No love at Love’s behind pump number 5

Last week about 100 miles west of L.A., and late at night I ask my wife, “T and A or Love’s!” She thinks the miles have made me snap, “What are you talking about?” A look of relief came over her face when she heard, “South side TA Fuel Center, north ramp Love’s, which one has the best bathroom?”

My wife has a spidey sense about long haul travel bathrooms, on this day she chose Love’s because of their little heart in the logo. My wife’s bathroom sense was taking a nap that night , what she was about to find out a little heart does not mean great bathrooms, more about that later.

I pulled in and went to work on the gas as she made her way to the back, kids in tow. As I swiped my card I saw a real corporate eyesore, the cover-up. In my experience, the tales that corporations spin are equal in size to their payroll. Like some oath they take inside a large company when exiting the HR interview, the truth must be safely buried deep inside the boardroom or heaven forbid, the front office. Large corporations spin their mistakes or inadequacies in weird perverse ways to try and make the customer actually believe they are perfect. It’s as if they believe their customers are either so dumb they cannot accept the fact that they are dealing with an imperfect organization or they are so paranoid about the true nature of their inside realities being exposed, it will ruin them overnight if the customers ever found out.

Reality check, your customers are much smarter than you give them credit for and the truth is your friend, it will set you free I am told. That is one of the liberating traits of being a small company; you have nothing to hide because you literally have nothing to hide. On the other hand, large corporations seem to have their own spin department to postpone the inevitable. No one is perfect so deal with the problem and move on, we can take it, we are human too. Well I just had to post the photo of the spin masters at work with a sticker they put on the pumps. Now I am not implying that Love’s is dishonest or sole proprietors are more trust worthy than their fortune 500 brethren. Small operators have not cornered the market on transparency. This story is not about Love’s at all, they were just unfortunate my wife did not choose TA Travel Center that night. This story is about the herd mentality of humans and how it is amplified in direct proportion to the size of the organization one chooses to work for. Human nature has a tendency to move to the center of the corporate herd. Likewise, the larger the herd, the more the leaders hire members that like the safe middle. No need to be a hero, play it safe. No more animal stories you get my point.

For all the readers who cannot view the photo of the pump sticker in your reader, please jump out to franchisewhale.com and check it out. In summary, they are trying to “control fuel costs” by limiting MasterCard users to $75.00 per transaction and apply the same logic to Visa users but they seem to need more help controlling fuel costs so they assign them $50 limit per transaction. They then let the customer know “feel free to run a second transaction if necessary” and then they apologize for any inconvenience.

Apparently American Express users don’t need to conserve fuel and the poor Visa users really need to be more disciplined about their fuel use. With the option to run another transaction, it really doesn’t seem that “control fuel costs” is at the root of the problem.

At least get some good spin doctors if you persist in covering up the problem instead of fixing it. We know you are human, it’s ok, we all have problems and can even help you solve them if you shoot straight with us. For the sake of being fair, I went in and talked to the cashier and got her take on it. She said, “our software is old and will not process a transaction higher than that amount at one time.” But what about your companies’ effort to help control fuel costs? “I don’t know anything about that.” Lesson number two, if you persist in spin, you need to involve the people in the front lines in your stories.

I would recommend we try a completely different approach. Recognize the problem and tell the customer what you are doing about it, then turn the problem into a new opportunity.

New sticker:

Attention Visa or MasterCard customers:
Our software stinks! We bought it long before the price of gas shot up so high you need to swipe twice just to fill your big tank. We are working on the problem and appreciate your patience; you will be required to swipe twice for really big tanks. If you bring in over $50 in gas receipts on this fill up; we will give you a free 32 ounce fountain drink for the headache we have caused you. Our CEO says the drinks are going to come out of the IT department’s budget until they fix the problem, so filler up!

What did one little new sticker do for your relationship with your customers? You became human in their eyes; the CEO is a problem solving super hero and they like you because you are paying for their inconvenience which means you are sincere, that causes them to spend even more money.

