Tag: Guy Kawasaki

I met a lot of great people at the Inc. 5000 conference that I attended a couple weeks ago in Arizona. The Inc 5000 is an annual list of the 5000 fastest growing private companies in America.  As a four-time repeat honoree, I figured it was probably about time I attended on behalf of Outskirts Press self-publishing in case we didn’t make it on the list next year (for mathematical reasons, it becomes increasingly harder to stay on the list, even if your company continues to grow, as Outskirts Press has). How surprised was I to discover that it’s not even necessary to be on the Inc. 5000 list to attend. Many of the people in attendance represented companies with aspirations to be on the list, and were seeking advice from the speakers and other attendees on how to accomplish the feat.

In fact, the more I talked with people, the more I discovered Outskirts Press was in rare company to have been on the list 4 times in a row.  In fact, we will become part of quite an exclusive list if we do make the list again next year. Cross fingers.

I also discovered that it is necessary to attend to receive your actual physical award for your accomplishments. I just figured they would mail it to us. Nope. You have to go in person, apparently, if you want your award. Now I wish I had gone the first time, too, when Outskirts Press was number 268 on the list, since the Inc 500 awards are different from the Inc 5000 awards (ironically, they’re physically smaller — probably because with one less 0, they don’t need to be as big). While standing in line for our photo ops, we had quite a laugh about that! (Yes, the champagne was flowing).

Next time, the #1 way to enchant your clients, customers, (or in our case, authors), according to Guy Kawasaki, who was my personal favorite speaker at the conference.

Before I continue with the last two categories of awards in our Self-Publishing Achievement Awards (marketing achievements and marketing milestones), I’d like to briefly cover the Inc. 500/5000 conference I recently attended in Phoenix. Among the speakers were Nick Woodman, the CEO of Go Pro; Captain Mark Kelly, Commander of the space shuttle Endeavour’s final mission; and my personal favorite among all the speakers, Guy Kawasaki, founding partner of Garage Technology Ventures, who covered 10 steps to enchant customers.

Over the next few days and weeks (and probably months), I’ll discuss each of the 10 steps Guy discussed, and examine how I feel our self publishing company Outskirts Press delivers within the parameters of those steps — what we do well and what we can focus on improving.

If you are an entrepreneur, manager, business owner, or author, examining how your service or product fulfills these 10 steps of “enchantment”  would be an equally excellent exercise.  Then, jump over to Amazon and buy Guy’s book. <– Shameless plug but based upon his speech, I’ll bet he’d do the same for me.