Winners Never Cheat/Huntsman 53-55

54 Leaders are called on to enter arenas where success isn’t covered by the warranty, where public failure is a real possibility.

Temporary failures never got in the way of those grand, early-life ventures.

55 How one identifies and corrects errors, how one turns failure into a new opportunity, determines the quality and durability of leadership.

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from poor judgment.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is not effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who know the great enthusiasm, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. Teddy Roosevelt.

Survival is Not Enough/Godin 5-6

6 Survival is Not Enough: The Summary.

1) Change is the new normal. Rather than thinking of work as a series of stable times interrupted by moments of change, companies must now recognize work as constant change, with only occasional moments of stability.
2)If you and your company are not taking advantage of change, change will defeat you.
3)Stability is bad news for this new kind of company. It requires change to succeed.
4)Change presents new opportunities for companies to capture large markets. Change is the enemy of the current leader. Change also represents opportunities for individuals to advance their carets.
5)Companies that introduce products and services that represent significant changes can find that they lead to rapid, runaway successes.
6)Companies that cause change attract employees who want to cause change. Companies that are afraid to change attract employees who are afraid to change.
7)Many employees fear change. Fear of change is rational after all, it can lead to bad outcomes. But now, not changing is more likely to lead to bad outcome than changing.
Management can’t force employees to overcome their fear of change through short-term motivation.
8) By redefining what change is, companies can change the dynamic of “Change equals death” to change equals opportunity”.
9) The way species deal with change is by evolving.
10) Companies can evolve in ways similar to those used by species.
11) Companies will evolve if management allows them to.
12) There are three ways that species evolve: natural selection, sexual selection and mutation.
Companies can do the same thing by using farmers, hunters and wizards to initiate changes in their organizations.
13) Companies that embrace change for change’s sake, companies that view a state of constant flux as a stable equilibrium, zoom. And zooming companies evolve faster and easier because they don’t obstruct the forces of change.
14) Once you train the organization to evolve regularly and effortlessly, change is no longer a threat. Instead, it’s an asset, because it causes your competitors to become extinct.
15) Many CEOs reject evolution and do whatever they can to stop it.
16) If your company is too reliant on your winning strategy, you won’t evolve as quickly.
17) A runaway success occurs when a positive feedback loop reinforces early success.
Fast feedback loops teach you what’s working and—more important—get you to change what’s not.
18) Everyone in your company can work to reinvent what you do in parallel, dramatically increasing the speed of innovation within the company.
19) Low cost, low risk, real world tests are the most likely to have high return on investment.
20) Your company’s posture regarding the process of change is far more important that the actual changes you implement.
21) If you have employees who don’t embrace this posture, they will slow you down and cause you to make bad decisions
22) A company that zooms will attract zoomers, allowing it to enter runaway, dramatically increasing its advantage over its competitors in a changing environment.

The Long Tail/Anderson 53-64

56 The other thing that happens when consumers talk amongst themselves, is that they discover that, collectively, their tastes are far more diverse than the marketing plan being fired at them suggest.

In other words, the third force further increases demand for the niches and flattens the curve, shifting its center of gravity to the right.

62 …open-source software…with enough eyes, all bugs are trivial.

63 The consequence of all this is that we’re starting to shift from being passive consumers to active producers.

64 However, once you know what’s behind the curtain, you begin to realize that it could be you. It is when the tools of production are transparent that we are inspired to create. When people understand how great work is made, they’re more likely to want to do it themselves.

Never Eat Alone/Ferrazzi 133-142

134 Fundraiser…know absolutely everybody.

135 Join your local Chamber of Commerce, Local executives, businesspeople, and entrepreneurs generally populate the Chamber.

136 Connect with the Connectors.

142 Connectors…he or she is the gatekeeper to a whole new world. You can meet dozens, even hundreds of other people through your relationship with one other key connector. Two quick rules of thumb:

You and the other person you are sharing contacts with must be equal partners that give as much as they get.
You must be able to trust your partners because, after all, you’re vouching for them and their behavior with your network is a reflection on you.

A word of caution---never give any one person complete access to your entire list of contacts.

Survival is Not Enough/Godin 1-5

3 The secret of this book is that your success is not going to be due to your plan. It’s the process you use that matters.

4 Most of us view change as a threat, and survival as the goal. Change is not a threat, it’s an opportunity. Survival is not the goal, transformative success is.

5 I just go from store to store, see what they’re doing right and then tell all the other stores about it.

The Long Tail/Anderson 52-53

54 3 POWERFUL FORCES

1) First force is democratizing the tools of production.

Give enough people the capacity to create, and inevitably gems will emerge.

The result is that the available universe of content is now growing faster.

2) Second force is cutting the cost of consumption by democratizing distribution. The fact that anyone can make content is only meaningful if others can enjoy it.

The Internet simply makes it cheaper to reach more people, effectively increasing the liquidity of the market in the Tail. That, in turn, translates to more consumption, effectively raising the sales line and increasing the are under the curve.

3) Third force is connecting supply and demand.

Never Eat Alone/Ferrazzi 125-133

126 It’s always about the people.

Collect as many follow-ups as you can.

128 …super-connectors are headhunters, lobbyists, fundraisers, politicians, journalists, and public relations specialists…cornerstones to any flourishing network.

129…often the most important people in our network are those who are acquaintances.

130 …developing deep and trusting relationships, not superficial contacts.

Once you become friendly with a super-connector, you’re only two degrees away from the thousands of different people we know.

132 Headhunters are professional matchmakers

133 I keep a file of headhunters: who they are and what they’re looking for.

What searches are you working on? How can I help you find people?

Helping others find good employees is a real currency.

