A S I M P L E S T R AT E G Y T O G R O W A
R E M A R KA B L E B U S I N E S S IN ANY FIELD
THE
PUMPKIN
PLA N
MIKE MICHALOW ICZ
AU T H O R O F T H E TOIL E T PA PE R E N T R E PR E N EUR
Excerpted from The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz by arrangement with Portfolio Penguin, a member of
Penguin Group (USA), Inc., Copyright © 2012 Mike Michalowicz.
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THE
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PUMPKIN PLAN
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A Simple Strategy to Grow
a Remarkable Business in any Field
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M I K E M I C H A L OW I C Z
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INTRODUCTION
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Let’s pretend you’re in the market for a good pumpkin. You pack
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the kiddies in the car and drive out to the local pumpkin patch.
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When you get there, you see row after row after overwhelming row
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of orange, green and brown. You’re looking for the perfect pump-
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kin, but they all seem to look the same. It is easy to pick out the
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bad ones, though—they’re smashed, or dented, or bruised or look
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hauntingly similar to your mother-in-law.
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You keep searching, and just after you get through the corn
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maze you spot it—the biggest pumpkin you’ve ever seen. It’s like
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Charlie Brown’s “Great Pumpkin” big. It’s so big, it’s hard to be-
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lieve it’s even real.
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Suddenly your kids start running toward this freak of nature
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like it’s the greatest thing ever, and you’ve got to admit, it kind of
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is. The gigantor pumpkin dwarfs all of the other pumpkins in the
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field. As you walk over to it, you don’t even see the other pump-
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kins, and you wonder how you didn’t spot it right off the bat. Al-
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though it is surrounded by red tape and signs saying “prize-
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winning pumpkin, not for sale,” your kids are begging you to buy
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THE PUMPKIN PLAN
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it. “Please? It’s the only pumpkin we want!” You walk around it,
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marveling at its size. At its remarkableness. You get out your phone
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and take pictures of your kids standing next to it, and text your
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friends, telling them they have to come see the most awesome,
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gigantic pumpkin in the world.
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Like a magnet, the pumpkin draws a continuous stream of
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other people, too. They pass by the other, smaller, pumpkins, their
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eyes glued to the orange wonder before them. The bald guy says,
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“How is this even possible?” The buttoned-up woman says, “It’s
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clearly a genetic mutation.” The wide- eyed grade-school boy says,
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“The farmer must have some super secret veggie vitamins or some-
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thing.” And the dazed and confused teenager says, “Dude, it looks
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like Jabba the Hut knocked up a basketball.”
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There is something absolutely irresistible, something magnetic
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about being the extreme. Be it the strongest, or the fastest, or the
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most unique. The farmer with the most extraordinary pumpkin in
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the field wins. Every. Single. Time.
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The same is true for entrepreneurs. Yet most entrepreneurs
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work their tails off, only to end up with small, ordinary, unre-
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markable pumpkins. Compared to the giant pumpkin, the compa-
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nies these struggling entrepreneurs grow are insignificant, so
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insignificant that customers often don’t see them, or squash them,
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or leave them to rot in the field without a second thought.
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To grow a successful business your company must be irresist-
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ibly magnetic. The average lose and are left to rot. It’s the most
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unique—the best—who win.
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You’re probably thinking, “Duh! Do you really think I’m work-
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ing my ass off to build an average company? What more do I have
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to do to be the best?”
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Simple. You don’t need to do more. You need to do different.
You have to pretend you’re a pumpkin farmer.
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INTRODUCTION
Yup. You read that right. Pumpkin farmers. But not just any
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pumpkin farmers. Only the freaky, geeky, overall-wearing, straw
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chewing pumpkin farmers, those county fair folks who dedicate
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their lives to growing the half-ton pumpkins you see on the eve-
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ning news. Turns out that they, of all people, hold the “secret
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formula” for big-time entrepreneurial success: plant hearty seeds,
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identify the most promising pumpkins, kill off the rest of the vine,
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and nurture only the pumpkins with the biggest potential.
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In this book I reveal how, by implementing the same strategies
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pumpkin farmers use to grow their massive gourds—and which I
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have, with great originality deemed “The Pumpkin Plan”—I was
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able to launch two multimillion-dollar companies by my thirtieth
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birthday, gain notoriety with top firms, and in turn help them
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radically grow their businesses. Not only will I share my stories
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and their stories of success, but, most importantly, I will teach you
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how to apply the same ideas and lessons to your own business.
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Never forget this: Ordinary pumpkins are always forgotten.
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Only the giant pumpkin draws a crowd and lives on holiday
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cards, refrigerators and grainy YouTube videos . . . forever. The giant
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pumpkin is legend. And when you’ve grown one . . . you will be a
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legend, too.
