Outside’s Top 50 Companies for 2010
Apr 28, 2010 I Don't Like to Work
By: Greg Clement
Something really cool has happened to our team here
at Realeflow this month.
Outside Magazine and Best Companies Group voted
Realeflow one of the Top 50 Companies to work
for in the United States in 2010!
Every year Outside Magazine takes registrations from
non-profit and for profit companies across the United
States with at least 15 employees to be considered for
for their Top 50 Companies to work for list.
This is the first year that we put ourselves in the running.
Best Companies Group (Outside Magazine’s partner
on this) then sent every one of our employees a
confidential survey and an in depth employer survey to
get more information about our company, our policies
and best practices, and to find out what makes our
company unique.
Best Companies Group then analyzed every company
and chose the Top 50.
Realeflow was voted #34 just behind Patagonia,
Timberland, and Live Strong!!
Pretty cool to be on the list right next to some big name
companies!
It’s a strong testament to our team here and how serious
we take our role in helping YOU reach your dreams and
goals. YOU have helped us to become one of the fastest
growing and best companies in the country – so Thank
YOU!
Popularity: 49% [?]
Tags: greg clement, Outside's Top 50, teamwork
The Story of Happy Blankie
Dec 11, 2009 I Don't Like to Work
By: Greg Clement
This is a very important story…
Back about 6 months ago I got an email from a woman at
my church in Medina, OH. Her name was Emily Holdridge
and she was actually the wife of the youth pastor.
She asked me for some advice, and wanted to chat about her
struggling online business. So I was sitting in my office talking
with her on the phone and she started showing me her online
store.
It was a little gift boutique selling many different types of
things with not much traffic and lackluster sales. Her store
was set up just like any other store we see online or off, it
was selling someone else’s product, and she was making a
little bit of a spread on the markup.
One product caught my eye as we were going through the
website’s pages. This little piggy with a HUGE smile on
a blanket. The name “Happy Blankie” was written below
the product. I asked Emily what this was, and she got excited
and told me that this was the only product on her site that
was actually “theirs.” She told me the story, boy it was an
amazing one indeed…
David, her 7 year old son, had this idea… he wanted to take
his little sister’s 2 favorite things (her blankie and her stuffed
animal) and combine them into one.
The result was the first “Happy Blankie.” This little “blankie”
was one of the coolest things that I’d EVER seen. Now, I’m
a man I know, and I’m not supposed to be moved by little
things like this, but this really moved me.
As I started to ask her more questions I couldn’t stop thinking
about what a cool name “Happy Blankie” was. And how cool
this little idea was.
She told me the whole story from start to finish – how David
came up with the idea, how they created the very first one
by piecing fabric together themselves, how little kids literally
exploded with smiles when they saw the prototype.
We talked for about 30 minutes, I gave her some really good
ideas on how to get this off the ground, and then we hung up…
I told Kelly, my wife, about it and she thought it was an amazing
idea.
About a week went by, and then I got another email from Emily.
She was a little upset. You see my excitement got her excited –
as a matter of fact she was so excited she was getting upset
because she had NO idea what to do next and where to go to
make this thing happen. She had “sat” on this “Happy Blankie”
idea for almost a year, and over that time, many people gave
her the impression that yes it was a good idea, but it was just
an idea – they reminded her that she was the wife of a pastor
and not some big time businesswoman.
Ideas are very fragile, especially when placed out in
the real world where anyone can literally smash them
into oblivion. That’s a big reason why you need to protect
and nurture yours with everything you can muster.
She was scared, scared that she couldn’t do this on her own.
She was afraid of letting David and her other children down
by not bringing this thing to life. I told her that NO ONE does
anything of substance by themselves, that synergy is only
created when 2 or more gather together and do things as a
team.
I got involved – bigtime. Kelly my wife got involved. Her friend
Melanie got involved. Christina got involved. We built a team.
Now I’m going to fast forward a little. Then we had this idea
that it would be really cool (especially when we saw how kids
lit up when they saw and touched a Happy Blankie) if we gave
a Happy Blankie away for every single one we sold. We
could make kids smile all over the world.
We, as a team, BUILT a very cool business in 90 days from
start to finish. As a matter of fact, Happy Blankie just officially
launched 2 weeks ago.
We found a children’s orphanage in Uganda, a church in
Thailand, and St. Jude’s Children’s hospital to work with.
These are, as you know from St Jude’s, all amazing organizations
that directly and positively impact tens of thousands of children
literally all over the world.
So here’s what I’m hoping you will do next:
Go to www.happyblankie.com and purchase a Happy
Blankie. Stomp the Happy Frog, Giggle the Happy Pig, Chase
the Happy Dog, and Tumble the Happy Bear will make your kids
an AWESOME Christmas or Holiday present. For every Happy
Blankie you purchase we’ll be giving one away to a child
in need.
If you do this today, tomorrow, or Sunday (December 11-13th)
then not only will you get yours in time for Christmas BUT they’ll
also make our Christmas cutoff.
Our Christmas cutoff means that we want to get as many Happy
Blankies as possible in the hands of children less fortunate and
in need of a smile before the holidays are over. They need it now.
Use the word “FAMILY“ as your bonus code and you will actually
save an additional 20% off.
And I’ll literally show you the ENTIRE system we used to
build this business in less than 90 days.