If the CEO saw and heard the customers on that busy holiday week complaining about the old sticker, he would make the change immediately. I am sure he does not know anything about it until I send him a copy of this blog. Accounting might say, we will lose too much in drink revenue, wake up you already have! One of the other bits of magic is when someone receives something for free; they tend to spend up to the amount of the free product they received in actual new purchases. I predict, one little new sticker will actually increase your bottom line and your employee moral while you are working on the problem. Also talk to us in a human voice, not so stiff please. The marketing department would be a great start for stickers like these, not the operations department. Problems are your greatest marketing opportunities, get out of the damage control mode, raise the kimono and let the world see things for the way they really are, we can take it, we are human too. Now for the bathrooms, we'll chat about that tomorrow.

White male with siblings likes Iowa polls and rich women.

If history is any predictor of who our future President will be, no past Commander in Chief has been an only child, sorry Rudy. Every President has been white, sorry Barack, and you know the story with Hillary. All three look to be the front runners for 2008, but are sailing into the stiff winds of history. Who sounds the most Presidential? Barack always leaves out his middle name, can you blame him. Barack Hussein Obama, some serious bad timing. His estranged Father is a Muslim but he is running from that like the last Christian in a den of hungry lions. If the election came down to website design and management, he would be our new President. I give him two thumbs up! Best site of the bunch. This election however will be about money, a lot of it.

They are predicting the two top candidates going into next November will collectively spend one Billion dollars to get elected. The pack will weed out really quick this round starting in Iowa next week with that massive nut to raise over the next 10 months. So where does this leave the franchising community, who is their candidate of choice? What about small business, the web entrepreneurs out there? Those groups have been strangely quite so far about who they are backing. The International Franchising Association FranPac sticks their neck way out there by saying:

“FranPAC invests your contributions in electing and maintaining a Congress that understands the importance of franchising, and of your livelihood.”

Wow, let’s really hang it all out guys! The IFA website is boring! Go to voteforbusiness.com and see for yourself. How about creating a widget on the homepage with all the candidates moving around the track in flash, with updates every time they say the phrases “Small Business”, “Entrepreneur” or “Lower Taxes” during a debate. I know that is really not very scientific but it will create some buzz and should be a good widget to email friends. Think of it as this season’s viral hit elfyourself.com with better suits whipping their horses. Kudos to Office Max on that by the way, big companies can think small when they try. See ya in Iowa!

Play-N-Trade CEO Roger Lloyd podcast

Roger Lloyd discusses with Franchise Whale what it takes to harness a great idea and propel the business forward . "Find your drive and listen to your customers." Listen as we see why Entrepreneur Magazine has just ranked Play-N-Trade "Top 10 new franchisees for 2008" a jump of 40 spots from their 2007 ranking.

Opening a new store every other day now, 2008 looks to be a massive year for the "try before you buy" niche retailer. We had the Founder Ron Simpson on last week, now listen as Roger moves the business forward and gives some great tips for entrepreneurs looking to achieve their potential.

www.playntrade.com

Grab the podcast:

No football for you!

“Harris, I have seen freeway cones move faster than you!”

-Coach Roy Walton, Tates Creek High School Lexington Kentucky

In athletics, as in life, you know where you stack up by simple honest observation. Taking a trip from Phoenix to Santa Barbara with four kids in a van is also very enlightening. I realize I could never get a divorce because I would go nuts, I don’t have the talent to be a single Dad. It hits you like a lightning bolt. It was like the moment in High School football, your senior year when the coach is trying to get you cranked up for the last game, “for all you seniors except one or two of you, this is the last time you will ever play a formal game of football with a helmet on.” In that split second, it hit me that I would be relegated to Thanksgiving games and old war stories. I don’t want to sound like it was a complete shock to hear it, the recruiters seemed to have lost my phone number.I knew I was not one of the “one or two” long before the pep talk but in the locker room the last time it really hit home.

