Mike Michalowicz - The pumpkin plan: a simple strategy to grow a remarkable business in any field. Summary

THE

PUMPKIN PLAN

THE

PUMPKIN PLAN

A Simple Strategy to Grow
a Remarkable Business in any Field

MIKE MICHALOWICZ

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in 2012 by Portfolio / Penguin,

a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright Michael Michalowicz, 2012

All rights reserved

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

Michalowicz, Mike.

The pumpkin plan : a simple strategy to grow a remarkable business

in any field / Mike Michalowicz.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-57231-3

1. Entrepreneurship. 2. Strategic planning. 3. Success in business. I. Title.

HB615.M537 2012

658.421dc23

2012000415

Printed in the United States of America

Set in ITC Giovanni and Delphin LT

Designed by Sabrina Bowers

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or

electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of

copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

To Carly Simon. You probably think

this book is about you.

Dont you?

Dont you?

Lets pretend youre in the market for a good pumpkin. You pack the kiddies in the car and drive out to the local pumpkin patch. When you get there, you see row after row after overwhelming row of orange, green and brown. Youre looking for the perfect pumpkin, but they all seem to look the same. It is easy to pick out the bad ones, thoughtheyre smashed, or dented, or bruised or look hauntingly similar to your mother-in-law.

You keep searching, and just after you get through the corn maze you spot itthe biggest pumpkin youve ever seen. Its like Charlie Browns Great Pumpkin big. Its so big, its hard to believe its even real.

Suddenly your kids start running toward this freak of nature like its the greatest thing ever, and youve got to admit, it kind of is. The gigantor pumpkin dwarfs all of the other pumpkins in the field. As you walk over to it, you dont even see the other pumpkins, and you wonder how you didnt spot it right off the bat. Although it is surrounded by red tape and signs saying prize-winning pumpkin, not for sale, your kids are begging you to buy it. Please? Its the only pumpkin we want! You walk around it, marveling at its size. At its remarkableness. You get out your phone and take pictures of your kids standing next to it, and text your friends, telling them they have to come see the most awesome, gigantic pumpkin in the world.

Like a magnet, the pumpkin draws a continuous stream of other people, too. They pass by the other, smaller, pumpkins, their eyes glued to the orange wonder before them. The bald guy says, How is this even possible? The buttoned-up woman says, Its clearly a genetic mutation. The wide-eyed grade-school boy says, The farmer must have some super secret veggie vitamins or something. And the dazed and confused teenager says, Dude, it looks like Jabba the Hut knocked up a basketball.

There is something absolutely irresistible, something magnetic about being the extreme. Be it the strongest, or the fastest, or the most unique. The farmer with the most extraordinary pumpkin in the field wins. Every. Single. Time.

The same is true for entrepreneurs. Yet most entrepreneurs work their tails off, only to end up with small, ordinary, unremarkable pumpkins. Compared to the giant pumpkin, the companies these struggling entrepreneurs grow are insignificant, so insignificant that customers often dont see them, or squash them, or leave them to rot in the field without a second thought.

To grow a successful business your company must be irresistibly magnetic. The average lose and are left to rot. Its the most uniquethe bestwho win.

Youre probably thinking, Duh! Do you really think Im working my ass off to build an average company? What more do I have to do to be the best?

Simple. You dont need to do more. You need to do different. You have to pretend youre a pumpkin farmer.

Yup. You read that right. A pumpkin farmer. But not just any pumpkin farmer. A freaky, geeky, overall-wearing, straw chewing pumpkin farmer, those county fair folks who dedicate their lives to growing the half-ton pumpkins you see on the evening news. Turns out that they, of all people, hold the secret formula for big-time entrepreneurial success: plant hearty seeds, identify the most promising pumpkins, kill off the rest of the vine, and nurture only the pumpkins with the biggest potential.

In this book I reveal how, by implementing the same strategies pumpkin farmers use to grow their massive gourdsand which I have, with great originality deemed The Pumpkin PlanI was able to launch two multimillion-dollar companies by my thirtieth birthday, gain notoriety with top firms, and in turn help them radically grow their businesses. Not only will I share my stories and their stories of success, but, most importantly, I will teach you how to apply the same ideas and lessons to your own business.

Never forget this: Ordinary pumpkins are always forgotten. Only the giant pumpkin draws a crowd and lives on holiday cards, refrigerators and grainy YouTube videosforever. The giant pumpkin is legend. And when youve grown oneyou will be a legend, too.

You didnt start your business because you wanted to blend in, make enough to get by and save enough to pay for the nursing home. You went into business because you wanted to grow something amazing, something that would dramatically change the quality of your life, something that could make a difference in the world.

The late Steve Jobs has been lauded for his many accomplishments and innovations, and theres no doubt that Apple is one of the truly remarkable companies on the planet, thanks in large part to his vision. But his contribution goes beyond innovation. At the time of Jobss death, Apple employed almost 47,000 people, hired thousands of subcontractors and, by necessity or association, inspired countless entrepreneurs to create businesses that served Apple and its customers. That is a huge contribution to our culture, one that goes way beyond how we listen to music or communicate with the world.