We did some really cool things in building this business. Some
key things that if you learned would help you become a better
entrepreneur. I want to walk you through exactly what we did
and why we did it. After the holidays are over I’ll do a webinar
with our entire team on it that will show you… (take action now
and you’ll be invited)…
Stuff Like:
* Why we set up 2 separate entities for Happy Blankie, one
to hold the intellectual property and one to run the company. I’ll
explain what we used and why there’s no other way to build a
real business.
* How we came up with our USP “One to Love – One to Share”
and how we’re building the technology to allow our customers
to actually pick where they want their 2nd blankie to go.
* Why and how that idea above will engage our audience and
singlehandedly push our growth 40% or more in year one.
* How we are already in “celebrity getting” mode and positioning
our product for explosive growth. HINT: you should be all about
explosive growth business models.
* How we “did the math” to make sure we weren’t going broke
by giving one away for every one we sold AND why this idea
will actually triple the speed of our company’s growth over the
next 24 months.
* How we’re seeing the future and already coming up with ideas
like our “Endangered Species” line that is environmentally friendly
and has cool little animals like “Tobias the Tiger” and “Charge the
Rhino.”
Basically how to take an IDEA, put it into swift ACTION, and how
to drive PROFITS.
You’re going to love this blankie – I promise. They come with a
“Lifetime Guarantee” and you’ll be getting the very first batch of
a world class product, helping make a less fortunate child very
happy, and get to see “behind the scenes” on how we are building
this company out to be a socially conscious billion dollar brand.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas,
Greg
Popularity: 25% [?]
Tags: greg clement, Happy Blankie, motivation, teamwork
A Big Tip For Managing People The Right Way
Oct 23, 2009 I Don't Like to Work
By: Greg Clement
Below I’ve got a very powerful strategy that you
can use to build a BIG business.
One of the first things you need to do to GROW
your business is to get a little help. Maybe
it’s hiring an assistant, or an office manager,
or even a birddog…
YOU will have to focus on revenue producing
activities and put all the small repetitive
tasks on someone else’s plate – you’ll need
someone to delegate some of the workload to.
Delegation is one of the most important aspects
of your business. It’s what allows you to focus
on other areas of your business and to
drive tremendous revenues.
I don’t know if you know this, but there are
certain daily tasks you do in your business
that produce a return WAY OVER $200 per hour.
I know you know this – there are things that
produce nothing, but have to be done anyways.
You need to FOCUS your time on revenue producing
activities and you gotta be thinking about the
“highest and best use of your time.” (if you want
me to explain this more in detail I can in another
blog post, let me know by leaving a comment)
OK so let’s say you’ve got an assistant now, have
you noticed that you can delegate and still end
up doing 50% of the project and making most of
the decisions?
That’s because most people go about delegating
all wrong.
One of the most important things you need to do
when you delegate to someone is to make sure they
know that they have the freedom to be able to
complete the project on their own.
They need to understand that they only need to
communicate with you about the project when
they’ve either reached a milestone or have
run into a hurdle which will prevent them
from reaching a milestone.
I’m no different, I had the same problems.
For years, I had problems with my employees
making sure I was fine with every little
decision they made. The reality was that I
was totally cool with 95% of the decisions
they were making. And even the 5% that I
would have changed, weren’t a big enough deal
to make a big difference.
When I look back on everything, it turns out
that almost 100% of the little interruptions
in my business life could have been avoided
if I had been more clear when delegating to
my team.
That revelation alone has prompted me to
constantly come up with new ways to communicate
to my team that once they have good direction
and know exactly what to do, that they are to
execute on the project and are to only come to
me when they’ve reached a milestone or have a
road block that prevents them from reaching that
milestone.
My team members never really “got” that.
I’ve tried in vain to communicate this to people
over and over again and it’s only through the
use of a parable that my employees have really
been able to grasp what I’ve been talking about
and our production has skyrocketed since.
My parable is the story of the bus driver.
The bus driver, obviously, is the person driving
the bus (me). I am the leader of my company – I
drive the bus here. And we’re going places. We’ve
got a clear direction on where we’re going and I’m
in charge of getting us there.
Let’s pretend everyone else (my team) is along
for the ride and we’re all moving forward.
Now if somebody on the bus interrupts the bus
driver, who then gets distracted and takes their
eyes off the road, even for a split second, that
could mean disaster.
This is the same thing that happens when the bus
driver of a company is distracted. The driver has
to stop the bus, which really stops the progress
of the whole company to look at one small detail.
Chances are the person who distracted the driver
could have gone ahead and executed on their project
without bringing the bus to a screeching halt.
So it was through the use of this powerful story
that my team finally got the fact that every time
they interrupted me, they were literally stopping
the forward motion of the entire company.
So in order for this not to happen, it’s super
important for you to be very clear in your delegation.
The only way that you will stop this from happening
is to give explicit direction and make it clear that
they have the autonomy to complete the project
until they either hit a milestone or hit a brick wall.
This has made all the difference…
Popularity: 30% [?]
Tags: greg clement, maximizing time, Real Estate Investing, teamwork
NOT DEAD, CAN’T QUIT
Aug 1, 2008 I Don't Like to Work
I just wanted to post this link to an awesome inspirational video I came across. I found it on the “Never Die, Don’t Quit” website. It is all about teamwork and never giving up. You have got to check it out.
CLICK HERE to check out this amazing video.
Enjoy,
Greg
p.s. we got more cool stuff coming out in
the next 60 days then the last 2 years.
I’ll keep you updated.
Popularity: 56% [?]
Tags: mack, motivation, motivational speech, ndcq, oakland raiders, teamwork