Cruising down the 10 towards the coast with the whole gang was one of those lightning bolt moments. I am utterly and totally grateful for my wife. She seemed larger than life like some mythic warrior princess. I asked myself, “How can she take this every day?” I love my kids to death, we have a great time together, but packed in a van for six hours, I am reminded about my weaknesses and dependency on my wife. How someone would take this outsourced job as a Mother with very little upside and a huge downside if she fails is confirmation that we are all emotionally, spiritually and physically talented appropriately to our individual assignments here on earth, and it is not random luck that makes it all work. God gives each of us the appropriate talents to make sure we interact with one another. He knows our inherent selfish nature would guarantee we would never reach out to someone else if we had all the talents ourselves. We must embrace our weaknesses for what they are, God’s way of making sure we do not forget about each other.

It’s a new year, time to take a hard look at your family, company or organization and write down what each individual’s talents are on your team. Also, what were you born to be great at? Be thankful for what you have and more importantly be thankful that some people are waiting to fill in your soft spots if given the chance.

Ron Simpson Founder of Play-N-Trade podcast

I connected with Ron Simpson, the Founder of Play-N-Trade and he was kind enough to share his entrepreneurial vision of a customer centric business that pioneered "try before you buy" in the video gamer world. Listen why Entrepreneur Magazine just ranked them #9 on the "Top 10 new franchisees for 2008."

This guy is really passionate about tearing down the corporate firewalls that separate the customer from the product. We are going to have him back on in the future to pick his brain on customer service and deep dive entrepreneurship. Invest the 7 minutes and listen in as Ron brings some clarity to a cloudy corporate world long on policies and short on customer common sense.

Grab the podcast here.

I love a parade

What can we learn about business by watching a parade? How to turn a dirty street into a cash cow that’s what! Step one, invite people to sit on the side of the road. Step two, ask other people to walk in the street. The franchise concept you are selling? The people on the side, look at the people walking in the street. The people walking, wave at the people sitting on the side. Then brand it so people feel they need to pay you rent just to walk and wave at the people sitting. Start the music! Next, license the trademarks, TV rights, and memorabilia. Stop! I am not in the parade business am I?

If they can make a dirty street in small town USA print money, I know you have something far more valuable to market. Is your business missing the parade?

Last night I went to the Zoo lights with my family. I live in Phoenix and the winter is the best time to go to the Zoo. After I walked around for an hour it dawned on me, any Zoo that is closing down today has nothing to do with what they tell you, “Oh the high cost of animal care, poor donor base, high overhead…” It has nothing to do with the animals at all or the donors. It has everything to do with this simple concept. All business is the show business! My 10 and 12 year old boys get an earful about business wherever we go. I can’t help it, I think it, dream it, talk about it, it is not something I do, it is who I am, I’m sick, there I said it. I think they actually believe the Zoo trip was just a smoke screen to another branding lesson, without the whiteboards.

Each year, 265,000 out of the 1.4 million annual visitors, see the Zoo lights at the Phoenix Zoo over 46 nights. This has nothing to do with their “main attraction”, the animals. The only animals I saw were 20 flamingos and a large mechanical giraffe that talked to the kids and made a crowd of 200 at a time pause for 15 minutes. Nice bit guys by the way, the longer you are in the park, the more you want to eat. More stops, more revenues. Note to management, add more talking animals. The real kicker is in the numbers. They did those numbers only open 4 hours each night versus 9 hours during their regular calendar. That means on an operating hour, trade weighted basis, 20% of their annual revenues are generated using only 7.5% of their operating hours to create that revenue. Sorry to spreadsheet on your parade, but the next time you are singing the blues about your flat sales, try juicing your franchise by creating a crowd around what you already have.

Let your customers build your franchise for free

User generated platforms are all the rage now on the web but surprisingly a very rare bird in the franchise world. The internet has created some real open source monsters. Sites like Craigslist (not a typo, that’s how they spell it) are really shaking up the corporate world. Classified ads in print have been pummeled along with recruiting website revenues. Their cultish followers howled when Craigslist had the nerve to actually charge a listing fee to a recruiter or company that use the site to find new workers.