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You didn’t start your business because you wanted to blend in,
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make enough to get by and save enough to pay for the nursing
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home. You went into business because you wanted to grow some-
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thing amazing, something that would dramatically change the
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quality of your life, something that could make a difference in the
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world.
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The late Steve Jobs has been lauded for his many accomplish-
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ments and innovations, and there’s no doubt that Apple is one of
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the truly remarkable companies on the planet, thanks in large
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part to his vision. But his contribution goes beyond innovation. At
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the time of Jobs’s death, Apple employed almost 47,000 people,
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hired thousands of subcontractors and, by necessity or associa-
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tion, inspired countless entrepreneurs to create businesses that
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served Apple and its customers. That is a huge contribution to our
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culture, one that goes way beyond how we listen to music or com-
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municate with the world.
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Now that’s legend.
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And you can grow a legendary company, too.
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I know you already know this. You know that if you want to be
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wildly successful, you’ve got to be the most unique pumpkin in
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the patch. I didn’t write this book to tell you that. I wrote this book
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to show you exactly how to grow it, to teach you a proven system
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that will free you from the entrepreneurial trap and create the
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most magnetic business in your industry.
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I wrote my first book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, for those
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who want to start a business but think they lack the education,
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resources, momentum, expertise and capital to do so. I wrote it for
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the millions of hopefuls who aren’t afraid to work hard and take
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chances in order to reach their goals. And I wrote it to empower
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entrepreneurs with the tools they need to succeed in the start-up
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phase of business ownership. That book was about planting the
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seed; this book is about growing it . . . big-time.
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Since the release of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur in 2008, I’ve
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talked with thousands of entrepreneurs—at conferences I key-
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noted throughout the world, as an expert on various business tele-
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vision and radio programs, through discussions of articles I have
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written for publications both large and small, through my (nota-
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bly whacky) blog, and face-to-face—who are looking for a way
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up . . . or a way out.
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So I know firsthand that the sobering statistics are spot on. En-
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trepreneurs are struggling, trapped in a neverending cycle of sell
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INTRODUCTION
it–do it, sell it–do it, sell it–do it that leaves them feeling desper-
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ate, hopeless, trapped. No matter how many all-nighters they pull,
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no matter how many kids’ soccer games they miss, most entrepre-
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neurs can’t seem to get anywhere near the multimillion-dollar
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mark, much less beyond it.
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I wrote The Pumpkin Plan for all of those entrepreneurs who
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reached out to me and said, “Help! Something’s got to give.” I
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wrote it for the entrepreneurs who are exhausted from an en-
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trepreneurial dream that has turned into a real-life nightmare. I
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wrote it for the entrepreneurs who need a proven system to help
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them get over the hump and cruise into greatness. I wrote it for
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every entrepreneur who is committed to having a wildly success-
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ful business. And I wrote this book for every entrepreneur who
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wants to make a significant contribution to the world.
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This book holds the key to your entrepreneurial liberation.
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By following The Pumpkin Plan step by step, you will build a
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business that blows the competition away, magnetically attracts
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clients and, as clichéd as it sounds, finally gives you the life of your
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dreams.
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CHAPTER ONE
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A H A L F -TO N P U M P K I N
I S A B O U T TO SAV E
YOUR LIFE
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“You don’t want to be that guy, Mike.”
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Frank, my seventy-year-old business mentor, paused to make
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sure I was really paying attention. We’d spent all morning talking
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strategy and I was so overwhelmed my head felt ready to implode.
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Frank’s a “greatest generation” Regis Philbin lookalike who wears
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a suit every day, even in his own house. He’s so unassuming, you’d
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never guess he built a company worth eighty million dollars.
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“What guy?” I asked.
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“That old guy with only one nut left . . . hanging out of his
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shorts. The guy who works like a dog for fifty years and then ends
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up sitting in a rusty lawn chair, half-dead, with drool dripping
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Oh. That guy.
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Frank gave it to me straight: “If you don’t change your business
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strategy, you’ll never make it. You’ll kill yourself trying to build a
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multimillion-dollar business, but in the end you’ll be a broken,
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bitter man living off Social Security and looking back on a lifetime
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of disappointment.”
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Wow. Okay. That would suck. So much for my retirement plan
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of sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere, looking at a gor-
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geous sunset with my gorgeous wife. Worse, I knew I was already
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heading in that direction. Five years as an entrepreneur under my
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belt and I had nothing. Well, almost nothing—I still had both of
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my nuts . . . so far.
