What's Best Next

You are here: Home / Archives for Matt Perman

Apple's Marketing Philosophy

by

This is the marketing philosophy that Steve Jobs learned from Mike Markkula in the early days of Apple, as summarized in Isaacson’s biography Steve Jobs. It clearly continued to guide Jobs’ thinking through his entire career and very much goes to the core of what sets Apple apart.

First of all, though, a point on business in general: “You should never start a company with the goal of getting rich. Your goal should be making something you believe in and making a company that will last.”

That is foundational to the next three points, because if you are only doing your business to make money, then it will be impossible to have the genuine passion for meeting customer needs that is essential for creating a long-lasting, effective company that people actually like. The foundation of effective marketing is one thing: to care.

Now, the three points on marketing.

  1. Empathy. Have an intimate connection with the feelings of the customer. “We will truly understand their needs better than any other company.”
  2. Focus. “In order to do a good job of those things that we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.”
  3. Impute. “People form an opinion about a company or product based on the signals that it conveys.” Thus, “if we present [our products] in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.” Hence, even the experience of opening the box is intended to “set the tone for how you perceive the product.”

Does the Gospel Change the Way We Work?

by

My interview on What’s Best Next with Stephen McGarvey, editorial director of Salem Web Network, has been posted over at Crosswalk.com.

Stephen asked great questions and the interview was a lot of fun! We talk about how this book is different from other productivity books on the market, why we need to start with God in our definition of productivity, the place of generosity in our productivity, and much more.

Martin Luther King on the Importance of Being Unconventional

by

The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority. ― Martin Luther King Jr.

Here’s another way to say it: God doesn’t call us to defend the status quo. He calls us to defend and pursue what is right. Sometimes, that’s the way things are currently done. But many times it isn’t.

We need to be able to identify the difference, and have the courage to create change where it is needed.

Speaking at Catalyst Labs October 1st

by

Come to Catalyst Atlanta this October 1 – 3!

Catalyst is the best leadership conference for young leaders who love the church. If you’ve never been to Catalyst before, it’s unlike any conference you’ve ever been to. It’s exciting, innovative, and yet grounded in excellent content and substance. Here’s a short description:

Catalyst unifies change makers — equipping you with impactful content and experiences that transform thinking, provoke action and cultivate community. We’re challenging leaders who love the Church to break the bounds of an ordinary existence and find the courage to embrace and radiate bold change.

Main speakers this year include Andy Stanley, Matt Chandler, Craig Groeschel, Tim Keller, John Perkins, and more.

If you come on October 1st, the day before the main conference starts, you can attend Catalyst Labs. I’ll be doing a lab session and would  love to see you. The title of my session is: All the Good You Can: How the Gospel Changes the Way You Lead, Get Things Done, and Change the World.

I believe it is possible to change the world, and that God in fact calls us to do so. It isn’t just an inspirational idea or a dream of people who like to think in big terms without doing the hard work to create that change. But we do need to understand changing the world in a God-centered way, and we need to understand how this affects the way we lead and the way we get things done. God has a particular way in which he wants us to change the world. We need to know what that is and how it affects everything we do. So that’s what I’ll be talking about in my session.

You can learn more about Catalyst Atlanta at the website, and register here. It would be great to see you there!

(And here’s a great, quick video on the vision for the conference:

Millennials: Bringing Back Entrepreneurship in America

by

This is a great post at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics on how Millennials are rejuvenating the entrepreneurial spirit in America after 30 years of decline, and how entrepreneurship is very much in sync with Christian values.

It begins:

Entrepreneurship has been in a slow decline over the past thirty years in America, according to a recent study by the Brookings Institution. Today, more businesses are failing than being created, as this graph shows.

But Millennials may be the generation to change this decline.

The National Journal reports that in 2011, 29% of all entrepreneurs were between twenty and thirty-four years old, and Millennials launched nearly 160,000 start-ups each month that year.

Is it possible that Millennials might bring back the entrepreneurial spirit?

Read the whole thing.

Self-Preservation: The Biggest Obstacle to Making Customers Happy

by

Gary Vaynerchuk starts his book The Thank You Economy in a way that illustrates this truth perfectly:

I’ve been living the Thank You Economy since a day sometime around 1995, when a customer came into my dad’s liquor store and said, “I just bought a bottle of Lindemans Chardonnay for $5.99, but I got your $4.99 coupon in the mail. Can you honor it? I’ve got the receipt.”