The sites that start out not charging anything, but provide a great service are dangerously subversive to the point the big boys must step in to protect their old capitalists ways. EBay bought 25% of Craigslist from a former insider in 2004 and promised to keep their hands off (with the exception of a board seat oops!) you see, they cannot help themselves, its human nature.

With an absolutely staggering 8 billion page views a month, Craigslist is number 7 in the world in terms of English page views. Selling out, growing up, getting rich whatever you want to call it, Craigslist let their customers build their business for free, by allowing their customers to have a great free service. Today it only takes 25 employees at Craigslist to push out those 8 billion monthly page views. To put that staggering achievement into perspective, they get more page views than Microsoft. It makes Google look like a bloated bureaucracy with their 16,000 employees. Ironically Google had an open source mentality in the beginning working out of a leased garage, and for years did not know or care how they were going to make a profit, “We just want to provide the best free search possible”, my how they have grow up.

So what do you have that your customers can help you market, brand, design and sell for free? Is the virtual world any different than the physical world? Can an open source, user generated platform work in the physical world. I suspect the answer lies in a crossover. The virtual world must be used as the conduit because of the cost and scalability of the platform. You just cannot run out and lease buildings all over the world to allow your customers to sit around and drink free coffee and brain storm together for you on beanbag chairs while watching HD and playing Xbox. That is where the virtual world comes in, they already have a comfortable chair, something to drink and entertainment, you just need a way to link them all together in a comfortable platform so they can collaborate on your behalf. That conduit is the web, and the motivator is ego. People want to be heard and recognized. The next time you brainstorm, think about “How could I leverage the world’s talent and build my franchise for free?” The answer lies in recognizing and promoting the efforts of the participants in exchange for their great ideas.

What free service can I provide in exchange for free ideas, content, design or advise?

Someone is sitting on the next Craigslist, it might be you.

Peek-A-Boo Strapz CEO Fantasy Buckman Podcast

We had a great chat with Fantasy , the CEO of Peek-A-Boo Strapz, the hot new startup from New York that has already made in roads into the closest of some very hot celebrities. I caught up with Fantasy and her colleague Piper in Scottsdale recently and insisted we let our listeners hear what it is like to go from marketing music superstars to creating your own fashion accessory line.

Listen in on this 10 minute podcast and stop by their place at peekaboostrapz.com to see what they are up to now.

You can also take it to go at iTunes. You can find us under "CEO Friday" or search "Chad Harris" under author to get a list of all of our CEO interviews.

Who knew cavemen could sell insurance?

Imagine having a caveman in your living room every Monday night and another billion or two for Warren Buffet who acquired GEICO several years ago. If the executives at ABC have anything to say, both will become a reality very soon.

The quirky commercials of the caveman GEICO series are tops for me. The PC Mac ads would be number one and the GEICO caveman would be a close second, both have a very powerful method at work underlying the psychology that makes people want to buy more of your stuff. That method is the hook. Think of looking at a chocolate cupcake with the letters scrawled in white icing, “Got Milk?” Great stuff! Many ad agencies write great copy and catchy phrases but they forget the most important thing, “Will this sell more product?” It seems as if they are more interested in receiving an award from their advertising peers and securing their careers with their agency than selling more products for their clients.

Not the case with the caveman series, very effective. The writer and creator of the series is Joe Lawson formerly with the Martin Agency, now making his move on Hollywood. I knew I liked the guy when I saw his commercials but I loved the guy when I read a quote from him being brutally honest about the advertising business in general. I quote from Joe as he had a chat with the Banterist shortly after creating the series.

“The most important thing is to avoid big industry functions. That way you're not reminded of the transitory nature of goodness in advertising. Every once in a while, if you are lucky, you catch the tail of an opportunity and put something on TV that doesn't annoy people, but most of the time 99% of us are producing crap.”

Well said, but why a caveman? That’s easy, literally it’s all in the hook presented in a way that does not annoy you. You can get commercials that entertain, but if they do not start with a hook, they will leave their clients with flat revenues while the agency fills up their trophy case with yet another creativity award.