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I was a freakin’ slave to my business and all I had to show for it
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was stress-induced red blotches all over my face (never did find out
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what those were). The hours were insane, and when I did spend
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time with my wife and our five-year-old son, it was fake time—I
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was on my laptop, or on the phone, or talking business, or think-
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ing about business—completely unfocused on the two most im-
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portant people in my life. I was completely out of balance. Maybe
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you’re familiar with this scenario. Maybe you’re intimately familiar
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with it. Maybe you’ve got red blotch grossness on your face, too.
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In four years Olmec, my computer technology company, had
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grown from nonexistent to almost one million dollars in revenue.
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Huge, right? Nope. Total bullshit. Our costs were so high, our cash
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so not flowing, that bringing in close to a million felt like a joke—
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a cruel, cruel joke. Gross revenue means nothing when your recep-
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tionist makes more than you do. I could barely support my family
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and I was under constant pressure to make payroll so that every-
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one on my team could support their families.
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I suffered from the “if only” disease that plagues most mid-
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stage entrepreneurs. I kept thinking, “If only I could work harder”
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or “If only I had an investor” or “If only I could land one big client,
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I’d be living the dream.” So I pushed on, and on, and on, believing
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I was this close to making it. But like a hamster on a wheel, I was
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working my ass off and getting nowhere. Something had to give. I
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didn’t want to end up a one-nut drool factory.
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I sighed, pulled out my notebook and said, “Okay, Frank. What
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do I have to do?”
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WH A T G O T Y O U H E R E
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WON’T GET YOU THERE
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The idea for Olmec started where most brilliant ideas are born—
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in a bar. (Raise your hand if you wrote your first business plan on a
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beer-stained cocktail napkin. I thought so.) I was twenty-three at
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the time, and I worked as a technician at a computer services com-
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pany. One Friday night I went out to blow off steam with Chris,
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my friend since kindergarten. I was pissed at my boss—for what, I
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don’t remember—but really, I was looking for a way out. My rant
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quickly progressed from, “I’m smarter than him, I work harder
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than him, and I know more about this business than he does” to
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“The boss is an asshole!” Fourteen (cheap) drinks later, Chris and
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I had agreed to quit our damn jobs and start our own damn com-
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puter services business . . . damn it.
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It was a classic retaliation story, and I very quickly figured out
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that this scenario has (at least) three problems. First, while liquid
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courage can help you get over your initial fears, planning a busi-
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ness in a drunken stupor completely obliterates all rational thought,
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which, as it turns out, you need to start a business. (Go figure.)
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up and doing the work. (Who knew?) Third, and perhaps most an-
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noying of all, owning your own business will not automatically
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free you from the grind that inspired you to get drunk in the first
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place. (Surprise!)
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Remember when you started your business, all amped up on
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adrenalin and hope? Your dream was huge, epic, because you need
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a big-ass dream to pull you off the wannabe couch and actually do
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something awesome. When I closed my eyes, I could see my dream
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in full color: I was a millionaire, at the helm of a mega-successful
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company, living the good life without a care in the world.
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But when I opened my eyes, the harsh reality set in. We had no
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clients, and worse, we had no idea how to get them. So you can
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imagine why, within a week of quitting my job, I was consumed
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by fear. Total. Complete. Soul-quaking fear. You know the con-
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stant “I’m a failure” thoughts that run around in your head while
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you struggle to do something great? Well, they ran through my
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head like a weather warning at the bottom of the TV screen. What
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if I can’t sell? What if I fail? What if I have to crawl back to my
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asshole boss and beg for my job back?
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Fear propelled me to take action. There was no other option.
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Except for one little problem: I had no idea how to get clients. So
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I started knocking on doors. Literally. (What? That’s how they
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do it in the movies, right? Old movies.) I went after any and all
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clients—big, small, near, far, taxidermists to insurance agents—
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and said yes to any of them who expressed the least bit of interest
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in what I had to offer, no matter what their demands.
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“Will I drive six hours to install your computer mouse? No
problem.”
“Would I give you a fifty-percent discount and a 120-day net?
Absolutely.”
“Could I service your ancient computer system, even though I
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know nothing about it and will have to spend two days reading
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the twelve-inch-thick manual . . . that’s written in French . . . by a
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Chinese guy who doesn’t speak French? Sure. Why not?”
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In those first few months after we launched, both Chris and I
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ran around like Tasmanian devils. Did I keep regular hours? Sure
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I did. If I was awake, I worked. Regularly. I had no pride, so to save
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money I pulled all-nighters, or slept in clients’ offices. I moved my
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wife and five-year-old son into the only safe place I could afford—
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an apartment in a retirement building, where the average age was
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somewhere between eighty and dead (most, I believe, were slightly
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older than dead) and where the residents got up at three in the
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morning to vacuum, or pace the floor, or watch PBS so loud only
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deaf people could stand it. And, if you haven’t put one and one
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together, most of them were deaf.
