If you were a company shipping fragile items overseas and found that your product often arrived damaged in transit, what would you do to solve this?
Many companies may reinforce their packaging, plaster the containers with bold “Fragile” warnings, or contract with a different vendor, but Dutch manufacturer VanMoof came up with a more creative option. To protect their high-end bicycles on their journey, they printed a picture of a flat-screen television on the box. This simple move reduced damages by 80%!
Before you reach for a complicated solution, see if you can’t find a creative one instead.
It would be impossible to sell a piece of the Gateway Arch, so the National Park Service has done the next best thing. Instead of destroying the steel cables that carry passengers to the top of the monument, they have repurposed them into unique gift items. Now, people can truly own a piece of the Arch, just not in the way you would expect.
While your organization may not have the appeal of the Arch, perhaps you can repurpose something to create a memorable piece of history or otherwise unavailable item to give as gifts or as a revenue source. Mass-produced has its place, but hopefully not on your holiday list.
If you’re on social media at all, you’ll notice that at this time of year, your feed is full of products you may not see otherwise. Many of them seem like they would fill a need, until you stop and realize that you actually don’t need a separate gizmo for everything.
A sampling of today’s advertisements:
A brush with your car’s logo to dust off all those crevices around the dashboard
A jewelry holder with many tiny pockets to protect your items while traveling
A hook, branded of course, to go behind your car’s headrest to hold your packages
A double-sided gadget to allow you to easily thread needles or rip seams
A monographed golf ball stamp — with a metal case!
A travel power kit with 4 AC outlets and 2 USB outlets
A faux collar collection for interchangeable looks
A mix-and-match belt kit
An aero garden kit to grow herbs
Surprisingly, this all reminds me of the process I used when I had a staff vacancy. Before I started interviewing, I would make a list of the attributes I sought in the person I hired. I would refer to this before making an offer, double-checking myself that I was getting what I truly needed and was not seduced by a slick interviewer. I think the same principle is at the core of holiday shopping. Figure out your budget and list before you venture out into Black Friday madness, and don’t succumb to the hype. Santa checked his list twice; make yours and stick to it.
I love to wrap presents, and so it has become an annual tradition that I meet my sister at a hotel, halfway between our houses, and wrap all of her Christmas presents. She has kids, grandkids, November birthdays, and a host of other beneficiaries of her generosity, so there is always a lot to do. I love it!
Her husband, on the other hand, does not share my enthusiasm for wrapping. In fact, I received a note from him, thanking me for my “early Christmas present” (i.e., getting him out of the task).
On this day of Thanksgiving, all of us have something to be thankful for. Be grateful that we each make different contributions to the whole, and appreciate the gifts of others, even if they delight in the giving.
Today marks the start of the Thanksgiving holiday, and for many, it means taking to the skies. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) estimates that it will screen 17.8 million passengers this weekend.
A more staggering statistic is that TSA reports passengers leave behind 90,000-100,000 items at security checkpoints each month! Items include driver’s licenses, passports, and computers, among the more valuable forgotten pieces.
If your organization experienced 100,000 instances per month (over a million times a year) where customers were inconvenienced, wouldn’t you design a system to prevent that? Have TSA hand people their items. Monitor what remains on the belt and call after people. Have people place their ID in each bin so they can be paged for retrieval. Put a tracker in each bin that is linked to the traveler when they check in. Something! Instead, the process continues as usual, with each item logged and stored, taking even more resources on the back end instead of fixing the problem upstream.
When the system isn’t working, it’s far better to find a solution than to just track how many times it’s broken.
I watched a fascinating video about how hotels are changing to cut costs and attract customers in a competitive market. Declining occupancy rates and alternatives such as Airbnb have caused the industry to rethink its properties in substantial ways, as has social media. Hotels are no longer beholden to AAA or other ratings with set criteria and instead are chosen through guest comments on posted sites.