If I asked you what type of beer would you drink at the beach? I bet Corona came to your mind. At the risk of upsetting some beer heretics, I don’t think any beer tastes more “beach like.” I am a non drinker so I could be wrong but I don’t know what the beach tastes like, do you? Anyone could have grabbed that spot but Corona chose to draw a line in the sand and say “This is our real estate, we own the beach.” I love their spots because they create an experience that transcends price and reason. It is difficult not to think of Corona when you have an idyllic summer beach day or if you want to be transported to the paradise while stuck in a dark bar at the end of a strip mall. The hook is the beach scene attached to Corona, like “Got Milk” to the cupcake or a milk mustache to a celebrities lip. “If I drink milk maybe I will look like Cindy Crawford too!”

The hook with the caveman is “It’s so easy even a caveman can do it.” To test the effectiveness of a hook, ask a 10 year old what is the BEST car insurance company and don’t be surprised that the “it’s easy” ads have even spilled over to the “best insurance” in their minds. When you can create generational shifts in buying patterns by using the right hook, it can be the most valuable time you will ever spend before branding what you do.

So what about the pilot for ABC? It sounds like it will be Seinfeld with hair. Cavemen will be filmed dealing with everyday issues living in Atlanta. GEICO, a unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will have no creative control but will receive a royalty payment for the use of the character.

"We sell car insurance; we don't make TV shows," says Ted Ward, GEICO’s vice president of marketing. Ted please!!! Don’t go stuffed shirt on us now, we know you are dancing around in your caveman jammies laughing hysterically that you are the guy that actually approved Lawson’s wacky idea. If the caveman makes it past a pilot and actually gets picked up for 13 weeks we will have GEICO on the brain for the next 20 years. Good bye Aflac, I hated that duck anyway, what was the hook, Gilbert Gottfried in feathers? He is hard to take as a human, as a duck it just makes me want to eat more chicken, not call the 800 number.

What’s your hook? Before you start off down the long branding road, decide what differentiates you from your competition. What is the competitive advantage you bring that nobody else does? If you cannot think of one, maybe you should consider a different path in life. If you can come up with a few, how do you convey that edge to the market? Start with a hook. A hook promotes your franchise while you sleep, what could be better than that?

A random walk through the retail minefield

I caught up with an old friend last week and he told me about an experience he had buying a Christmas tree. Apparently trees are expensive now, I wouldn’t know, we take trips instead of the traditional mall frenzy and we love it. The kids can pick a place to go and we all get lost for a week together. It is really fantastic and I highly recommend it if you start while they are young. The only rules we have are, no repeats, it must be a new place each year and the Blackberry can’t be turned on until after the kids are asleep. I know it is not very traditional, forgive me, not the Blackberry comment, the holiday one. You are probably asking, “What about Santa?” When my kids come to me and ask, “Dad, is Santa for real?” I sit each one down, look into their innocent four year old eyes and let them know the Santa story is complete crap! I encourage them to keep what I have revealed a secret because some parents who enjoy lying to their children have not told their kids the truth so we need to respect their right to pull the wool over their own kid’s eyes. I know, it sounds like I am Ebenezer, trust me my Mother thinks she has raised a real nut job. I am just very anti anything that “Society” says needs to be “this way”. I still can’t believe my wife said yes, she totally respects my right to be a wacko. It has served me well in business because the really big breakouts, “10 baggers” are found going against the trend. In business doing what we did yesterday out of tradition is a sure way to the poor house over time.

I am getting off track, back to the tree. He bought the tree and asks a perfectly normal question, “Can you take it to the car for me?” Then he heard the words spewed out like raw retail sewage “We don’t do that”, things got real ugly after that. He took the tree, crashed down the aisle, knocked over other trees, Christmas décor, like a holiday twister all the way to the parking lot. No delivery is a raw nerve with the Puffster, he was even sober and he does not drink. I can only imagine what he would do with some holiday cheer in him.

