newsletter archive.
(Previously published under the title Extreme Profits
under ISSN 1925-8941)
Focusing on efficiency, procrastination, innovation
It hasn't escaped me how much work I put into everything I do. Somehow, it feels like there's a lot of effort applied, but when I ponder the effort, it really isn't a lot in relation to the result.
If I spend two hours communicating an event to a wide audience, is that a lot of effort? Here are some numbers to consider in this instance: I sent personalized messages to 150 of my contacts in two hours and ended up making 24 sales. Is this a good return on effort? You bet it is! But you might say: How did you manage to send 150 messages in two hours? If you do the math, that's 1.25 messages every minute. Here's how I did it.
The fallacy of efficiency, how real leaders lead
In a corporate world where efficiency is the father of productivity, there is a startling counter-effect: The most efficient die early. Perhaps what is even more surprising is that organizations hell-bent on making all of their practices efficient do so at the expense of common sense.
It was Peter Drucker that said: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency that which should not be done at all."