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Olmec started making decent money, then better money, then
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good money. But no matter how much money the company made,
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we still had very little left over. And even though we now had cli-
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ents, I still worked five to nine (that’s a.m. to p.m.,) eight days a
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week. I still chased after clients. I still said yes to every Tom, Dick
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and Harriet who called. The punishing grind never let up.
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After two years in business, I hit the wall. I was a burned-out,
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unhealthy mess, and so was Chris. But still, the fear of failing and
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losing everything kept me going. This was right about the time the
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sexy red splotches showed up on my face. In our family Christmas
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photos, my face had more color on it than the tree. Still, like a lu-
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natic, I kept telling myself, “There has to be a sweet spot, a moment
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when this business shifts into second gear and all of this hard
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work pays off.” To me, the solution was clear: Just keep racing the
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engine; work harder and harder till it breaks or I break.
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Two years later, in 2000, the Small Business Administration
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(SBA) named me New Jersey’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year. A
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heartbeat later, the president of a prestigious bank offered me a
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$250,000 expansion loan. So I must have been raking it in, right?
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Nope. To the outside world it looked like I was living the dream,
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but the truth was, nothing much had changed. I was still chained
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to my business, pushing just as hard as I always had. No matter
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how much we earned, money was still tight. I thought, “If being
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an entrepreneur leads to wealth, why am I so freakin’ broke?”
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Enter Frank, my personal Yoda. I met him at my first ever cham-
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ber of commerce meeting. In a room full of overconfident, desper-
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ate salesmen, he was the only guy who didn’t pitch me. He just sat
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in a corner and watched. He really didn’t care if you hired him to
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coach you. He didn’t have to care—as president of a major medical
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services company, he had taken the company from $8 million to
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$80 million without breaking a sweat, so he didn’t need the work,
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or the money. This was his fun stage of life—he wanted to coach
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(maybe adopt is a better word) young entrepreneurs.
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I did hire him, and I tried to follow his advice. (Really, I did.)
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I tried to become Frank’s definition of an entrepreneur, which,
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I later learned, is the only definition of an entrepreneur: “You’re
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not an entrepreneur yet, Mike. Entrepreneurs don’t do most of the
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work. Entrepreneurs identify the problems, discover the opportu-
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nities and then build processes to allow other people and other things
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to do the work.” But since my main objective was getting more
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clients and keeping them happy, I was a C student at best.
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Frank is the type of guy who loves white boards and charts and
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graphs. Maybe I was getting high off the dry-erase markers, but
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every time he coached me, I left feeling dazed and confused. What
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Frank said made sense, but I could not see how to do what he told
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me. He mapped out Point B, and I was at Point A, and I couldn’t
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see the line that connected the two. Later, I would make a half-
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assed effort to apply his strategies . . . when I had time, which I
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never did.
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It was in one of his coaching sessions that he showed me a
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glimpse of my wretched colostomy bag of a future. Frank said, “If
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you don’t want to end up like the one-nut guy, you’re going to have
05
to cut your client list.”
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Cut our client list? Was he crazy? I busted my ass for that client
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list. If anything, we needed more clients. How would we make it if
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I started cutting clients?
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“List your clients in order of revenue,” Frank told me. “Then,
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take your top-paying clients and separate them into two catego-
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ries: great clients and everyone else, from the ho-hum clients to
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the clients who annoy you so much, you cringe when they call
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you. Keep the great, top-paying clients, and cut the rest. Every sin-
14
gle one.”
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Yowza! Frank was crazy. He must’ve been the one sniffin’ the
16
dry-erase markers. I told myself that if I get rid of all the clients
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who make me cringe or who don’t bring in the big bucks, I won’t
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make enough money. I’ll have to fire people; I’ll have to close the
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big office and get a small one . . . or, more likely, I’ll have to get a
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third-shift job at Denny’s.
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I could see it was a simple strategy. And it had obviously worked
22
for Frank. Frank had the proof: boatloads of cash. Legit. Liquid.
23
Assets. But still, it scared the crap out of me. I just couldn’t wrap
24
my head around actually getting rid of the clients I had worked so
25
hard to find and keep happy. It seemed absolutely crazy—saying
26
no to a client, to money, to potential referrals . . .
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But ending up like the one-nut guy scared me more.
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I did follow Frank’s advice—sort of. I drafted a rough list of
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great clients and not-so-great clients. I happily fi red a few jerkwad
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THE PUMPKIN PLAN
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clients who’d taken advantage of me about a thousand times too
02
many. But I didn’t fully commit. The thing is, Frank had given me
03
a lot of homework, and finishing all of it while chasing after
04
clients—yes, I still wanted more clients—proved to be impossible.