He has a computer game store franchise and is a retail sicko to the point of giving great free advice to other franchisees because he just likes things to be “right”. He went on about a half dozen other stores with messed up retail branding and before he decided to pop a cap into someone I suggested he start a blog. If you have something that you are passionate about, get it out there. You will really feel better and you will get a deeper understanding and broader perspective about what you are passionate about. You will become the expert in that space. Next stop retail Consultant, write a book, who knows but starting a blog is the most effective way to move you into a position to make a change about what you care about.

I don’t notice the bad retail experiences because I guess to me they are all equally bad, it is the good experiences that jump out for me. Happy Holidays!

King of Queens goes to Berlin

Over the weekend I went to my first Hanukkah party. A word of advice for Jewish holiday virgins, you better arrive hungry! Good food and plenty of it. I can eat anything, and I usually do. When I lived in Asia I tried chicken feet, curry fish head, pig ears, duck tongue and that is just the normal stuff so a potato pancake is kids play. The smell was unusual and after I put a few away I asked the host "What is the oil you used?" he said, "you are supposed to use chicken fat but it would kill you so I used this synthetic chicken fat." A word to my Gentile friends, don't eat synthetic chicken fat! It might have been the two bowls of chili I had later at the next party that fueled the fire, but I think the lakis started it. I understood the deeper meaning of the parting of the red sea! The party was full of Hollywood types and someone mentioned they liked the post I did "King of Queens goes to Berlin" but they could not find it. Here it is and a big Hanukkah shootout to all, peace.

Last November I was in Amsterdam, love it! The food, people, culture fantastic. Despite loosing Manhattan to the English, New York still gives a silent shout out to their Dutch roots with the Nicks sporting the colors of the Netherlands flag. I guess the branding gurus of the 1600's felt "New Amsterdam" does not sound like the financial capital of the world, but I bet Times Square would be a real hoot today if the Dutch were still running the place.

Anyway, I was at the RIA and I commented to someone there who seemed to have a German, not Dutch accent about life in Frankfurt compared to Amsterdam. He had this pained look on his face as if I said Van Gogh was from Cleveland. “No I am Dutch; to call a Dutchman a German means I have no sense of humor!” Ouch! It is true the Germans are a stoic bunch, if you ever want to see a real show, go to a trade fair and watch a German buyer negotiate price with a Chinese manufacturer, it’s a treat.

The Germans do have a sense of humor however; I came across a clip on The Hollywood Reporter.

“The series finale of Kevin James' blue-collar show drew 8% of the total viewing public Monday -- an almost unheard-of figure for a U.S. comedy. The figure was twice the average for "Queens"' German channel Kabel1. "Queens" also drew 2.5 million viewers aged 14 to 49, for a market share of 16.4%.”

Can you imagine those numbers! What is the cultural hook that makes that such a hit, is it all promotion? I doubt it, Seinfeld, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond have all failed in the land of the Bratwurst.

What implications does this study have on cultural hooks in franchising internationally? Stay true or modify the formula? Sometimes you need to know when to bend and when to break your USA success rules when going aboard. In my travels Hard Rock Café, always a winner, Baskin Robbins has a lot of hit and misses. Discovering what makes a German laugh might be a big clue to where a German likes to eat.

If you want to be a great franchisor, travel! You will see so many American branded franchises abroad, and fantastic domestically grown brands. Here in the USA, not a lot of those great foreign concepts have made it here yet. With the cheap dollar, maybe its time to go the other way. Many things to sleep on, Dream Big!

Interview with Dirck Schou CEO HF Coors

Entrepreneurs and Franchisers free prize inside! I had the pleasure of interviewing Dirck this week. This 10 minute Podcast is priceless if you are a USA based manufacturer that is struggling to maintain your niche.

Listen as Dirck takes you every step of the way from entering the market, buying out an 80 year old competitor and growing a "Made in the USA" brand by being "fast, flexible and customer oriented".

If you are also a retailer who needs customized kitchenware, HF Coors is the largest manufacturer in the West providing fast, customized solutions for fortune 500 clients and small retailers as well.

