In the book PURPLE COW, Seth Godin smartly writes … “In almost every market, the boring slot is filled. The product designed to appeal to the largest possible audience already exists, and displacing it is awfully difficult. The real growth comes with products that annoy, offend, don’t appeal, are too expensive, too cheap, too heavy, too complicated, too simple — too something.”

We are working on a product right now to help Father and Sons have “The Talk.” You know what I mean. The dreaded awkward sex talk.

There are a couple of videos on this DVD that push the envelope – especially in the conservative Christian marketplace. We knew this when we created it. The idea was to do something different. Something with a little shock value that people will remember. Think Southpark meets P.Diddy in Mystery Science Theater and you’ll get the idea.

So far, we’ve heard mostly good reviews. Yesterday though, we heard that one of our key decision makers was very annoyed by one of the videos. It just happened to be the one I created (sigh). It was a little bit of a set back for all of us to hear strong negative feedback about our work. Especially from someone we had hoped would love it and then issue us a purchase order to put it in his stores. The disappointment in our office was palpable.

But this quote from Seth made me think that we just might be on to something. Now, the tricky part is deciding how to move forward. Do we modify the video and make it less annoying? Do we go with it the way it is? The worst thing we could do is take out all the quirky elements that make it unique. That would fill the boring slot, as Seth points out.

So, what I think we will do is keep the same quirkiness but put a different flavor on it. It basically came down to this person’s personal preference on one of the animated characters. We’re going to modify a short segment of the video and let him look at it to see if we are on the right track before redoing the entire thing.

All that to say, I think we might be onto something and just because our product annoys some people doesn’t mean we need to start over (or get all depressed about it).

I was contacted today by a large media group that offers as one of its barrage of services a social networking management service.

They talked up their knowledge and experience in social networking, how creative they are with it and how they can take our social network to the next level.

What amazed me is that nowhere on their site did they have links to any of their social networks. They had pasted logos of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on the sales page for this service, but they didn’t link to anything.

Key point: if you want to sell social network management services (or any service for that matter), prove that you can actually do it by letting me see YOUR amazing social network. My guess is that this company doesn’t have one to show!

Alright, I know the answer to this question, but it’s something that I often think about. Just humor me for a bit.

I am a very introverted person. Very introverted. In fact, you could probably put me in the reclusive category.

When I was a kid, I would get so embarrassed if my parents came to see me at school that I would actually try to hide from them. It’s not that I was ashamed of my parents, I just didn’t want the attention from other people knowing that my parents were at school.

Fast forward twenty years and you’ll find that same shy kid trying to create a successful business.

Social interaction is difficult for me.  And networking and cold calling? I would rather move a big pile of rocks than be in either one of those situations.

So the question I often wrestle with is this — can a very introverted person be successful in business?

You often hear about the successful business person whose charm and charisma catapulted them to the top. It seems as though their extroverted personality is what brought them success.

If an extrovert’s charisma brings success, can an introvert’s lack of charisma have the same effect?

In his book “Good to Great,” Jim Collins and his team researched some of the top performing companies in history. In regards to the leaders of these top companies, their personalities ranged from extremely charismatic to downright reclusive.  Collins would argue that the effectiveness of a business leader is less about personality and more about personal humility and professional will.

So I guess I should stop worrying about being introverted and just get to work! With a dose of humility of course.

On Seth Godin’s blog, he talks about the difference between linear and parallel projects. Parallel facilitates multiple people working on the same thing at once. Take wikipedia or Apple support forums for example. Linear can only handle one thing at a time. Take a one person customer support center for example. When things are linear, bottlenecks tend to form.

Seth goes on to talk about the one thing in an organization that should always start off linear: Sales.

“When you are linear in your sales process, you learn something. You don’t make the same mistake on each and every call. Instead, you make a few mistakes on your first call, then a few less and then, finally, you get it as right as you’re going to get it. That is when you go parallel, not before.”
Seth’s Blog: Linear and parallel

This is exactly what we are doing right now at Freedom Begins Here. We are creating a retail sales model with one person at the helm. This guy is on the phones all day every day selling our products into independent retail stores. At first he was rewriting his pitch every day. Now he has it down pat. And it works. We are now trying to decide when to replicate his model by adding people to the sales team. Then our linear model will become parallel.

Your mom probably taught you that it’s rude to butt-in to a conversation you’re not a part of, right? It’s just not proper. And in some cases I think your mom would be right.

But in business (especially small business), I think it’s not only alright to jump in, I think it is necessary. If you have ideas, concerns, or insight to contribute, don’t be afraid to jump into a conversation even if you weren’t invited. Successful businesses need to move fast and change faster. If your ideas don’t make it into the till, your team could miss an opportunity to be best in class and you miss the opportunity to claim a piece of it.

You will need to flex your social intelligence muscles when you do this. People don’t like a know-it-all or an attention-craving bonehead who constantly butts in. Go in with humility. Listen to what’s going on and look for an opportunity to chime in.

You may not always be asked to join in. Just don’t assume that not being asked means your opinion isn’t valued or needed. It is!

Don’t wait to be asked. You might miss your chance.

In a small business, is it really that important to keep track of every absence, every hour that someone spends out of the office?

I would argue that especially in this new paradigm, the answer is no.

In fact, I don’t really want to know if you have a dentist appoint or if you will be in late.  All I want to know is that you are getting the job done and EXCEEDING expectations.

I say exceeding because that’s what it takes to run a successful business.  Meeting expectations will only keep you in business for a little while.  And when your business fails and everyone is out of a job, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to hold on to those time off requests.

I consider myself a fairly casual person, even when it comes to business attire.  I’m less concerned about formality and appearances and more concerned about performance and authenticity.  Most days I can be found wearing jeans and an untucked shirt at the office.  Same goes with most people at our company.

Even being the casual person I am, I was surprised today when a guy showed up for an interview wearing jeans and flip-flops.  Granted he was interviewing for a college internship, so it wasn’t like he was interviewing to be our new CFO.  But it still caught me off guard.

A similar situation happened last week.  Only last week’s interviewee was wearing an old t-shirt with his sunglasses hooked to the collar.

Even if these guys knew our office was a casual environment (and they probably did), why wouldn’t they at least try to look somewhat presentable?  I wouldn’t expect them to wear a three-piece suit but come on, flip-flops?  Sunglasses?

Maybe I should just let this roll off, but it really bothers me.  Part of me is almost offended.  I offered an hour of my very limited time to meet with these students and they show up looking like they just rolled out of bed.

These guys obviously have a lot to learn, and hopefully they will learn it wherever they find an internship.  Just not at our company.