05
Every time I tried to focus on “the list” I got distracted putting
06
out fires, or dealing with demanding customers, or juggling pay-
07
ments so I could cover payroll. Like most entrepreneurs, I was the
08
jack-of-all-trades. I wore the term “workaholic” like a badge of
09
courage. And because I never made it out of survival mode, I still
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ran the business—and my life—with the same frenzied energy.
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The one-nut guy haunted my dreams. He sat on my shoulder and
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taunted me with his relentless cackle. Yeah, that’s right, he sat on
13
my shoulder . . . and I don’t even want to tell you where his nut
14
was hanging.
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Okay, I was mental, but not that mental. I knew the one-nut guy
16
was a figment of my stress-induced delirium. But I did worry.
17
Would I ever get off the grind? Would I ever make the kind of
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dough people thought I made? Or would I end up toothless, drool-
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ing, bald, blotchy and broke?
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Then one day, a half-ton pumpkin saved my life.
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TH E H O L Y G R A I L I N T H E
P U M P K I N PAT C H
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It was October, and the local newspaper ran an article about a
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farmer who grew a gigantic, prize-winning pumpkin. This guy was
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not your typical farmer. He was a geek farmer, obsessed with grow-
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ing mongo pumpkins. He’d dedicated his life to breaking the state
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record, and there he was, perched on his flatbed truck, smiling like
01
he’d won the lottery, with the biggest-ass pumpkin I’ve ever seen
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right behind him. I just had to know—how the hell did he get the
03
pumpkin to grow to mammoth, half-ton, blue-ribbon size?
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Here’s how the article broke down the pumpkin-growing pro-
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cess:
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ST EP ONE:
Plant promising seeds.
08
ST EP T WO:
Water, water, water.
09
10
As they grow, routinely remove all of the
diseased or damaged pumpkins.
ST EP T HR EE:
11
12
Weed like a mad dog. Not a single green leaf
or root permitted if it isn’t a pumpkin plant.
ST EP FOUR:
13
14
When they grow larger, identify the stronger,
faster-growing pumpkins. Then, remove all the lesspromising pumpkins. Repeat until you have one pumpkin on each vine.
ST EP FI V E:
15
16
17
18
Focus all of your attention on the big pumpkin.
Nurture it around the clock like a baby, and guard it like
you would your first Mustang convertible.
ST EP SI X:
19
20
21
Watch it grow. In the last days of the season,
this will happen so fast you can actually see it happen.
ST EP SEV EN:
22
23
Holy crap, I thought. Pumpkin farmers hold the secret for-
24
mula for big-time entrepreneurial success. My get-out-of-jail-free
25
card. The Holy Grail. The missing link. My golden ticket. (Yes, it
26
was all of those things to me . . . and more, so much more.) There
27
it was, in black and white . . . and orange. The answer I’d been
28
looking for, for years. I needed to treat my company like a giant
29
S30
pumpkin!
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THE PUMPKIN PLAN
01
02
In case you’re wondering if I’d officially lost it, here’s what I
understood when I read the article:
03
04
05
Identify and leverage your biggest natural
ST EP ONE:
strengths.
Sell, sell, sell.
06
ST EP T WO:
07
ST EP T HR EE:
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
As your business grows, fire all of your
small-time, rotten clients.
Never, ever let distractions—often labeled as
new opportunities—take hold. Weed ’em out fast.
ST EP FOUR:
ST EP FI V E: Identify your top clients and remove the rest
of your less-promising clients.
ST EP SI X: Focus all your attention on your top clients. Nur-
17
ture and protect them; find out what they want more than
anything, and if it’s in alignment with what you do best,
give it to them. Then, replicate that same service or product
for as many of the same types of top client as possible.
18
ST EP SEV EN:
15
16
Watch your company grow to a giant size.
19
20
With the visual of this pumpkin farmer watering, feeding, lov-
21
ing, guarding and caring for his one big pumpkin to the exclusion
22
of everything else, my next steps became crystal clear. His mania-
23
cal focus on growing huge pumpkins was second only to that of a
24
serial killer, and all he did was follow this simple formula over and
25
over again and he grew crazy big pumpkins. If I followed the same
26
method the farmer used to grow giant pumpkins, a method rooted
27
(pardon the pun) in Frank’s “client list” strategy, and focused on
28
my top clients like a crazed farmer, I could grow my business to be
29
a giant “pumpkin,” too. It was clear now. This was the path from
30S
today (Point A) to where I wanted to be (Point B).
