business

Not all effective marketing campaigns use a single business at their centre. More and more I am seeing industries engage in, "co-opetition." I was first exposed to the ideas only a few years ago at a tourism conference. In co-opetition several businesses within the same industry will pool their resources to promote their business.

For example: the golf courses locally pool their marketing resources to create a single promotional piece which explains how Owen Sound is a golf destination. It promotes the whole range of courses and gets avid golfers to the area where they may play a few courses rather than just one. I think it's a fantastic idea and I know there are other industries that take advantage of this kind of co-opetition.

Is your business one that would benefit from aligning itself with others?

The Annual Library Book Sale raised over $28,000 this year (several thousand dollars more than any other year in its history). This is a great opportunity for people to drop off boxes of books they're done with AND pick up new boxes of books. I tried really hard to spend $20 at the sale. I came away with 32 books and still had to give a $4 donation to get me up to the $20 mark.

In the marketing section of the sale I found a number of gems. Sometimes I recognized the author and sometimes I judged the book by its cover and bought it solely on the title. Here are a few of the books I found:

• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. This book is precursor to The Secret. If you don't know about it, find a copy and read it. Or at least watch some of his classic videos.
• The Money is the Gravy. I loved the title. I admit it.
• A Passion for Excellence by Tom Peters and Nancy Austin. Written in the 1980s I'm hoping to find some tips that apply to today as much as they applied to yesterday.
• Getting Through to People by Jesse Nirenberg. A somewhat hokey-looking book written in 1963 with the following back-cover claim, "the author reveals constructive ways to convey opinions, get your message across, or hold a group's attention—all using nothing more than clear thinking and persuasive considerate words!" and then it gets better and claims the book is, "A must for anyone who wants to achieve personal or professional effectiveness." How could I resist?!

Be sure to check to see if your own library has an annual book sale. It's a great way to support the public library, and you may just find a few new gems for your personal library. You can always donate the books back to the library when you're done with them.

Last week I picked up a gem of a book: Never confuse a memo with reality. Its format is incredibly simple a list of business lessons that are "too simple not to know." Flipping through the pages I found that I agreed with (almost) all of the lessons. Some were dead obviously things I already do daily, bunch were things I ought to do and only a few were things I flat out disagreed with. Sometimes it doesn't take an entire paragraph to state the obvious. Here are a few of my favourite lessons from the book:

• Always know who your client or customer is—no matter what your job is.
• Maintain a three-year rolling career plan.
• Be known as someone who enhances customer service.
• Make a "to do" list every day. Crossing things off the list is very satisfying.
• Never go to more than two meetings a day or you will never get anything done.
• Leave your office building at least once every day, even if it's January and you work in Anchorage. It will clear your head.
• Befriend your travel agent but don't try to be close friends with subordinates. (Actually that was two tips. But I cheated and squished them into one.)
• Never be the last to leave a company going downhill: your personal market value declines each additional day you stay.
• It may not be a small world, but there is a small number of people who count.
• Send thank-you notes to people who help you.

Do you have a few simple business lessons that are too simple not to know? Please share them by adding comment to this blog entry!