How To Grow A Business-Interlude 1. Be Crazy About How You Take Care Of Your Customers.

I grew up in business. My father was a serial entrepreneur and his lifelong dream was to build a business and run his own show. He never achieved the really big, breakthrough success that I think he desired, but he did okay. He was also one of the kindest, gentlest men one could ever meet, and he was truly loved by those who knew him, but that's a story for another time.

He had a lot of ups and downs in his business career but the one thing he could always count on was customer loyalty the likes of which is rarely seen today. My dad died when he was 72 years old, and he was still running his business right up to that last day. He had customers that were still active who had been with him nonstop for 40 years. You don't get that kind of loyalty without some pretty incredible level of dedication to customer service.

DNL Holiday Party - Whoa.

Planet DNL is rarely a dull place, and that was proven again at the 2010 Holiday Party, the latest in a long line of crazy DNL blowouts! Another amazing record year is always an excuse for some over-the-top behavior, and the party didn't disappoint. Our people work their butts off, and I love to see them relax and party the same way. We took over the entire Stonefly Brewery club and packed it wall to wall with DNL'ers and our guests. We actually ran them out of tequila, another proud DNL moment!

Check out the great video:

Hard To Come Up With Enough Ways To Say Thank You

2010 is in the books, and it's been another amazing year. Like every business in America, DNL was faced with the worst economy in two generations. In 2009 and 2010 the jewelry industry contracted at a rate that hasn't been seen since the Great Depression. Literally thousands of small local jewlers, as well as some of the biggest names in the industry simply went out of business and dissapeared. Early in the year I challenged our team to figure out a way for us to grow the business regardless of the economic climate. I believe that this down economy is not just a short-term phenomenon, but a systemic change in the US and world economies. Until the incredibly complex and overwhelming problems of massive global sovereign debt work themselves through, we will continue to only see short-term "bubbles" of prosperity.

The Incredible Forevertron of Dr. Evermore

What is the secret to happiness? More and more I come to believe it's simply this: find something you are passionate about and completely, absolutely, lose yourself in it.

This last week I was fortunate enough to have a chance to meet one of the most singularly fascinating people I have ever known.

In a wooded field, behind a junkyard, off a country highway outside a small Wisconsin town, a man has spent the last 30 years building an extraordinary expression of creativity and artistic vision. The man calls himself “Dr. Evermore”, and claims he is a time-traveler from Victorian-era England. The machine that sits in this pastoral setting is the "Forevertron". The device, according to Dr. Evermore, is designed to transport the operator through "space, time and dimension” by riding on a “magnetic lightning force beam”.

What Tom, Ben and John Know About Marketing

I wrote this years ago when I was in the Marketing Consulting business. (with liberal passages taken from the excellent business author Roy Williams) A friend asked me to re-post it here. It was written for marketing professionals, so it's a little out of place. Still, I think it's a good story, and I think of it when the 4th rolls around. I hope you enjoy it.

Tom had a problem. No one had ever had the job of producing so much with such a tight deadline. Tom was a copywriter, and the marketing piece he had to write was the most important job of his young life. He could not believe how much responsibility had been placed on his shoulders. “But there is so little time”, Tom thought. “Just days to write something that will change my life forever.” Tom stayed up through the night laboring over the job. The sun was high in the sky when he finally collapsed into his bed.

Bucking the Un-Employment Trend

In just the last couple weeks, I’m happy to see that we have hired several new people in our Wisconsin operation. So welcome Joanne, Tony, Liz, Thomas and Jennifer! I welcome you to our team and to our DNL culture. I hope you find the fulfillment, happiness and fun that I always want our company to provide.

DNL'ers Make Successful Summit Attempt

Great day today, we had a huge blizzard a week ago and for some hard-to-fathom reason the snow plow guy made an executive decision to pile all the snow from our parking lot into a mammoth 25 foot high Mount Everest-like snow mountain which promptly froze into a giant block of ice. One side of it is a near 90-degree vertical face. We took one look at it and immediately thought "Ice Climbing Expedition 2010"!!