Like this article? PLEASE +1 it! Evan Signature
Evan Carmichael Top Header
Share for a Cause









WHY YOU MUST THINK BIG…AND SMALL ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS FOR SUCCESS

Written by: Nick Nanton

Article Overview: Steve Martin’s first huge comedy album was called, “Let’s Get Small.” I think that title is actually great advice for a business, particularly a big company. Because I find that the bigger they are, the worse they are at the small, but really important things that make it easier to do a deal with them. And I was just reminded of that fact recently.

Free Download - Networking: A Golden Opportunity to Build Your Personal Brand By Nick Nanton
Name: Email:

WHY YOU MUST THINK BIG…AND SMALL ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS FOR SUCCESS

Steve Martin’s first huge comedy album was called, “Let’s Get Small.” I think that title is actually great advice for a business, particularly a big company. Because I find that the bigger they are, the worse they are at the small, but really important things that make it easier to do a deal with them. And I was just reminded of that fact recently.

I’ve been putting together “The Ultimate Business Celebrity Mastermind” - an elite Mastermind group for some of my top clients, where we’ll travel around the country together and experience some things that usually only entertainment celebrities get to experience while also working with each other to build everyone’s businesses using a wide array of strategies that are working right now across multiple industries. As part of the package, I’m also including some really special Celebrity Events, two of which have been locked down for a white, the Grammys in L.A and the Kentucky Derby. Pretty cool, right?

The problem was that these events were so cool that, when it came to putting together the third and final Celebrity Event for the year, I wanted to make sure it could hold its own and didn’t look like a weak excuse for a celebrity event!

Since I do live in Orlando, and since I actually do have a family I like to see occasionally, I thought it would be nice to set up one of the events here. And there is a bunch of cool stuff to do in Orlando that is a great mix of business and entertainment, so I contacted a venue that I thought might work for this new Mastermind group.

But, again, since the Grammy night has bumped everything up a few levels, I wanted to make sure this place could deliver something special on their end. So I called my usual contact, who transferred my call to a really knowledgeable colleague. I was very upfront and said I needed something with the “Wow” factor to really make this work – and that she was, in effect, competing with Las Vegas, which was my other choice for a Celebrity Event site.

Anyway, she was very, very helpful and indicated she would work with me on making the event happen and at a magnitude that I’d be happy with. She’d email me contact details and we could go from there. Awesome.

Except this is where the problem started. She never sent the email. Instead, a week or so later, she called and left a voicemail with another colleague on the line - again, it sounded like these folks were all over this and ready to make it happen. She ended the message by saying I should call her back at a phone number with a very long extension attached to it, which in corporate America is not very unusual. What I usually do is just call back the number on caller ID and ask for the person I’d like to speak with instead of using the extension, mostly because I’m often driving or traveling when I return calls and I don’t have the best circumstances to stop and take notes! I looked at my iPhone for the caller ID – because, normally, I just hit the button that instantly calls back the person who left a message – and the number pops up on my screen as “Not Disclosed.”

A private number. In the words of many a comic book character, “What th-!”

I thought about the business associate I have in New Zealand. I can even push the callback button to get him on the line! And, at that moment, I didn’t have time to listen to her message again, write down a whole long of string numbers that probably would have taken two or three tries to get right and call the person back.

And so I kept the message, and kept meaning to find a time to call them back when I could write down the number.

In the meantime, I had continued to explore the Vegas option, which looked better and better as time went on. If she called back or sent me the email with her contact info in it, I would certainly still give the Orlando venue a fair shake, but my time was wearing thin! As I was working on the logistics of a vegas trip that would be both educational and entertaining, I hit the motherload! I was able to connect through a friend with Tony Hsieh, the billionaire CEO of Zappo’s, the online shoe selling phenomenon, and he agreed to host our Mastermind group at the Zappo’s facility in Vegas and do an in depth brainstorm and Q & A, revealing some of the secrets that made him the mogul he is today. That’s Grammy-caliber to business people and exactly the kind of event I was looking for. Orlando, sadly, was left on the outside looking in.