Winners Never Cheat/Huntsman 47-53

48 What’s important is that the person in charge takes responsibility for the outcome, be it good, bad, or ugly. Surround yourself with the best people available and then accept responsibility.

51 Real leadership demands character.

52 Effective, respected leadership is maintained through mutual agreement. Leader demanded is leadership denied.

Leadership demands decisiveness and that is why it is absolutely critical that leaders know the facts. To ensure that critical information and solid advice reaches them, leaders must surround themselves with capable, strong, competent advisors—and then listen.

53 Leadership is about taking risks. If your life is free of failure, you aren’t much of a leader. Take no risks and you risk more than ever.

All Marketers Are Liars 151-end

152 Nothing is static. Nothing stays the way it was. And everything you build or design or market is going to change the marketplace.

157 You’ve probably figured out that this book is about the story you tell to other people. But before you can tell a story to someone else, you’ve got to tell one to yourself. The lie a consumer tells himself is the nucleus at the center of any successful marketing effort.

The Long Tail/Anderson 52-52

Demand must follow this new supply.

SIX THEMES OF THE LONG TAIL AGE

1) There are far more niche goods than hits.
2) The cost of reaching those niches is now falling dramatically.
3) It’s now possible to offer a massively expanded variety of products
4) Customers must be give ways to find niches…These “filters” can drive demand down the Tail.
5) …there are so many niche products that collectively they can comprise a market rivaling the hits.
6) ..the nature shape of demand is revealed, undistorted by distribution bottlenecks, scarcity of information, and limited choice of shelf space. What’s more, that shape is far less hit-driven than we have been led to believe. Instead, it is as diverse as population itself.

Bottom line: A Long Tail is just culture unfiltered by economic scarcity.
…happens without one big economic trigger: reducing the cost of reaching niches

Never Eat Alone/Ferrazzi 123-125

124 Breaks are where the real work happens at a conference.

124 Follow up. After that, follow up again, Then, after you’ve done that, follow up once more.

125 sample follow up letter

Hey Carla,

Wow, what a fun time. I didn’t expect tequila shots to be a part of the Forbes CIO conference. We definitely have to make this an annual occurrence. Hey, I also wanted to follow up with our discussion on your marketing strategy work we’ve done as a way to help reach your adult women demographic. When can you do a call this week, or at your leisure?
Also, I wanted to say that I heard no fewer than three separate people talk about your session and what a great speaker you were.
Congrats!

All Marketers Are Liars 132-151

133 You succeed by being an extremist in your storytelling, then gracefully moving your product or service to the middle so it becomes more palatable to audiences that are persuaded by their friends, not by you.

134 You goal should not (must not) be to create a story that is quick, involves no risks and is without controversy. Boredom will not help you grow.

I believe the purple cow is at the heart of just about every business success story of the last decade.

136 There are no small stories. Only small marketers.

Make your story bigger and bigger until it’s important enough to believe.

145 But if cheap is what you want, you can buy cheap cheaper somewhere else. Cheap is not marketing.

148 The leverage in choosing one segment of the population over another really kicks in when you consider the impact of word of mouth.

151 The hard part isn’t selling to them—it was identifying the right group and telling them the right story.

The Long Tail/Anderson 40-52

41 …the Web simply unified the elements of a supply-chain revolution that had been brewing for decades.

49 What the Internet presented was a way to eliminate most of the physical barriers to unlimited selection.

50 Open-source software projects such as Linux and Firefox are the Long Tail of programming talent, while offshoring tops the Long Tail of labor.

52 Our culture and economy are increasingly shifting away from a focus on relatively small number of hits (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve, and moving toward a huge number of niches in the tail. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as the mainstream fare.

Never Eat Alone/Ferrazzi 121-123

122 The President wants you to like him.

His questions always revolved around what the other person was thinking, what was troubling them.

…that you have to get people to like you first. The sales come later—in the follow up discussions you have after the conference. Now is the time to begin to build trust and a relationship.

Know your Targets

122 At each conference, I keep a list of 3-4 people I’d most like to meet on a folded piece of paper in my jacket pocket. …I’ll jot down what we talked about and make a note about how I’m going to contact them later. And, once you’ve me with and engaged someone, you find yourself chatting again and again throughout the conference.

123… I know you’re busy, but I’m wondering if I can call your office and arrange a time to meet with you when we get back home?

…I managed to gain credibility by dropping a familiar and trusted name, show a bit of vulnerability in admitting I admired his career, and suggested I had value to offer with my ideas.

Winners Never Cheat/Huntsman 40-47

44 There is no moral shortcuts in the game of business—or life. There are basically, three kinds of people: the unsuccessful, the temporarily successful, and those who become and remain successful. The difference is character.

45 People see success that men have made and somehow they appear to be easy. But that is a world away from the facts. It is failure that is easy. Success is always hard. A man can fail easily; he can fail easily; he can succeed only by paying out all that he has and is.
Henry Ford.

A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.—William Shedd.

47 Careful cultivation pays off…Parents and employers who nurture, praise, and when necessary, discipline fairly, experience happier and more successful lives for themselves and those in their charge.

All Marketers Are Liars 125-132

126 The alternative strategy is to find a different community, with a different worldview that wants to hear a different story.

I’m asking you to invent an entirely new story that is framed around the worldview of an underserved community.

But it’s also certain that addressing the community of your dominant competitor is going to fail.

132 The only stories that work, the only stories with impact, the only stories that spread are the “I can’t believe that!” stories. These are the stories that aren’t just repeatable: these are the stories that demand to be repeated.

It’s no accident that the marketers who understand how to tell stories consistently create purple cows.