31N
I finally had my first major “duh” moment. The fear-driven
16
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A H A L F -TO N P U M P K I N I S A B O U T TO S AV E YO U R L I F E
strategy that got Olmec just shy of a million in gross revenue
01
wasn’t going to get us to millions in gross revenue. Frank’s advice
02
started to make sense. The say-yes-to-everyone strategy could not
03
be sustained over time, and it was actually stunting growth. I was
04
spread too thin, wasting energy serving clients who made me
05
crazy and would never make me rich; and in serving them I was
06
taking precious time away from the clients with whom I enjoyed
07
working, and who could make me rich.
08
I was also using my time to handle things that didn’t come
09
naturally to me, when I should have been focused on doing the
10
few things I did well. I was writing advertising and marketing
11
messages to get everyone and their mother to walk through our
12
door. I was doing new work for rotten clients, trying to figure out
13
how to serve them better. I was ignoring my best clients, who were
14
just starting to grow. Instead of watering them, I was throwing
15
seeds on top of them, crowding them out. Always seeding, hardly
16
watering. Never weeding, and never nurturing.
17
I knew I was really good at figuring out how to serve clients bet-
18
ter and at developing systems to replicate that service—but how
19
could I do that for my best clients if I was so busy trying to keep
20
my rotten clients—all of whom wanted different things—happy?
21
Once you’ve moved passed the early stages of entrepreneur-
22
ship, success isn’t a quantity game anymore. If I wanted my busi-
23
ness to dwarf the competition, I would have to cut the clients who
24
were actually holding me back, cut the aspects of my business that
25
weren’t serving growth and find unparalleled ways to serve my
26
best clients. Like a geeky, freaky farmer of mammoth pumpkins, I
27
would focus all of my attention, time, love, support, creativity and
28
energy on the most promising clients in my “patch.”
29
I shared my revelation with Chris and we followed the Pumpkin
S30
Plan in earnest. Almost immediately, everything became easier. We
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THE PUMPKIN PLAN
01
saw results lightning fast—so fast that within a couple of months, I
02
was able to jump off the hamster wheel for good and stop freaking
03
out. Our top clients felt like rock stars. Our employees were happy.
04
Our bottom line moved up a few notches. Then a few more. And
05
then, for the first time in four years, I felt like a real entrepreneur.
06
You know, the kind of person who takes a risk and makes it happen.
07
We weren’t millionaires yet, but now I knew there was a better
08
way to become one. And man, I was on fi re! I tweaked the Pump-
09
kin Plan, made it my own, and in that process I truly fell in love
10
with the art of entrepreneurship. Scratch that—I fell in love with
11
the science of entrepreneurship.
12
Two years after I implemented my first Pumpkin Plan I opted
13
to let Chris buy me out so I could go my own way. I wanted to
14
apply the Pumpkin Plan from the ground up. The very next day I
15
started a new, different company. Chris continued to apply the
16
Pumpkin Plan and Olmec is doing so well they’re practically print-
17
ing money, and in a crappy economy, no less.
18
And me? Well, folks, I became one of those oddballs . . . those
19
freaky pumpkin-farmer types who obsesses and obsesses over one
20
thing—growing super successful businesses. I tweaked my revised
21
Pumpkin Plan over time, improving systems, and within two
22
years, eleven months and eight days (but who’s counting?) I sold
23
my second company for millions to a Fortune 500 firm.
24
Kiss my ass, one-nut guy.
25
26
27
28
29
30S
31N
Work the Plan—
Take Action in 30 Minutes (or Less)
1. Find the “why.” If your dream is to just be big and get rich,
that’s not enough to grow a significant, successful business. Ask
18
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A H A L F -TO N P U M P K I N I S A B O U T TO S AV E YO U R L I F E
yourself why you started this business and not another business.
01
What purpose are you serving? What gets you stoked? If you know
02
your “why,” it will resonate with your clients. More importantly, it
03
will be your compass, and boy oh boy, do you need one of those.
04
(Have you ever tried to find your way out of a forest without one?)
05
2. Set a revenue “pulse” goal for this year. In order to get the heart
06
of your business beating again (meaning you can survive without
08
perpetual panic), how much revenue do you need to generate?
09
Don’t put yourself last on the list. Start by figuring out what you
10
personally need to be comfortable, to know that you’re back on
11
your feet. Then figure out how much revenue your company needs
12
to make to actually support that. Remember, we just want to hear
13
that beep beep beep on the heart monitor again. Later, you can adjust
14
your revenue goal to include all of your aspirations (send less-
15
advantaged kids to college, see the world . . . and buy Twinkies
16
whenever you damn well please).