Don’t get me wrong – this venue is not about to go under because they didn’t host our Mastermind group. But they did end up missing out on tens of thousands of dollars worth of business – because they didn’t make it easy for me to get back in touch with them.

Which is surprising – on almost all counts, because the staff at this venue excels at customer service, they’ve always been great in the past. But the private phone number mistake is just the kind of little mistake a big company like that might not ever notice and correct.

When it comes to our own businesses, I think the mantra needs to be, as I said at the beginning of this piece, “Let’s Get Small.” We all think our own customer service is top quality, but are all our systems really seamless? Are we really making it as easy as possible for our clients and customers to connect and do business with us? Are sales phone calls being handled correctly by the people answering them? Or, worst of all, are calls from interested prospects just getting lost or unanswered?

Yes, the Orlando venue made a mistake. Let’s not make the same one with our own operations. Otherwise, after we’ve lost a big client, we might end up like they did, wondering why the phone isn’t ringing!

Related Articles
  Small Wins, Quick Success
  Don't Think Too "Small"
  Market unrest
  Small Business Owners: Do You Suffer From the Fear of Success?
  How to Make Sales and Marketing a Doable Strategy

Home > Small-Business-Consulting > Nick Nanton > WHY YOU MUST THINK BIGAND SMALL ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS FOR SUCCESS
Article Tags: array, celebrity event, celebrity events, comedy album, cool stuff, elite, entertainment celebrities, excuse, grammys, important things, kentucky derby, mastermind group, multiple industries, rsquo, span style, steve martin, stuff to do in orlando

About the Author: Nick Nanton
RSS for Nick's articles - Visit Nick's website

Nick Nanton, Esq. is known as The Celebrity Lawyer and Agent to the top Celebrity Experts for his role in developing and marketing business and professional experts, through personal branding, to help them gain credibility and recognition for their accomplishments. Nick is recognized as the nation’s leading expert on personal branding as Fast Company Magazine’s Expert Blogger on the subject and lectures regularly on the topic at the University of Central Florida. His book Celebrity Branding You® has been selected as the textbook on personal branding at the University.

Nick is recognized as one of the top thought leaders in the business world and has co-authored five best-selling books, including the breakthrough hit Celebrity Branding You!®.

Nick serves as editor and publisher of Celebrity Press™, a publishing company that produces and releases books by top Business Experts. CelebrityPress has published books by Brian Tracy, Mari Smith, Ron Legrand and many other celebrity experts and Nick has led the marketing and PR campaigns that have driven more than 100 authors to Best-Seller status. Nick has been seen in USA Today, The Wall St. Journal, Newsweek, The New York Times, Entrepreneur® Magazine, FastCompany.com. The Huffington Post and has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX television affiliates speaking on subjects ranging from branding, marketing and law, to American Idol.

 



Click here to visit Nick's website
Dashed Line

More from Nick Nanton
Why YOU Are Such an Important Part of Celebrity Branding
Personal Branding Using Your Blog
Celebrity Branding You The 8th Deadly Sin ThoughtSourcing
Dont Get Lost in the Crowd
Personal Branding It Pays to be the Expert