The video outlines changes that hotels have made to shrink the size of rooms without impacting guest satisfaction. Wardrobes were replaced with hooks and open closets, irons are no longer in each room, mini-bars were replaced with refreshments for sale in the lobby, and the bathrooms were redesigned to remove amenities, among other changes. And while the rooms themselves have been reduced in size, the lobbies have transformed to become large, communal spaces where people gather to work, drink, do laundry, and socialize.
I think the video provides a lesson for other organizations facing a changing environment. Instead of staying the same and bucking the headwinds with more advertising or reducing prices, the hotel industry shows that you can make changes in some areas by cutting and other areas through addition. The smart move is to rethink what you have to offer and maximize what your customers truly value, not just what they have always had.
The next time you stay in a hotel, take a critical look around. Do you even notice how it has changed from a decade ago? The evolution of the facilities can be a model for your transformation.
Long before Mel Robbins’ bestseller, The Let Them Theory, or Marie Kondo’s method for decluttering, the ancient Chinese had the same idea about shedding what is no longer required.
As we near the conclusion of The Year of the Snake, and before all the holiday preparations consume your every waking moment, try to carve out a moment to consider what you should let go of in your life.
What expectation or perceived obligation can you give up this year?
Think about foregoing that additional side dish — will it be missed?
Maybe you don’t need to decorate every corner of your house?
Perhaps one favorite type of cookie will be enough?
Can you clear those overstuffed drawers and closets and help someone else?
Do you need to say “yes” to all the social events of the season?
Can you shed some names from your gift list and donate to charity instead?
What about stopping the negative self-talk and perfectionism?
We all have more possessions and more expectations than we need. End the Year of the Snake on a positive note and do some shedding in preparation for a fresh start in 2026.
Many organizations coordinate drives during this season of giving, collecting toys, food, clothing, or shopping for families through an Angel Tree program. A local nonprofit has suggested a twist for your organization’s generosity. Instead of collecting a variety of items, work with your food bank or social services agency and collect as many of one key item as you can.
A peanut butter drive!
A toilet paper drive!
A diaper drive!
A laundry soap drive!
A sock drive!
A kids’ underwear drive!
A shampoo drive!
You get the idea. By focusing on restocking the shelves for a high-demand item, you can make it a friendly competition to see which area in your organization collects the most, set a goal for the number of items and easily keep track, or buy items in bulk. It removes one more decision from this already hectic time of year, as no one has to decide what to buy.
Think about trying it for this year — or better yet, pick a different item for every month. The need certainly outlasts the holiday season.
I’ve seen many fundraisers that revolve around a meal: burger nights, pizza sales, soup lunches, or pancake breakfasts, as examples. A local church put a new spin on its program by offering a Baked Potato Bar Fundraiser. People were able to make a freewill donation to receive their potato and load it up with a variety of toppings to create a tasty after-services lunch.
The next time you need to raise some money, think about how you can provide something that people may not usually provide for themselves. It also helped that this meal allowed people to create their own combination of toppings instead of one selection fits all.
Ordinary is, well, ordinary. Find more success by adopting an out-of-the-ordinary niche for your next program.
I just received glowing feedback for a series of sessions I facilitated. The thing is, the people who gave my agent the comments did not attend the workshops. They knew how it went because I sent them typed copies of the feedback comments that I received from the participants.
Getting instant feedback makes things tangible to decision-makers and makes feedback actionable for the presenter. I hardly ever facilitate a session or class without asking for quick, written comments.
My go-to method is asking for 1) A Praise (something that went well), 2) A Wish (I wish we would have, I wish we wouldn’t have, etc.), and 3) One thing they learned — written out on an index card. I’ve also asked people to respond to those questions via text or by putting answers in a remote chat. Regardless of the method, it gives a good sense of the overall impression and provides specific feedback about elements of the presentation to keep or modify.
Many people are trained to take photos of everything, as if there is no picture to post, it seemingly did not happen. I feel the same way about receiving instant feedback. Don’t leave a session without it!