Click here to visit HF Coors

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Readers and listeners we can repay Dirck for his generosity with his time and help your fellow business builders by sending them the link to this blog. They do not teach what you will hear in business school, this is real life first hand business building at it's finest, going against the outsourcing trend and moving the market up. I love it! Share the love!

Enjoy!

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Why most advertising and investment ideas are wrong

Most of the senior marketing executives cut their teeth in broadcast media systems. It was the golden age of media, when you had three stations and the entire country tuning in together as a family. The “big brand” era was born with “plop plop fizz fizz” advertising, and the only thing you needed was a catchy phrase and repetition. Advertising rates were so low on the big three a fortune could be made with this very simple formula.

Times have changed but the mentality has not. For the most part we are still applying broadcast methods to a new narrowcast audience. I can look no further then my kitchen table. My 12 and 10 year old boys were cleaning the garage with me last Saturday and they saw an old yellow book in the corner that I told them to toss out. I explained it was the yellow pages and what you did with it. The look on their face made me feel like I just pulled up in a model T! It is uncomfortable to explain when I was their age we did not have cell phones, the internet, a PC and I can still remember our first TV was black and white! I need to stop, the keyboard is aging me with every click. Anyway you would have thought we found an old world war two field manual. They actually laughed! What is more shocking is the mass market tricks most advertisers have been taught from the veterans and media departments at universities don’t apply today. Wake up call, my kids say “Old People” watch the big three. With the exception of Heroes until they screwed it up in the 2^nd season. They are tough critics. They like the Disney channel and Wii. The radio is also old school. “Why would I want to listen to what everyone else listens to?” They like XM and their iPods.

Chris Anderson illustrated the difference in the book The Long Tail when he compared the budget of the Abrams Report. They get 200,000 eyeballs a day to sell ads who watch the show. It takes dozens of crew members and a big studio budget to pull it off, and then broadcast away. Rocket boom is a daily show, Jon Stewart like comedy news channel over the web. They also get 200,000 viewers, the difference; they have two people running the $2,000 cameras, lights and shoot the three and a half minute news in front of a crappy cardboard map. Yikes! Formula (Broadcasters = Revenue Junky) (Narrowcasters = Margin Junky) size matters in a perverse paradoxical, Alice in Wonderland business world we call 2007. Small has now become more powerful then big! It is the reason why big venture capital firms need to invest in hundreds of lame companies in hopes of one big winner is the same reason that big media must invest in hundreds of lame programs in hopes of a few winners. When you have a big nut, you need to make big investments on a mass scale and hope the law of averages will work in your favor. Small investment bankers can “Afford” to make a few small investments in great small companies because they need to be right, not lucky. Can small actually be more powerful then big? Can being big cloud our judgment in business because we have too much to lose if we “Change our ways”.

I have watched this first hand where perfectly capable executives that came from Fortune 100 backgrounds, became CEO’s of small promising startups and quickly ran them right into the sandbar. Entrepreneurs need to be keenly aware they need to choose their Advertising, Investment and Executive teams that understand narrowcasting realities if they want their Franchise to flourish.

If you do not believe we have entered into a new unchartered exciting world of opportunity where David gets to clean Goliath’s clock on a continual basis. Please ask your teenager what they think of the yellow pages.

Victoria’s Secret they want to keep hidden

Sorry no pictures on this one readers. You can just imagine a woman dressed in $1 worth of material that is prepared, branded and marketed to make you believe that your girlfriend or wife will actually be a super model if she wears it. That is the magic of this brand that did 5 billion last year in gross sales in 2006, that’s a lot of panties! Imagine a small idea started by a Stanford grad to make it easier for men to buy lingerie, 30 years later we have one of the most well known brands in the world.

We are unabashed bulls on outsourcing, America was founded on outsourcing. The Crown’s factory was a young hungry colony across the Atlantic. Almost all of the apparel market was shifted to American manufacturers at one point. I am sure many British manufacturers, politicians and members of the media brought up the appalling conditions and loss of jobs the Yanks were taking away from the motherland, sound familiar? Short memories are easy marks for protectionist that like to throw the good and bad into the same pot.

