Sticky Ideas

I've been reading this book called Made to Stick about how to get your ideas across to an audience and have them care about them and remember them. Some of the principles for sticky ideas the book stresses are:

1. Keeping it simple - not dumbing the idea down, but breaking it down to it's core
2. Being unexpected - breaking memory schemas
3. Being emotional - make people care about the idea
4. Being concrete - something tangible or measurable

The book goes through all kinds of examples from the Subway Jarod campaign to the "Don't Mess with Texas" litter campaign. I've also spent most of this time thinking of how I can apply this to my job.

Sales in the store have tanked due in part to the summer. But as I see my bonus slipping out the window, I refuse to lay down and die. We tried having to-go menus for the panini sandwiches but that didn't really work. I'm trying to get us some comfy couches to make the lobby more appealing but who knows how long that will take (or how much it will cost). Now I'm finding that maybe the problem is more personel based : getting everyone on the same page.

Why I come to work in the morning may be different from why Joe Barista comes to work in the morning. But we should be working toward the same thing, right? If my goal is something tangible like to increase sales to a certain amount per week and reduce costs to a certain percentage, why should they care about those goals? These are intangible and take a lot of time to look at and learn about. Can we find something they can get on board with that will bring them to my personal goals for the store?

I'm thinking of something involving tips. Most people that work for me are motivated only by money (the only person who is an exception is being tagged for management and scooped out from under me). So if our store's goal is to make say $3.00 an hour in Tips, that makes everything fall into place...

Now to pitch the idea and make it stick...?