as the realities of business and economics remained in constant fluctuation. The talk was even more poignant given the fact that Steve Jobs had passed away just a week earlier. Here is a very brief excerpt of some of the ideas I shared on how I feel companies can survive and thrive in… The New Normal.

PS – Do not forget that I am participating in this fantastic event…

During this week alone I will meet with eight different entrepreneurs who are all looking to start businesses. Some are building mobile apps, some are starting publications, some are going into manufacturing, and one is creating a TV show. Yet even though they’re all over the place with what they are focusing on as a business, my advice about how to be successful as an entrepreneur was just about the same to all of them. Here are some of the key ideas I shared with them for what I feel it takes to successfully create and grow an entrepreneurial business. Continue reading “How To Be a Successful Entrepreneur” »

I saw this post and liked the ideas so much that I asked to run it here as a guest post. Kyle Lagunas makes some excellent points…

In recent years, the most successful companies have focused less on perks and more on offering their employees something better: a connection to the company. Three prominent start-ups – Groupon, Zynga and Dropbox – are each cultivating lasting company cultures, and I’ve taken a look to see what’s working and what’s not. Continue reading “A Guest Post on Building a Great Culture” »