The ugly side of outsourcing came to light last week that is no longer Victoria’s Secret. The National Labor Committee last week put out a report on a factory in Jordan that was pretty harsh. The report disclosed their contractor paid the workers .04 cents to sew a bikini in 3.5 minutes that retails for $14 just for the bottoms.

We are big fans of outsourcing but of course under humane conditions. How they verified the conditions at the factory were never clear in their article so we leave the judgment up to you.

Link to report

http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=490

The same day the National Labor Committee report was released Suzanne Kapner of Fortune magazine reported that, Limited Brands insiders are treating themselves to an early holiday present in the form of $20.6 million in company stock purchases, a bullish sign for the struggling owner of the Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works retail chains.

Nine insiders, including CEO Les Wexner, have purchased $7.6 million of stock in the last three trading days, and plan to buy $13 million more during the next week, according to regulatory filings.

The insider buying is unusual for the Columbus, Ohio-based company. Directors and executives have not tended to be big purchasers of Limited stock in recent years. Buying now, at a time when the company's stock is trading near its 52-week-low, is a vote of confidence in Limited's future prospects, analysts said.

"The last time we remember an insider stepping up to the plate was in 2002, when director David Kollat [bought $2.5 million shares]," wrote Todd Slater of Lazard Capital Markets in a research note to investors Wednesday. "This time around, we are witnessing a much stronger vote of confidence."

With sales per square foot close to the top dog Costco they are betting that putting athletic wear in 30 of its test stores this past fall will keep the mojo rolling.

Sales per square foot:

Costco $918

Victoria’s Secret $731

Wal-Mart $438

Nordstrom’s $369

Licensing Tip: Got a fashion idea? It’s just cloth, trade the brand up and enjoy a fat profit and don’t forget to do your homework on where you outsource your labor.

Donald Trump throws like a girl, so what!

I know it was horrific to watch, confusing, was this the same guy that has the girl, the money, the jet… seeing the guy throw like Darla from the Little Rascals was brutal. More breaking news, she did not marry him for his blazing fastball or hip hair style. You don't put out a new book titled "Think big and kick ass" by sweating the small stuff. The coup he pulled of at 40 Wall, will go down as not only the biggest real estate deal of his life, but possibly the biggest deal ever done in the city of New York. If you want to know how to turn a million into five hundred million in 10 years, read the book. It takes coconuts and innate talent to fade the crowd when it may be the worst time for you to pull the trigger. Knowing what you are good at, and using that knowledge at the right time makes up for a lot of wild pitches.

LeBron James makes $20,000,000 dollars a year playing basketball for Cleveland and you don’t. He’s really good at it! I am going to take a wild guess and say he might not be the world’s best web designer, painter or engineer but he has 20 million reasons to not stress out about his weaknesses when he looks in the mirror every morning. What is stressing you out?

Forget your weaknesses. Someone can do it better and cheaper and you are wasting your time, money and energy trying to improve what you are just not very good at. Be honest.

Headline: “Bill Gates can’t dunk"

Remember your strengths. Intellectual property (“IP”) licensing is exploding around the world. You have years of valuable IP locked up inside your head and trapped inside your business that needs to be unleashed, licensed and annuitized.

The market will gladly pay a fat premium for your strengths, don’t forget LeBron!

Apple did not get where they are today by keeping their strengths buried under a mountain of weakness.

“1,000 songs in your pocket” they are good at marketing.

Turn over your iPod “designed in California, made in China” they outsource their manufacturing weakness, but kept their design and engineering strengths.

Do you have strengths?

Do you have weaknesses?

Are you honest?

Are you a rebel?

If you can answer yes to all four, you are already on the road to enlightenment grasshopper, just move toward the light.

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

-Bruce Lee

Would you really like to get kicked in the groceries by Bruce Lee? Imagine that feeling next time you are tempted to waste your bandwidth on stuff that you are never going to be very good at.

“When the opponent expands, I contract. When he contracts, I expand and when there is an opportunity, I do not hit. It hits all by itself."

-Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon

License your strengths, outsource your weaknesses- Be the Dragon!