The book review for this week is Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller.
This is my pick for the business book of 2017!
In Building a StoryBrand Miller lays out his blueprint for building a highly focused business brand that makes the customer the hero of their own story. If you are not positioning your customer to be a hero (or worse, you are trying to make yourself the hero), you are not setting up your business for success!
My takeaway from this book is the StoryBrand framework shown below:
This past year was a year full of transitions, amazing challenges, and stunning opportunities!
It was a year that saw many extremes including:
Some businesses experienced amazing growth (NVIDIA, Google, Apple, Amazon) while some saw their business shrink (Sears, Macys, GE). Others saw their market shift in an entirely new direction. Some took advantage of this shift and others were damaged by it!
This unprecedented rate of change and marketplace complexity can cause business leaders no end of sleepless nights and stressful days! However, this is where Thinking Business can help you thrive!
There is unlimited expertise available from world renowned leaders on every imaginable topic . . . and it is all available to you for free!
This treasure trove of knowledge is easily available to anyone, anywhere through podcasts. All you need to do is subscribe and set time aside to listen and learn!
I listen to podcasts when I am driving, jogging, flying, or whenever I have a few spare minutes to sit, listen, and learn.
I subscribe to an eclectic collection of podcasts covering topics like business, religion, health and wellness, technology, history, politics, marketing, blogging, copyrighting, and many more! I find the wide ranging topics not only help me to learn but increase my creativity by finding connections between the diverse topics.
This instant access to free expertise is unprecedented and we, as business leaders, are doing ourselves a huge disservice if we are not taking advantage of it!
I am often asked what podcasts I listen to, so I have listed them below. I do not listen to each episode of these podcasts because there is simply not enough time in the day! I pick and chose the episodes that interest me and I delete the rest.
Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Facebook get much of their value through the use of Multisided Platforms (MSPs).
MIT Sloan define a multisided platform as “technologies, products or services that create value primarily by enabling direct interactions between two or more customer or participant groups.” For example:
MSPs are a very valuable and viable business model that creates value by reducing search or transaction costs for all participants.
Is your business leaving money on the table by not leveraging an MSP approach? Or, worse yet, are you leaving your business vulnerable to competition who have determined a unique MSP offering that threatens your existence?
What can you do to leverage the MSP strategy and how can you implement it in your business?
This is not my typical weekly blog post! I am looking for some very specific feedback from you.
Are there areas where you or your business need a little extra help to push through to the next level of success?
Most business leaders have an incredible drive to be successful and to make their business ventures successful. They are motivated to continually improve and grow as individuals and to transfer that growth and improvement to their business and their staff.
Not only do they want to provide for themselves and their family, they want to build a thriving and growing business that offers a solid career for their staff and makes an impact in their communities and in the world.
However, there are times where leaders hit a wall or get stumped by problems that limit their business success. I have been a business executive for many years and I have experienced the highs and the lows of business. I know what it is like to be hit with issues that limit business success so I can help!
I would like to know what problems you are facing so that I can enable you by providing relevant and helpful content and tools. Are you having issues with:
