The Book Depository Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz
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Price: £24.99
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: Pumpkin Plan : Hardback : Penguin Putnam Inc : 9781591844884 : 1591844886 : 05 Jul 2012 : After experiencing the punishing grind in an effort to build his first start-up, Mike Michalowicz developed the Pumpkin Plan. Inspired by the same methods farmers use to grow giant pumpkins, it offers entrepreneurs a simple strategy for growing a wildly successful business that dominates the competition. while still making it home for dinner. The Book Depository Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9781591844884
MPN: 1591844886
GTIN: 9781591844884
Author: Michael Herberts
Rating: 5
Review: I swear to any sceptics out there that every word you read here is true and is based on an email I sent to the author. I don't know him personally and have never met him...but I would like to so that I can shake his hand. Hi Mike, I don't know if you read responses from your autoresponder but. I owe you....I mean I really owe you. 4 weeks ago I had the 'you gotta find a job' conversation with my customer service manager (he is one of my sons) and it was a sad and tearful day. We were this close to going under...I reckoned we had a month at best to do something about it. I read Pumpkin first (I responded to your blog you may recall) and was SO excited, elated, relieved I cried...more than once in the last couple of weeks. We started weeding, looking for our sweet spot surveyed our great customers....removed all the others from our autoresponder sequence..(THAT FELT GOOD) and are launching something brand new to our loyal customers. I have to hold off the launch because, what I (they) came up with needs to be patented if possible. It'll still be a huge success for us without the patent but WITH patent we are into A really big PAYOFF. I knew the instant I read the book that we were going to be OK and that's before I moved a muscle. It all just made so much sense. No financials til launch day but I'll let you know how it goes. We now (after 7 years) know exactly what/were our sweet spot is. Our area of innovation is now clear to us....(it hasn't been til now) Our immutable laws are very similar to yours and we are in the process of automating all the easy stuff first...then we'll move onto the things we thought we could never automate. What can I say Mike? This prolly reads like crap but I promise every word is true. We were all but finished with our lovely little business and now I'm seriously looking at taking us to the $5.000,000 mark in 5 years with total confidence. TPE I read last week and loved it. Just ordered another copy of Pumpkin...my son nicked the first one. Thankyou, thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou , thankyou
Author: William Davenport
Rating: 4
Review: Good information. Good motivation. Good, real life examples. It reminds me of Al Reis' book FOCUS. It is hard to do more than one thing really well so focus on that and keep cutting back the 'weeds' was the general message. Good advice on firing customers. I liked the thought that the customer is NOT always right. Only the customers that we like are always right and by moving heaven and earth to take care of them will we magnify our businesses growth potential. Fire the jerk customers and reward the like-minded ones. We run a small family business and even before reading this book I fired a customer last year. They were a huge part of our business. They paid like a slot machine. But they were time consuming jerks too. They didn't appreciate us. So against everyone's advice, I fired them. It was a difficult decision but after that we had lots more time to focus on our non-jerk customers and to go out and get additional business from people we liked and who liked us. I'd say with that one customer execution we doubled our business. So it works. I liked the book's example of his computer services business continuing to focus their target on a financial services customers and then the strategies go get more like-minded customers (you know, the ones who actually appreciate the work you do for them) from within that group. And I agreed 100% with the author that asking our good customers for referrals is not a good idea. It puts them on the spot. What if they recommend you and you screw up? Yeah, that's in their mind. But the book gives some great strategies on how to get those referrals while removing the risk for your existing customer; to the point they can't wait to give you referrals. Even though you may not find examples that are an exact match to your business -- I didn't -- the principles Mr. Michalowicz espouses will. Read this and give FOCUS a go too.