17
3. Ask better questions. Really big pumpkins have really strong
18
07
19
roots. We can only find the best answers when we ask great ques-
20
tions. Rather than ask, “Why do I struggle?” ask, “How can I earn
21
$2,000 a day, every day?” Either way, your brain will find the an-
22
swer. Write down the one big, bad question you always ask when
23
you’re beating your head against the wall, and then reverse it.
24
25
26
27
AB O U T T H E S T O R I E S I N T H I S B O O K
28
29
I love a good story. So I wrote a bunch of them to help you envision
S30
how you could Pumpkin Plan any industry, even—no, especially—
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THE PUMPKIN PLAN
01
yours. These stories use all of the strategies detailed in this book,
02
including stuff you haven’t read yet, and are denoted with the title
03
“How To Pumpkin Plan Your Industry.”
04
And to be clear, I made them up so you can see the endless pos-
05
sibilities the Pumpkin Plan offers. The stories follow each chapter
06
and are designed to show you that the Pumpkin Plan formula
07
works, no matter how tough your competition is, no matter how
08
much (or how little) money you have in the bank, no matter
09
how many clients you have (or don’t have). It just works.
10
Each story includes examples about how to employ most or all
11
of the strategies detailed in this book, not just those explored in
12
that chapter. So you may want to go back and re-read the stories
13
after you’ve finished the book and learned all about how to Pump-
14
kin Plan your business.
15
And just so we’re absolutely clear, there are loads of true stories
16
in this book, too—both about me and about other people. They
17
are woven into each chapter as real-world examples of entrepre-
18
neurs who rocked some aspect of the Pumpkin Plan to great effect.
19
For the true stories, I name names. Obviously, none of these sce-
20
narios will match yours 100 percent, but I hope you find them
21
inspiring, or at least, thought-provoking.
22
Enjoy!
23
24
25
26
27
HO W T O P U M P K I N P L A N Y O U R
I N D U ST RY—T R AV E L
28
29
Let’s pretend you’re a partner in a small airline. Stow your carry-on,
30S
fasten your seat belt and put your tray into an upright position,
31N
we’re going to Pumpkin Plan your industry!
20
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A H A L F -TO N P U M P K I N I S A B O U T TO S AV E YO U R L I F E
Your airline can’t compete with the big boys or girls, or even
01
with the medium-sized airlines. You’ve got fifteen planes running
02
short routes to and from major cities like New York, Boston, Phil-
03
adelphia and Washington, D.C. Your planes are never full, unless
04
there’s a problem with another airline. Hardly anyone even knows
05
the name of your company—Eastern Airlines.
06
You try to compete on price, but Southwest and Jet Blue have
07
you beat. You try to compete on convenience, but United, Delta
08
and American have more planes, more flight options and more
09
everything else, so they have you beat. You try to compete on
10
rocking it out with cool extras and stuff, but Virgin America has
11
you beat on that by a mile. You try to compete on all three at the
12
same time, and that’s when things get hairy. Like, really hairy, as
13
in Chapter 11-on-the-horizon hairy. You’re killing yourself trying
14
to get an edge over the competition by playing their game, follow-
15
ing their curve. You can blame it on the economy or the price of
16
gas all you want, but Eastern Airlines is going down.
17
That is, until you decide to Pumpkin Plan your business. You
18
start with the Assessment Chart, which you have trouble filling out
19
because you really don’t have a lot of repeat business. Still, you fol-
20
low through and realize that your worst customers are tourists who
21
make unreasonable demands in flight—better movies, new head-
22
sets, more snacks—and only use you when you have a half-off pro-
23
motion or some other limited-time offer. You really, really don’t
24
want to fire any clients, because you’re clamoring for passengers.
25
But you want to save your business, and then grow the heck out of
26
it, so you do it anyway. It’s pretty easy to get rid of this type of client;
27
once the special discounts are gone, so are the “diseased” clients.
28
You figure out that your best customers are last-minute custom-
29
ers, the passengers who, ironically, only use you because they have
S30
a last-minute meeting and every other airline is booked. There’s
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THE PUMPKIN PLAN
01
no built-in loyalty with these customers—most of them will never
02
fly with you again. Still, you call ten of them up with the goal of
03
getting their Wish List.
04
When you ask, “What could we do better?” they say, “Nothing.”
05
When you ask, “What frustrates you about my industry?” they say,
06
“Nothing.” Hmm. This is going to be a little tougher than you
07
thought it would be. Thinking on your feet, you say, “What frus-
08
trates you most about traveling?”
