The Pumpkin Plan
A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field
By: Mike Michalowicz
Published: July 5, 2012
Format: Hardcover: 240 pages
ISBN-10: 1591844886
ISBN-13: 978-1591844884
Publisher: Portfolio/Penguin
"To grow a successful business your company must be irresistibly magnetic. The average lose or are left to rot. It's the most unique - the best - who win", writes successful entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz, in his innovative and inspirational book The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field. The author describes a blueprint for building an extremely successful business by utilizing the growth formula of a successful pumpkin farm.
Mike Michalowicz recognizes the similarities between operating a successful pumpkin farm, and establishing a hugely successful company, regardless of the industry. As with the growing of giant pumpkins, the necessity for the business person is not to do more. The challenge is really to do things better than anyone else. For Mike Michalowicz, the key insight into understanding the pumpkin plan approach to business in understanding that only the outstanding, giant pumpkins attract attention and huge crowds. Ordinary pumpkins are not even noticed; and are forgotten almost immediately. The author offers the idea that giant pumpkins become the stuff of legend; and any company that strives to become a giant pumpkin will become a legend as well.
Mike Michalowicz (photo left) provides the sobering wake up call that if a company is merely ordinary, it won't simply stay in that rut, but will decline and disappear. To counter this grim outlook, the author shares the power and the deceptive simplicity, that hides deeply profound wisdom, of the pumpkin plan. Instead of thinking of the organization as needing more hard work, Mike Michalowicz invites business people to think of their company as a giant pumpkin.
To grow giant pumpkins that people notice and transform into folklore, the author provides the following seven basic steps to pumpkin and business growing success. Those seven steps to pumpkin and business growing success are:
* Plant promising seeds
* Water, water, water
* Routinely remove all damaged and diseased pumpkins
* Weed fully and completely, leaving not one weed to grow
* Identify and keep only the fastest growing pumpkins, and remove the rest
* Focus all attention on the selected giant pumpkin, and nurture it completely
* Watch it grow, and this will happen so rapidly it can be seen happening
For me, the power of the book is how Mike Michalowicz combines a very straight forward plan of action with the practical techniques for successful execution. The entire concept of the pumpkin plan is based on timeless wisdom, as expressed through the analogy of establishing an outstanding business to growing giant pumpkins. The process is so universal that it can be applied readily to any company, in any industry, and at any stage of its growth curve.
The author shares real world examples of legendary pumpkin style companies, with good humor and examples of the plan in action. Each chapter of the book establishes one more step in the seven part process, and each chapter ends with actionable techniques for furthering the plan in any company. The author even provides industry specific concepts to target the pumpkin plan even more precisely for success.
I highly recommend the very practical and engaging book The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalwicz, to any business leaders, executives, or entrepreneurs who are seeking an easily understood action plan for building an outstanding, memorable, and magnetic company. Whether your field is giant pumpkins or any other industry, this book will transform your business from the ordinary to the legendary.
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