This Is How It's Done: Smart Business Moves

21. Giving away the game In 1998, Whit Alexander and Richard Tait, founders of Cranium, distributed the game to baristas at Starbucks and to the stores themselves, so customers could sample it over a round of lattes.

22. Filing a flight plan David Neeleman's business model for JetBlue, which got off the ground in 2000, explicitly revolved around not twigging customers off. Neeleman's team assembled a long list of fliers' bêtes noires, then methodically came up with ways to eliminate them.

23. Tell your customers how to make money Greg Wittstock, founder of Aquascape, sells supplies to contractors who build elaborate backyard ponds. Early in this decade, he changed his industry with the 20/20 rule, which simply stated that every pond could be profitably built in 20 steps. The formula was a marketing coup, and Aquascape became the pond industry's go-to source for best practices.

24. Relocate. Assimilate. Return When Lou Hoffman decided to open a China office of his eponymous high-tech PR firm, he wanted a manager equally versed in the nuances of Chinese business and the culture of his agency. So, he relocated a promising Chinese recruit to his Silicon Valley headquarters for 14 months. The recruit worked on several accounts and burnished the company's reputation as a China expert. She opened the Beijing office in 2000.

25. Shopping for small fry It's amazing how willing large companies can be to divest themselves of small but healthy assets. In 2000, petroleum manufacturer and distributor Oil Service counted among its competitors several big oil companies. On a hunch, Oil Service's owner, Tom Langston, started calling the divisions and asking if they were for sale. Why not? came the response.

26. Return to sender (with invoice) In 2001, Joel Gaines, founder of website developer Third Rock Shops, started responding to spam with pitches of his own. In nine months, five of the spammers contracted for Third Rock's services.

27. "Do not press 1." A few years ago, Commonwealth Worldwide Chauffeured Transportation invested $50,000 in a phone system and promptly disabled those irritating menu prompts. Founder Dawson Rutter replaced that feature with a recorded message assuring clients that their calls would be answered in three rings -- which they nearly always are. Commonwealth's service is the theme of its industry and customer plaudits.

28. Fight it out amongst yourselves Whenever Maria Fee, founder and CEO of Kitba Consulting, expanded to a new city, she would select a fresh slate of advisers -- insurance agents, investment counselors, tax attorneys, financial planners. She did this by inviting two candidates for each post to her office, posing questions, and listening while they battled over the answers. Once her team was in place, she convened it whenever she faced a major issue.

29. How's it going? McDonnell, the founder of Applegate Farms, wanted to work out of his home in Pennsylvania rather than his company's New Jersey headquarters. He made it happen by ordering up a nexus of databases that give him and his managers access to a wealth of information. The masterstroke: McDonnell requires that employees spend a few minutes each week ranking themselves and their teams on a scale of 1 to 5. The data help McDonnell spot trouble before it happens -- from a comfortable distance.

30. We have seen the enemy, and he is fake Josh Linkner was contemplating his competition a few years ago and thinking it looked pretty sparse. His company, ePrize, which creates online promotions, was way ahead in its space, and Linkner worried about complacency setting in. What the company needed, he thought, was an archrival. So Linkner created one, a fictional company called Slither. Linkner began sending his team press releases touting Slither's latest triumphs and introduced it as a straw man in strategy meetings. "What would Slither do?" became a common question. Slither kept everyone sharp and ready for the day a real competitor came knocking.

 PREV  1 | 2 | 3 

Read more:

Sign-up for our Small Business Success Newsletter

Email Address: