Archives for Branding

Insider Trading with Warren Buffett: The embarrassing truth from a non-believer

Who the heck is Jim Kilts?   My oldest brother is friends with Jim Kilts.  Mr. Kilts was the Chairman of the Board of Gillette before it got sold to Procter and Gamble.  It was at Gillette that Kilts developed a relationship with Warren Buffett and where they came to know each other’s strengths.   When Buffett resigned from the board of Coca Cola he recommended Kilts to take his place because “he is one of the great businessmen in America.”  Turn the clock ahead and Gillette gets sold to P&G and Kilts is “in between jobs.”   It was during this time
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Lessons at the door of a hotel: The Do’s and Don’ts of Marketing Your Business

It was 3:00 in the morning at a Marriott hotel in north Dallas.  You know how you awake to that feeling that something is just not quite right.  I heard a loud argument through the wall to the next room, looked at the fire red clock display and thought, “Are you kidding me, who has the energy to be awake and arguing at this hour?” There came the slamming door in the hallway.  A few minutes of quiet where interrupted by banging on MY door with the accompanied female yells of “LET ME IN!”  I hurried to the door and
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What does YOUR name stand for? >=

I was giving a workshop and someone raised their hand and asked, “Kordell, where do we buy a copy of that material?”  I responded with a little too much flippancy, “just call 1-800-Kordell and I will get it for you.”  After the session one of the workshop participants approached me and asked the question, “So Kordell, what are the numbers in your 800 number?”  “Oh no, no.  I don’t have that number.  What I was trying to say is that you can just call me and I will get you the material.”   I thought, boy you better be careful, you
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Four out of Three People Have Problems with Fractions – How to Really Grow Your Business

Since 37.843% of all statistics are made up, how do you know what you should be measuring? (grin) This is a rant on numbers.  Not just any number but one particular item and how it impacts your world. These are the days of eliminating the number of commas in your world.  What?  Commas.  You know those nifty little period symbols with a tail.  They, the coma, will allow you, and anyone else, to write sentences, and those, with independent clauses (OK . . . so I only got 6 commas in this sentence.) I have a problem with commas when
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Hugging a Wind Gust – How Smart Business People Do IT.

Like any hang glider knows, it is hard to control the wind.  What about Reed Hastings and Netflix?  A decade ago he was embarrassed to tell his wife about late fees on a video rental he forgot to return.  A trip to the gym had him thinking, “why can’t I make renting a DVD video like my membership at the gym?  You pay a flat rate per month and use it all you want.”   Does Blockbuster wish they could turn back the clock and not charge this one guy a late fee?  Here comes a wind gust.   Now Mister Hastings
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Don't Drink the Woolite

Don’t ask.  I can’t tell.  Her name will stay anonymous. She was on cruise control as she readied herself for the daily grind.  With an aspirin sized headache she looked around for liquid to help down a couple of Tylenol.  She spied the small glass of liquid, threw back the pills and washed them down handily with the glass of “water”. That was when she remembered that she had filled that glass with Woolite a few days before.  This handy dandy cleaning solution – that will do wonders for “your sweaters and unmentionables” – had done a wonder in disguising
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Leadership should smell like Miracle Whip

Kraft Mac & Cheese, pantyhose, and Apple iPods.  When times get tough, we see the emergence of true leadership and vision.  The choice is to wallow in pity, self doubt and second guessing or – to act and charge ahead, WITH COURAGE.  It is during hard times that we most need to look for opportunities, to get creative, to hone our capabilities and look for new ways to succeed.  In the recession of 2001 and 2002, General Electric, with billions of dollars of sales in light bulbs failed to keep up with the inventiveness of rivals who were developing more-efficient
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I stole a souvenier from the Ritz – Kordell's antics are fixed by Nine Professionals

It has been ten years.  That is what the celebration is all about.  Ten years ago Jim Gilmore and Joe Pine wrote the book, the Experience Economy.  If you have not read it . . . you probably ought to consider it.  More about that in a moment. I met Jim for the first time when he was a consultant to our company in Texas.  I had no idea that he would, in the future, co-author a book that would change my life and the way that many Fortune 500 companies did business. I have to say that my first
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What Should YOUR Business Look Like In a Speedo?

Mike Vance is, in my opinion, one of the greatest business speakers in the last 100 years.  His work on developing creativity is cornerstone.  He introduced the three methods to create something.  Those were: Invention Invention (i.e. the light bulb) Invention Extension (i.e. the flashlight) Invention Devention (see below) An old Nike T-shirt had a saying plastered across the front that read, “The older I get the better I was!”  That is me.  Believe it or not, there was a time when I was the captain of the swim team -many, many, many pounds ago with the svelt torso to
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I Almost Ran Over Mister Incredible – an incredible customer experience

I was just finishing a meeting at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Columbus when pulling out of the hotel breezeway, I was brought to a screaming stop by Mr. Incredible. Actually in the world of Customer Experiences, there is not many that measure up to The Arnold Classic.  Each year 150,000 atheletes and visitors converge on the Columbus, Ohio Convention Center for this yearly event. What started as a body building expo for steroid and testerone overdosed Herculian types has now morphed into competition for fencing, archery, karate, and a dozen other sports. Now the interesting thing to note is
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