The Dead Company Club

The Company is Gone But We Live On.

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What Matters Now: Advertise by giving it away

December 18th, 2009 · Finding a job, Series, Solutions

whatmattersnow1lenfantterrible


“What Matters Now” is what matters now

First of a series

Yesterday I wrote that the new eBook, “What Matters Now” is a must-read for business people, especially anyone who has recently been ejected from a long-term job.

I was wrong.  Anyone should read it who wants to be in the know about what direction the world is taking and what they should be doing about it. In a new series I’m going to highlight several points that the book rams home. Not to detract from reading it, but to share what I think are some radical shifts from traditional thinking.

Let’s take advertising and marketing. One essay is titled “Attention”. It begins:

“You can buy attention (advertising).
You can beg for attention from the media (public relations).
You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales).

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it on line for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.”

Does this work? Isn’t it a threat to your hard-earned, valuable expertise? You be the judge.

Let’s say you’re looking for a job. Everyone knows what a challenge that is right now, so you decide to set up a blog that highlights your experience. You do a little reading and find out you should use lots of key words to make sure people will find your site. But you don’t know how to set up a blog and you don’t want to become a web designer. Still, you want it done fast and without spending a lot.

Take a look at Johnny Truant. Johnny will set up a blog for you for free. When you’re ready to do more, Johnny can be your “virtual assistant,” helping you enhance your blog remotely or providing extensive online training materials. He charges for these services. Would I hire him to do the expert stuff needed to make my blog a success? You bet.

Johnny makes money by selling his services, but he attracts customers by giving his services away. This is the new advertising. Set aside your old biases and provide value for free. You’ll get far more in return.


Laurie Phillips is a freelance writer and a member of The Dead Company Club.

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Important Trends You Missed While You Were Employed

December 17th, 2009 · Motivation, Series

New business trends that you missed while you were employed


I did a lot of soul searching when my company closed. Did I love my work, or just love what it enabled me to do?

Many of my colleagues grabbed offers from competitors, but I chose a new path. I became an entrepreneur and a consultant to other entrepreneurs. Ultimately I started four companies and worked with many more. And boy, did I learn how ignorant I was.

I was an expert in one subject in my former job. I didn’t need to know anything about emerging trends like Twitter, micro-manufacturing or green business. I learned – thanks to many strangers who offered valuable expertise for free – what I had missed. And there was a big gap.

If your corporate cocoon has cracked open recently, there is a new business world you should know about. A newly released eBook, “What Matters Now,” is a must-read. The book is a collaborative effort by dozens of authors, journalists and activists who preach the facts of leading edge business and corporate interaction. Each has written a “micro essay” of about 140 words. It’s easy reading but incredibly valuable in its simplicity.

Consider the opening essay by Seth Godin titled “Generosity.” It begins:

“When the economy tanks, it’s natural to think of yourself first. You have a family to feed, a mortgage to pay. Getting more appears to be the order of business.

It turns out that the connected economy doesn’t respect this natural instinct. Instead, we’re rewarded for being generous. Generous with our time and money but most important, generous with our art.

If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved.”

The topics are delightfully diverse, and I’m glad I don’t agree with all the opinions because I really don’t know it all. If you’re pondering your future, take a few hours to absorb some important trends before you make your list of resolutions for the new year. And, as the authors suggest, if you like what you read, pass it on.

Laurie Phillips is a freelance writer and President of Sundance Research, a network for writers and editors.


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How to Get Your Reputation Back

October 27th, 2009 · Uncategorized

ghost


“My reputation grows with every failure.”

– George Bernard Shaw


A NEWSWEEK story begins:

“Lehman Brothers disappeared with Hank Paulson’s reputation. He wants it back.”

“Hank Paulson, former master of the universe, sits in a nondescript office in northwest Washington, D.C. He is trying to work on his memoirs, but he is struggling. He doesn’t seem like the onetime All-Ivy tackle at Dartmouth, the Harvard M.B.A. who ran Goldman Sachs, the prince of Wall Street who went on to be come secretary of the Treasury. He comes across more like an athlete who has lost a game and can’t stop talking about the dropped pass, the missed shot. He is trying to explain the weekend last September when Lehman Brothers went down—and the financial world collapsed.”

The story goes on:

“The conventional wisdom, he admits, congealed quickly: it was a mistake for the government to let Lehman die, and the blame rested squarely with Hank Paulson.” (NEWSWEEK May 25, 2009)

—————–

I have some thoughts to share with Hank.

