Comments

That´s really Wow, Cathy. I´d like to thank everyone at ChangeThis (especially Kate) for their outstanding work. I´m more than pleased with them.

Posted by Felix Gerena at March 8, 2006 3:14 PM

Perfect end to my day! Relationships are the core to success in any business. Service is tremendous in making something good, spectacular. However if your systems aren't in place to deliver a quality product, no amount of service will help one maintain the sale over the long term. I can't wait to share this pdf with my employees! Thank you.

Posted by Chithra Durgam at March 8, 2006 6:30 PM

That was awesome!!! Can't wait to share this with my friends..Thanx a ton!

Posted by K.Sriram at March 8, 2006 8:51 PM

ChangeThis.com is a great forum for ideas of all kinds. Check out the writings of Seth Godin, Raj Setty and others. (This is also a shameless plug for my manifesto, which is about as insightful as 2 or 3 of Tom's 111... wow, that's humbling!)

Posted by Bob Allard at March 9, 2006 12:10 AM

Brilliant Tom!

I heard from 'Change This' today that my manifesto proposal 'Simplicity is the Key' has been accepted. I now have to write it by 5 April. I will be happy if it is half as good as TP's manifesto!

Thanks particularly to Felix for providing me with the idea and the inspiration from his excellent Manifesto 'The Life Cycle of the Creative Soul' - isn't that just a beautiful title?!

Posted by Trevor Gay at March 9, 2006 3:08 AM

Thanks - a fun read and more - a lifestyle checklist ... "everyone is in sales".

Posted by Sean at March 9, 2006 9:41 AM

This was a great read, but I have to admit that #1 rubbed me the wrong way. I don't think you can pit "doin' stuff" against planning, and I think it's a fundamental mistake to think of one in opposition to the other.

You can't get bogged down in the planning/strategy process, but I've seen what happens when clients try to act without strategy... and it's usually not pretty.

My full thoughts are here: http://www.adsthatsuck.ca/2006/03/09/strategy-vs-doin-stuff/

That being said, the point about being good at "plan B" is probably one of the most important points I've read about sales or marketing in a long time, and I'm probably a jerk for quibbling over 1 out of 111 really insightful philosophies.

Posted by Ryan Anderson at March 9, 2006 11:16 AM

Thanks Tom, it's nice to see the same stuff the people at GE Energy are paying for.

Posted by Steve at March 9, 2006 3:31 PM

Ryan, alas we are in disagreement. This was pretty much the entire idea of In Search of Excellence 24 years ago. Premise #1: too much talk, too litttle do. You know how I've touted Bossidy's book, Execution. Oddly, the event that triggered the 11 list was sponsored by GE, which is different from its big peers mostly due to ... an Ethic of Doing. This is a long discussion--for me it is THE discussion of my last 40 years, since I was a young J.O. in the Navy doing construction in Vietnam. There were guys who stayed in the office planning, and those of us who grabbed a transit and a hammer and just started building, letting the planners catch us if they could! (We got off on building, even when bad guys were shooting at us; they got off on planning.)

Posted by tom peters at March 9, 2006 5:26 PM

I agree, although I'm probably guilty of too much initial planning myself. By the time you're done doing 10 things, you'll probably already have accomplished the one thing that the planners decided should be done. Especially in the new economy. The golden rule is make the mistake before the other guy does. Because that mistake could well be the beginning of next-gen evolution.

Posted by Tom O'Leary at March 9, 2006 8:53 PM

It's the best thing I 've read all month - so much accumulated wisdom and real-life experience here. Life lessons, for all of life, home and work. I will be re-reading this regularly. Thank you very much.

Posted by Michael from UK at March 10, 2006 7:05 AM

Planning on the fly n'est pas - nano biz speed dictates it - try for perfect execution extremely fast = $$$.

Posted by Sean at March 11, 2006 4:37 PM