09
And that’s when the dam bursts. Suddenly you’re getting an
10
earful of complaints about how, because of transportation to the
11
airport and the security line, it takes half a day to take a one-hour
12
flight. Your top clients, the last-minute travelers who use you only
13
when there is no other option, are all business executives and pro-
14
fessionals living in the suburbs of major cities, and they lose pro-
15
ductivity when they travel. They can’t work in the back of a cab.
16
They can’t work when they’re driving to the airport. They can’t
17
work when they’re standing in the insanely long TSA line.
18
You thank them for their input, and then start brainstorming
19
with your team. How could you turn their frustrations into a 180-
20
degree turn for Eastern Airlines? You ask a bunch of really awe-
21
some questions, but the one that sticks is, “What if we could cut
22
the time it takes to get to the flight in half, or better?” You come up
23
with a great solution to run buses out to pick up passengers at
24
various locations, buses that can use the carpool fast lane. And un-
25
like the other airport bus companies, you’ll take them directly to
26
the Eastern Airlines entrance. And because they lose precious time
27
traveling to the airport, you’ll outfit each bus with tray tables, out-
28
lets and WiFi for laptops.
29
You decide to run the idea by a few of the clients who shared
30S
their frustrations with you, and they love the idea, but not enough
31N
to break up with their favorite airline and start going steady with
22
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A H A L F -TO N P U M P K I N I S A B O U T TO S AV E YO U R L I F E
you. So you go back to the drawing board, and add a few other key
01
points. First, you work out a deal with the local churches in your
02
pick-up areas, allowing the commuters to park their cars in their
03
empty lots for free, Monday through Friday. (You pay the churches
04
a fee, of course.) Then, you assign a gate agent to every bus, and
05
check everyone in when they get on the bus. If they have luggage
06
to check, you just do it right there, stow it in the bus and have sky-
07
caps take it to the baggage scan for them when they arrive at the
08
airport.
09
Then, you decide to pull out all the stops and create a dedicated
10
security line just for your passengers. You have to pay a premium
11
for this, but it will be worth it if you can make your top clients’
12
dreams come true.
13
With your revised plan in place, you go back to these clients
14
again and ask for more advice. When you hear, “When will you
15
start implementing this new system?” you know you’re on to some-
16
thing.
17
Knowing that your top clients would rather be super produc-
18
tive than be entertained on their flights, you get rid of the in-flight
19
movie and radio your eliminated clients wanted, but were never
20
quite happy with. Then, you get rid of the kiddie snacks. Now
21
you’ve eliminated expenses related to unwanted clients, and you
22
can funnel some of that into offering free WiFi on the plane, or
23
concierge service, or a live feed of CNN or MSNBC.
24
Before you roll out your new fancy service, you decide it’s time
25
to stand out from the crowd, time to stop competing with all of
26
the other airlines. So you re-label yourself. Now you’re Elite Com-
27
muter Express—you’re not even calling yourself an airline any-
28
more. Your niche is business folks who don’t want to waste their
29
time getting to and from the airport, and you’ve got a lock on that
S30
service. You invented it!
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THE PUMPKIN PLAN
01
Your top clients, who probably took your first call because they
02
were stuck in a cab and had nothing better to do, now want to sign
03
up for your VIP club and start booking flights immediately. They
04
identify with your new name, because they are commuters. They
05
start telling everyone about your service, and now most of your
06
flights are full well in advance.
07
You start moving in concentric circles, placing ads in entrepre-
08
neurial magazines, in The Wall Street Journal and on popular
09
business-focused blogs. You sponsor charity golf and tennis tour-
10
naments in the suburban communities where your top clients live.
11
You show up at trade shows geared toward entrepreneurs.
12
Then, you launch an Under-Promise, Over-Deliver (UPOD)
13
program that knocks the blazers right off of your (now happy as
14
clams) top clients. You make deals with other companies who
15
cater to executives and commuters, and offer product testing on
16
your planes. You’re passing out noise-canceling headphones, top-
17
quality pens, new wireless cards, cell phones—it’s like Christmas
18
on the freakin’ Oprah Winfrey Show on your plane. But not all
19
the time. Passengers never know when they will be given a new
20
product . . . which means your flights are always full.
21
Before you know it, Elite Commuter Express is the go-to airline
22
for business executives and entrepreneurs on the East Coast. Your
23
service is so unforgettable, you get frequent press about it, and
24
soon you’re getting requests to expand your service for routes to
25
and from Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco. (Good thing
26
you changed your name to Commuter Express . . . Eastern Air-
27
lines running routes on the West Coast just doesn’t fly, does it?)
28
And how about your prices? You are dictating top dollar now.
29
Cutting travel time in half—and cutting aggravation completely—
30S
is worth a lot of green.
31N
Guess what? You’re going to need more planes.
24
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