Robert Cornish - What Works

Contents

Copyright 2012 by Robert Cornish. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Cornish, Robert.

What works / Robert Cornish and Wil Seabrook.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-118-39169-3 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-41201-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-41202-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-49146-1 (ebk)

1. Entrepreneurship. 2. Strategic planning. 3. Industrial management. I. Seabrook, Wil. II. Title.

HB615.C657 2012

658dc23

2012012431

Preface

With most business books, you open the cover and read the introduction, which says something along these lines: I wanted to create a book to help others with... or Im writing this book to show people how to... In my case, I wrote this book because I didnt want to forget all of the valuable things I have learned through actual experience. While writing down the information I personally have found to be true and useful (and wanted to have written down so that I can manage and run my companies better), I realized that these lessons and information could be converted into a book that I could sell as well. After all, if I find this valuable, most likely others will, too. So there you have it: honesty. Refreshing, isnt it?

This book is composed of my notes on businesswhat works. I wrote it down so that I wouldnt forget and turned it into a book that I could carry with me. You might benefit from doing the same. This is a book about what works in business.

Introduction

Although there are thousands of business books, tips, and articles out there, I think you would agree with me when I say that most of them are fluffa lot of trendy concepts but very few hard-won ideas, based on actual experience, that have true applicability in the real world. You read business books because youre looking for answers. I know; Im the same way. Ive read hundreds of themand continue to read themout of a sheer craving for knowledge and a desire to be better, to fine-tune, and to glean a few great ideas and put them into application. But in all that searching, very few books have offered what Im looking for.

Id much rather just have a successful entrepreneur sit down and answer questions about what they did, how they did it, and how it turned out. Thats the type of material I believe we are all looking for. I wrote this book not because I wanted to write a book, but because I made a habit from day one of taking diligent notes while starting and then growing my agencyfrom two partners, two phones, two computers, and two desks to 53 employees, multimillion dollar revenues, and four major component parts to our company that have resulted in more than 400 percent annual growth. I wrote down notes as soon as we did something that was successful to keep a memo for myself to review later. I took notes when we did things that were unsuccessful so we would never do them again, allowing us to quickly and thoroughly course correct.

So this book is made up of my notes based on successful and, sometimes more important, unsuccessful actionsraw data that are real, applicable, and authentic. It offers real-world applicability that we know works based on our experience in the trenches rather than high-level business theories that might or might not be proved. There is no discussion of latest trends about fail forward or any other silly concept; this book is truly about what works, what has worked, and what will work in the real world. Its 100 percent applicable to the challenges youre dealing with right now. This book is for any businessperson looking to grab ideas and successful actions that can be applied. Its for the entrepreneur who is looking to grow his or her company or needs a few insights for what other successful entrepreneurs have done. Its for anyone in business looking to gain an edge by getting inside, real, and applicable information that he or she can put into action today to improve his or her businessright now.

We started out in 2008 as a two-person agency focused on handling the problem of gaining attention and interest to help drive business for our clients. We felt and still feel that traditional marketing, advertising, and public relations (PR) methods and companies have failed to attain these goals for their clients in an efficient manner that provides strong results measurably improving growth and sales. We set out to change that with a new kind of agency.

We tend to look at things differently at our company. Were obsessed with having an impactdriving sales and bottom-line numbers through our effortsbecause at the end of the day, not much matters in a business if you cant accomplish that. Whether you have a great idea, product, service, or business model, none of it means anything if you dont know how to drive the business forward, feeding a strong, steady flow of new clients into the company to service them effectively. So we focus on the entry point for every business across the planetthe front door. At this stage we have clients whose revenues range from $10 million to several billion dollars that rely on our agency to help them drive their business forward. Its a concept weve adopted as our basic purpose: to be mission critical to our clients companies.