by Karl Sakas on July 29, 2010
Before they veered into “get-rich-quick” schlockiness, I attended several Learning Annex classes in New York. Adult ed topics ranged from a real estate workshop to a talk by SoBe drink founder John Bello (who surveyed the audience about who drank Red Bull and then said, “Congratulations — you just paid twice as much for half a can of Mountain Dew!”).
But the best-marketed class on their schedule — which I didn’t take — was called “How to Marry a Millionare.” Its tagline was, “The Rich Are Going to Marry Someone… Why Not You?”
Now, I’m not going to endorse being a gold digger. But it’s smart marketing — their promo instantly connects with the target demographic.
When a friend was a college freshman, her mother advised her to “go jogging by the law school.” If that’s your priority in life, well… where there’s a will, there’s a way.
What’s your favorite tagline?
by Karl Sakas on July 28, 2010
by Karl Sakas on July 26, 2010
1953 lecture on employee empowerment
My grandfather was a business professor and management consultant from the 1940s to the 1980s. One of his specialties was helping companies work more cooperatively with employees. I recently came across a lecture he gave in Washington, DC in 1953.
He shared an employee empowerment story that BP and Transocean ought to have read before the Deepwater Horizon disaster:
Two years ago I worked for the New York Central Railroad observing some of its operations. … It was a hot August day. This fellow was sitting in this tower with the sun shining brightly. I said, “What is it you don’t like about your job?” “These d— blinds. See how the sun is boiling in the window?”
[I said,] “Have you asked anyone to get blinds put in? Why don’t you speak to somebody about it?” He pulled out an old envelope and said, “Here are all the people I talked to. They even came out here and measured them. I still haven’t gotten the blinds.”
Then he said: “Do you see that car? It has 60 tons of explosives on it. I’ve got the brake clear back to the fourth notch and I can’t stop the car. Every once in a while a car goes off the track and ties up the whole yard.” “What is wrong?” “It is this [emergency] brake. It just doesn’t work.” “Have you asked anybody to fix it?” “H—, no. Why should I? They didn’t do anything about the blinds. Why should I bother them about the brake?“
Empowering frontline customer service employees leads to happier customers. But while marketing is important, it isn’t life-or-death. When frontline operations employees don’t feel empowered to report problems to upper management, it can lead to terrible, avoidable consequences. And there’s no excuse. We’ve known that for 60 years.
What would it take to make you — or your employees — more empowered?
