0816_TOEFL-Test-and-Score-Manual-1997

282 ● 201 Great Ideas for Your Small Business
GREAT
Tom Peters—Forget Credentials
Tom Peters is a best-selling author, high-level consultant,
entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and fellow
IDEA
Vermonter. His wife, Susan Sargent, owns a textile and bedding company
based in Pawlett, Vermont.
Before starting the Tom Peters Group, which he sold in 1997, Peters
worked for McKinsey & Company, a management consulting firm, where
he eventually became a partner.
Peters admired Japanese companies and adopted many management
strategies from many them. A popular keynote speaker, he shared two great
ideas for small business owners with me.
1. Focus on a creative brand design. “Produce first-class marketing
materials for your company,” he said. “Find an innovative, young
design team on day one to create a Starbucks/Nike kind of feel for the
enterprise.”
Peters said you should then add your cool logo to “everything from
the web site to your business cards.” Although graphics and printing
are costly, “spend the money whether you are running a 12-table restaurant,
a 3-person company, or anything in between.”
2. Look beyond credentials. “Great businesspeople love hanging around
great people,” said Peters. “When you are building your team, my
advice is, ‘forget the certificates.’”
When he and Susan wanted to hire their first administrator for
the textile company, Peters said he took advice from Apple Computer
founder Steve Jobs. “Jobs said, ‘this is a company that from day one
intends on being insanely great. So, if you’re not insanely great—don’t
even think about applying.’”
“Well,” Peters said with a smile, “that approach may attract some
flakes you wouldn’t touch with a 20-meter pole—on the other hand, it
was great to see the responses from all over the map.”
Peters shared one last thought: “You gotta be damn good at something.
Your ‘it’ has to be fabulously special.”