Yanik’s March Maverick Musings…

Maverick Miles & Musings

Welcome back from Underground®!

It was great seeing so many Mavericks at the future trends pre-day and throughout the event. Thanks to a few of you who ended up buying bracelets from Zack and Zoe, my two little entrepreneurs in the making. I was proud to see them out there hustling!

At the Underground® I was super excited to share 2 brand new presentations. The first on Community Code 2.0: Creating Tribes of Beloved Brand Builders and my closing keynote on Evolved Enterprise™. It was truly an honor to receive a standing ovation for the material. I’m really excited to explore this further and develop it in my next book.

All Mavericks will get copies of the recordings as soon as they are made available so be on the look out. But as a quick preview here’s the concept in a 5-minute recap along with my doodle.

The Evolved Enterprise™ is a way to go from a simply transactional business to a transformational one and eventually a transcending business.

It’s about creating a venture that authentically comes straight from your true essence, wrapped around a meaningful cause (your WHY or impact) and then develops the Community, Culture and Creation itself.

Business in the 21st century can be leveraged as a multiplier for good…co-creating something great. The Evolved Enterprise™ delivers an exceptional customer experience, team alignment, cause-related impact, greater meaning and EVEN increased profits.

And the most interesting part is that all of this is actually good for business in several ways. Take a look at this graph showing companies featured in the Firms of Endearment book vs. the S&P 500:

That’s pretty solid, right?

There’s new research I see consistently about customers having a preference to buy a product that creates an impact in some way. Sharing the story behind the IMPACT is a big part of what we’re covering in the Maverick 3X Retreat: Story Selling in Los Angeles in May. (One of the guest icons is the producer behind Pretty Woman, Gary Goldstein.)

[Note: sign up at http://maverick1000.com/la/] 

I know of a several new examples of companies who are getting the IMPACT concept and making it work. Of course, one of the most often mentioned firms is TOMS . I’ve been really impressed with what they’ve built, pioneering the ‘buy-one-give-one’ model. The latest count is they’ve given away 10,000,000 pairs of shoes and they’ll make over $300,000,000. Definitely something to pay attention to.

There’s been a bit of backlash against TOMS because people say they have adversely affected the local marketplaces where they give away shoes. I can understand some of the criticisms and am happy to hear they’re working on a solution. TOMS is building a factory in Haiti to address some of these shortfalls.

One of the other guests at Story Selling Maverick 3X is Dale Partridge, CEO of Sevenly.org. I used his company as another key example in my presentation. Dale will be presenting on how to create such a compelling ‘built-in’ story your customers will be practically forced to share it. His company, Sevenly.org, donates $7 from every purchase made each week to a different charity or cause.

What started as just one t-shirt design per week has now grown to several other pieces of clothing accessories. You can see the power of their growing story selling because Sevenly has donated over $3,000,000 in just 2.5 years and is growing rapidly. Dale told me it’s because 90% of their new buyers come from social media shares. (In fact, over 4,000,000 social shares since 2011 when they started.)

There are all sorts of other examples of how Evolved Enterprises™ are serving each part of business more and more.

Another good example is Elvis & Kresse. This design firm started after the founders saw abandoned fire hoses laying around during their trips to the landfill. They thought it was a beautiful material to work with and have now created bags, wallets, belts, etc. from the hose.

“Why do we make these donations? At Elvis & Kresse we believe in the notion of good business: our business was established to solve environmental problems, waste problems in particular. We started with fire-hose and now reclaim more than 10 different materials. Beyond this, we also wanted to engage our material partners, our key stakeholders. Why not share, why not see if more good could be done with the surplus of an already good business. Why not?

In this sense we are lucky. Most traditional businesses are only able to measure their success in one way… the bottom line. At Elvis & Kresse we have 2 additional measures of success; how much waste we are able to divert from landfill and how much money we are able to give back to our charities, of which all 3 have equal importance to us.”

What makes this intriguing to me is that the material itself is key and authentic to the way the impact is created.

Here’s one more example…

G Adventures is a Canadian adventure outfitter. They are pretty big so I don’t know how many times they take people up the Inca trail each year to Machu Picchu. (Don’t forget Machu Picchu is scheduled for September 17 – 24, 2014!)

They started noticing some of the local women trying to sell to their groups.

They decided they could do better by supporting these women. They provided micro-loans in order to buy better textiles, material and dyes. Then their travelers were also able to have the experience of learning about traditional handicrafts. It was a better experience for everyone all around!

These are just a few of the ways business is being redefined. My prediction is within the next 4-7 years businesses without a direct IMPACT will be at a competitive disadvantage!

And speaking of the future, I told Underground® attendees that after 10 years I’m not totally sure what’s next for Underground®. There will be a 1x/year ‘big’ event – I just don’t know if it’ll turn into something for Underground 2.0 or Maverick MBA or maybe some sort of combination. Stay tuned and if you have ideas, shoot them my way.

New Enhancements with Maverick 1000 Membership

Hopefully you’ve had a chance to join one of the ‘Damn Good Idea’ calls with your fellow members.

When I was a part of different Mastermind groups, a couple friends and I started calling really good ideas a “writer-downer” because it made our notes. With the unique combination of successful entrepreneurs there is an incredible array of insight, experiences and knowledge among the Maverick group.

Each month you can jump on a virtual ‘round table’ with different members, each sharing something really powerful they’re doing and getting big results from. Usually it’s a ‘show-n-tell’ with examples and docs you can modify for your own business. (And hint…hint…there’s a new membership site coming where you can download and listen to all of these calls.)

Plus, look out for the new 40/40 Foresight Group coming together to further assist you. I’m calling it the 40/40 Foresight Group because you’ve heard the expression hindsight is 20/20 but with the 40/40 group you don’t know what you don’t know until you need it.

We’ve put together experts and insiders that can help Mavericks open up new sales channels (ie. online banners, mobile, direct mail, radio, etc), give you insight as needed as you continue growing on culture, operations, etc., with a few key partners to help with business exits. You’ll be able to get ‘Office Hours’ with different Maverick members and a few of my friends like Cameron Herold who grew 1-800-Got Junk from $3M – $100M+ as COO, Brian Kurtz who mailed over 1.3 Billion direct mail pieces, Ryan Holiday who is responsible for some of the biggest PR influxes for authors and experts, Oren Klaff the author of ‘Pitch Anything’ who has raised over $400MM for deals done, etc. I’ll be sharing full details soon. (Note: if you’d like to provide office hours and think you fit this – let us know.)

What’s more, on a bigger picture side of supporting your Destiny of Greatness, your 3X Retreats will be focused around 3 major areas of what 21^st century visionaries & Mavericks need:

The annual M3 Summit is about re-inventing yourself. It all fits together on this diagram:

What’s more, we’re also focused on the new Maverick Impact Fund 2.0 and how we can create a more direct and sustainable giving through the fund.

All the best!

Yanik

P.S. Know this guy? Join us for a private Yoga session here – www.Maverick1000.com/simmons .