The store manager working the floor at the time replied, “No.”

I looked up from where I was on my knees dusting the shelves and saw the guy’s eyes widen as he said, “Are you serious?”

The manager said, “No, no. You have to buy more to get it at $4.99.”

As the man left, I went over to the manager and said, “That guy will need come back.”

I was wrong about that; he did come back. He came back a couple of months later — to tell us he would never shop with us again.

Now, I wasn’t any nicer than this manager, nor have I ever been a softie when it comes to business. However, though I was young and still had a lot to learn, I knew deep in my gut that he had made the wrong call.

The manager believed he was protecting the store from a customer trying to take advantage of it; all I could see was that we had missed an opportunity to make a customer happy.

Al Mohler: It is Not Enough to Have Good Theology — You Also Need to Know How to Lead

by

In his excellent book The Conviction to Lead, Al Mohler has a great section on “the two cultures of modern Christian leadership.”

The Believers

The first group knows a lot of theology, but not so much about leadership:

The problem is that the evangelical Christian world is increasingly divided between groups we might call the Believers and the Leaders.

The Believers are driven by deep and passionate beliefs. They are heavily invested in knowledge, they are passionate about truth. They devote themselves to learning truth, teaching truth, and defending truth. They define themselves in terms of what they believe, and they are ready to give their lives for these beliefs.

The problem is, many of them are not ready to lead [emphasis added]. They heave never thought much about leadership and are afraid that thinking too much about it will turn them into mere pragmatists, which they know they shouldn’t be. They know a great deal and believe a great deal, but they lack the basic equipment for leadership. As one proverbial deacon said of his pastor, “Oh, he knows a lot, but he can’t lead a decent two-car funeral procession.”

This is a big, big problem in my view. There are lots of reasons, but one of the biggest is that good theology actually gets discredited when nobody who holds that theology can actually lead. For example, when you are able to make great and true statements about the great doctrines of the Bible, but the things you say about leadership are completely wrong, it undermines your credibility. (Let me also add that just because you understand theology, it does not automatically follow that everything you think about leadership is right just because you think it; leadership is a discipline in its own right, and you need to learn it.)

Further, if people with good theology don’t know how to lead, then the church will eventually be led by people with bad theology. Hence, people who care about theology ultimately have no choice — they have to learn about leadership and learn to do it well.

The Leaders

On the other hand, there are many in the church who care much about leadership, but aren’t as clear on what they believe. Mohler continues:

The Leaders, on the other hand, are passionate about leadership. They are tired of seeing organizations and movements die or decline, and they want to change things for the better. They look around and see dead and declining churches and lukewarm organizations. They are thrilled by the experience of leading and are ardent students of leadership wherever they can find it. They talk leadership wherever they go and are masters of motivation, vision, strategy, and execution.

The problem is, many of them are not sure what they believe or why it matters. They are masters of change and organization transformation, but they lack a center of gravity in truth. They often ride one program after another until they run out of steam. Then they wonder, What now? 

The Solution

What’s the solution? The solution is that these groups need to come together. The believers need to learn more about leadership (and stop making fun of it! it is not mere pragmatism) and the leaders need to recognize the great value in diving deeper theologically (it does not have to distract from loving people or turn you into a rigid dogmatist).

Some people will always be more leadership oriented, and others will always be more doctrinally oriented, but at the end of the day the amazing thing is that good, biblical leadership is actually very theological — and good theology is also very leadership-oriented.

Here’s how Mohler brings things together:

You deserve to know exactly who I am and why I am writing this book. I want to turn the Believers into Leaders and the Leaders into Believers. My goal is to knock the blocks out from under the current models of leadership and forge a new way. I stake my life on the priority of right beliefs and convictions, and at the same time I want to lead so that those very beliefs are perpetuated in others.

If our leaders are not passionately driven by the right beliefs, we are headed for disaster. At the same time, if believers cannot lead, we are headed nowhere.

My goal is to redefine Christian leadership so that it is inseparable from passionately held beliefs, and to motivate those who are deeply committed to truth to be ready for leadership.

I want to see a generation arise that is simultaneously leading with conviction and driven by the conviction to lead. The generation that accomplishes this will set the world on fire.

Message Notes from Day One of the Global Leadership Summit

by

The Willow Creek Association Blog has a great summary of each of the messages yesterday from the Global Leadership Summit. Here they are:

They will continue posting notes from the messages throughout today as well, so check their blog periodically to stay up to date.