Mastering the Rockefeller Habits

I recently found a most interesting business book mostly by accident. It's called Mastering the Rockefeller Habits and it's based on the leadership and management philosophies of John D. Rockefeller the legendary businessman of the early twentieth century.

Though many might wonder what we could learn in this digital age from such an old timer, the book by Verne Harnish is a basic how-to guide to applying the Rockefeller habits in today's fast paced business world.

Thus far, we have applied one of these principles to our business at Henry Russell Bruce with the positive effect of moving discussion and decisions along toward more rapid decision making. A great first step that comes directly from the book. It is a return to basic fundamentals that we often overlook in our rapidly evolving global marketplace. It is simple, practical advice on running your business.

Rockefeller believed in three basic habits and lived by them (quoting Harnish now):

1. Priorities - Does the organization have objective Top 5 priorities for the year and the quarter and a clear Top 1 priority along with the appropriate theme?

2. Data - Does the organization have sufficient data on a daily and weekly basis to provide insight into how the organization is running and what the market is demanding? Does everyone in the organization have at least one key daily or weekly metric driving his or her performance.

3. Rhythm - Does the organization have an effective rhythm of daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual meetings to maintain alignment and drive accountability.

As a first step, the 3 partners at HRB have implemented 15 minute daily meetings to discuss the urgent issues and decisions of the day. This, I believe, has helped us collaborate more effectively and moved us toward more efficiently toward a new business model we are adopting - growing our Web and digital footprint, while maintaining our traditional agency products and services.

Harnish touches on a host of crucial topics, including delegation, systems and structures, the importance of data, business priorities, market dynamics and barriers to growth, among others.

One of the most interesting sections is labeled Mastering A One-Page Strategic Plan, Keeping it simple keeps it clear. And, the book offers a template for the one-page plan.

The book is full of real world case studies of companies Harnish found that follow these Rockefeller Habits and go on to grow and prosper.

Have you gotten back to fundamentals or read Mastering the Rockefeller Habits? We welcome your comments.

Jim Thebeau
jthebeau@hrb-ideas.com

A Positive Attitude

In these trying times, those in marketing may find it difficult to maintain a positive attitude. But a positive attitude is exactly what will get us through the economic situation we find ourselves in today.

Every day brings challenges, as well as opportunities. If we focus only on the challenges we are not living up to our potential or the job we have to do. Whether we work for ourselves or an employer, our job is to deliver clear, concise messages to our target audiences.

Though we may have a long-range plan, we work one day at a time to complete the tasks at hand.

Over the years, I have sometimes felt overwhelmed by the amount of day to day work that needed to be completed - on top of all the meetings and time stealing events that come up. What I discovered was that if I just made a weekly plan and focused like a laser on completing the tasks for the week, I made regular progress.

Working for two Fortune 500 companies taught me that I was responsible for my job and my future. Those who succeeded had to have a plan and follow the plan every day, no matter what the distractions might be. Those who didn't have a plan spent their time either doing the work of others or not accomplishing very much.

What helped me the most was to maintain a positive attitude and stick to my weekly plan. Taking things in stride and adjusting the plan, sometimes one day at a time, helped me accomplish what needed to be done. Of course, some weeks were more productive than others. I found that focusing on the long-term goal by completing small steps every day worked best for me.

And, the positive attitude helped overcome a lot of obstacles and helped disarm those who could otherwise ruin my day.

Jim Thebeau
jthebeau@hrb-ideas.com

Marketing in a Down Economy

Everyone is scrambling to maintain and build market share in this down economy. The US has been through 9 recessions since the end of World War II. Research has proven that firms that market aggressively in down economies actually maintain and build profits and market share compared to those that don't. If you want to generate more leads, follow a few simple tips:

1. Build a database and collect as many email addresses as possible from customers and prospects. Though this sounds simple, we've found that many companies do not have any kind of organized database, even a good snail mail list.

2. Use the database to reach out to your customers and prospects on a regular basis - a minimum of once a month. If you are not touching them with email or snail mail to keep them up to date on your products, services, special offers and changes, you can bet your competitors are.

3. Ramp up your public relations activities by regularly adding newsworthy news releases to your Web site - even if you don't distribute them to your local media, business journals or trade publications. This is a fast and simple way to add fresh content to your Web site once a week or once a month.

4. Continuously optimize your Web site organically through carefully chosen key words so that search engines can more easily find you. This should be done on a monthly if not weekly basis.

5. Once your site is optimized, consider starting an inexpensive pay per click campaign - $50 to $100 per month - to get experience with the program and increase your lead generation.

Download a free whitepaper on marketing in a down economy http://www.hrb-ideas.com/downloads/HRB_DownEconomy.pdf.

Market aggressively to build your sales.

Jim Thebeau
Partner
Henry Russell Bruce
jthebeau@hrb-ideas.com
http://www.hrb-ideas.com/