Related Forum Posts
Re: SEEKING PRIVATE OR ANGEL INVESTOR Re: SEEKING PRIVATE OR ANGEL INVESTOR - Definitely have a thorough and accurate business plan. In the US, you can get help at SCORE - their website is full of great information and you can check for local chapters. If you would like a book that has all kinds of great information about financing options - this one is very good --- HOW TO GET THE FINANCING FOR YOUR NEW SMALL BUSINESS: INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS FROM THE EXPERTS WHO DO IT EVERY DAY—WITH CD-ROM This new book will provide you with a road map to securing the financing. The book goes into traditional financing methods and assists the reader in setting up proper financial statements and a proper business plan. It details the differences between debt and equity financing and how and why to use each. Valuation techniques are explained for determining what your business is truly worth. However, the book’s real strength is in explaining alternative and creative methods of financing, such as SBA financing, investor angels, IPOs, limited public offerings and venture capital. Essential resources for finding the detailed information you need are included throughout. Item # 9780910627559 $39.95 Shri
Re: Clarity Trumps Persuasion Re: Clarity Trumps Persuasion - Jeff, Thanks, great stuff !!! Clarity or "KEEP IT SIMPLE" is probably the best advice anyone can ever give or get when involved in any business or personal situation. Over 30 years of manufacturing ladies apparel has taught me two critical business lessons: 1-You will never get a 100% perfect outcome so In the BEGINNING,take your time, exhaust all your resources and energy and plan, plan, plan. . . If it STARTS off right it you'll get close to the desired outcome. 2-Keep it simple I now will add "Clarity" to my formula for success. CLARITY AND KEEPING IT SIMPLE BREEDS SUCCESS . . . . I know the advice above is simple but isn't that what it's all about. Thanks Ringo, This information not only was great for my website but it reminded me that "keeping it simple and clear" got me and my teams through some wicked situations Best wishes Barry
Re: I want to make money online Re: I want to make money online - First, I'd say definitely online. Your $3,000 will go a lot further online than offline. Second, I'd read Kevin's list and the linked article and make a BUSINESS decision what you want to do, what you can offer and who you can sell it to. Do some serious keyword search and find a hungry niche, and this is your start (free). Second step (free): Sign up for clickbank, paydotcom or some other affiliate exchange and find suitable products to promote. Third step (free): Get a free site somewhere, but make sure it's on something that looks like its own domain - yourname.wordpress.com or yourname.blogspot.com or some such. Write some nice things that promote your affiliate products and put your affiliate links on the page. Fourth step (free): Go on article directories like evancarmiahcel.com (if appropriate) or ezinearticles.com and write stuff that is interesting for your niche, using your niche keywords. Put a link to your new site in the resource box/bio. Keep doing this until you make money. My kids (18 and 12 at the time) sold stuff on clickbank. Anyone can do this. Good luck!
Are you Self Employed or a Business Woman? Are you Self Employed or a Business Woman? - Us women are especially vulnerable to thinking we can do EVERYTHING ourselves! I'm not immune to this way of thinking either. (It seems to go with the territory of having XX chromosomes and growing up in our North American culture.) Anyhow, this kind of thinking can actually trip us women up when it comes to business. I've heard it said that a true business is something you create that can eventually run by itself. A business is meant to give us freedom and not tie us down. A business works FOR YOU. If you are the one working FOR YOUR BUSINESS, then I invite you to open up to the possibility of using your entrepreneur skills to recreate a business that works for you. When I was first challenged on this concept, it was a huge AHA moment. I am grateful because I realized I was still a little stuck on working harder instead of working smarter. I've opened up to a whole new world of possibility and now I'm thinking MUCH BIGGER than before. I expect my income will be much bigger as well. In all honesty, I've realized that my coaching business has been a glorified job. I will still do coaching because I love to do it, but now I am in the process of developing multiple streams of income that use my time more efficiently and products that sell even while I'm on holidays. I'm also developing a retail store which will eventually mostly run itself. Then I will move on to my next project. It's liberating to be on the path of creating businesses that work FOR me. This is how I can run multiple companies without wearing out! In fact, I plan on having MORE time for me. So, what are you doing? Are you self employed or running a business?


Recommended Article for You close

  Small Wins, Quick Success

Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.



Featured Article


Bottom Footer
Share for a Cause












Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!
Name:
Email:
Popular Articles

Ten Things You Can Do To Be a Better Leader

Creating a Better Place to Work

Induction – your first management job

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.