—————–


Henry Paulson, Former Secretary of the Treasury
Nondescript office
Northwest Washington
Washington, DC
USA

Dear Mr. Paulson:

So Lehman torched your reputation, huh? I’m sorry to hear that. I’m very familiar with reputation damage, as are many others here. After my company crashed people walked away from me after they heard where I had worked. So many people were hurt, losing their life savings, their homes and their jobs that I became their enemy simply by association, as if it were all my fault.  Sound familiar?

There’s good news though.  I found a simple fix to reputation damage that has helped everyone who has tried it. It works like this:

If you want your reputation back, earn it.

Best wishes.

P.S. If you’re still struggling with your memoirs, please call me. I’m a ghostwriter, and not just during Halloween.


Thank you h.koppdelaney, for your flickr.com photo.

Laurie Phillips is a ghostwriter, but she wrote this all by herself.

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New Careers for Old Dogs

August 20th, 2009 · Finding a job, Motivation, Solutions


hotdog


“‘Tis dogs’ delight to bark and bite,” thus does the adage run. But I delight to bite the dog when placed inside a bun.”                                                                                                                                                                                                           – the Yale Review, 1895


“Lets open a hotdog stand downtown,” said a friend one day as we surveyed the park from the unemployed bench. I frowned. Hotdogs were not part of my plan for corporate re-entry. I had haunted job boards, pestered my network of recruiters and former colleagues, and chased well-dressed business people cutting through the park on their way to somewhere important. I would rise again. I had no intention of heaving my accomplishments aside and starting over.

New possibilities

But my long-slumbering brain stirred. I wouldn’t really be selling hotdogs – I’d be in the consumer products business. I’d write a business plan, hire some operators and apply my marketing tricks. As soon as I had the formula down, I’d open more stands. Voila.

Suddenly the cloud darkening my future lifted. I didn’t have to work with very important people at very large companies to be a success. I never imagined that my business school classes about forming Newco would be useful, but I was glad to be wrong. All I needed was to lighten up – and open up – to new possibilities.

Two steps to rewriting your future

Alternate careers are not an admission of defeat. There are plenty of stories about people who made a change successfully, such as the investment banker turned baking instructor. Talk to your former colleagues. You might be surprised at how many are asking themselves whether they should consider a drastic change. Do some communal brainstorming and let your ideas get wild and crazy.

Next, take the list home and chew on it. Come up with a reason NOT to do each thing before you discard it. You’ll benefit even if you choose to continue in your former career because, very simply, creative thinking changes how you feel. It replaces those crappy, insecure, unemployed feelings with momentary freedom. And who knows: maybe you’ll become the next Wiener Wonder.


Laurie Phillips does not own or operate a hotdog stand but she does write business plans for those that want to do so.

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You Are Not Alone

August 11th, 2009 · Company profiles, War stories

notalone


“You are not alone.”                                                                                                                                         – Michael Jackson

In a Sigourney Weaver movie, “You are not alone” is a lot less comforting than it is here. There are lots of us, we who “used to work at…” Some of our former companies made a big enough splash with their final cannonball that they’ll be remembered for some time. In that spirit, here are two great articles that take a roll call of the best known companies who no longer exist.

2001 to 2009 was fertile ground for famous corporate bankruptcies.  Gary Bartzel begins with Pacific Gas & Electric in 2001 and covers the great collapses that hit the energy, transportation, communications and financial industries. He ends in 2009 with the annihilation of the Fortune 500 and business as a whole. Just kidding. Only part of the Fortune 500 tanked, but almost all the U.S. auto industry is vying for inclusion.

BloggingStocks.com also took a walk down memory lane and featured this group of defunct companies.  There are some classic names like DeLorean and Pullman (as in choo-choo). There’s a catch-all for “dot-com busts”. They didn’t forget the criminals’ hollow empires like ZZZZ Best, the Ponzi scheme disguised as a carpet cleaning company. Carpet cleaning? Pretty unimaginative but, on the plus side, the work jumpsuit fits about the same as the prison jumpsuit.

BloggingStocks.com reached way back, reminding us that company closures are not a new thing. Remember Standard Oil? Liar. It was shut down by the Sherman Anti-Trust act in 1911. Those wily bastards  split the company into three parts and named them Chevron, Exxon and ConocoPhillips (no relation). Perhaps this arrangement allowed Standard Oil to live on and compete with…itself?

There are more classic bits of Americana such as Burger Chef, PanAm and American Motors. If you were alive at the time, you can’t forget the Gremlin. How about that Pacer? AMC was a specialty manufacturer of truly ugly cars.

Ahhh, the good old days. What other companies do you remember fondly?

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