AchieveMax® Blog

Let me get right to the point! What you see here is a simple garage door cover—a printed tarp made to attach to your garage door to make it look as if it’s actually showing the interior of your garage and what’s in it. The owner of this particular garage doesn’t own a boat … but you might think otherwise as you drove by his house.

If you’re not interested in a boat, you have your choice of dozens of other unique choices … a full-size race car, a giant dog, stacks of gold bars, a robot, a band room, a family room complete with fire place, a monstrous alligator, a sandy beach, a stealth jet airplane, a disco, a wine seller, a military tank, a locomotive, a semi-truck, a road grader and the list goes on and on. You can also send in your own image to be reproduced. You can use these covers as a mural inside your home or even add the look of wallpaper to enhance any room.

Each garage door cover retails for anywhere from $199 to $399 based on the subject you choose and the size you need (double door available). There are many manufacturers of this product so you certainly have a large variety of subjucts to choose from. Simply go to Google.com and type in “crazy garage door covers.” Here is one of those sites that will give you an idea of what’s available.

Consider the number of ideas you’ve witnessed over the years that caused you to think: “I could have come up with that!” The point is …. you didn’t! You could have—you had access to the same education, experience, and resources as everyone else. It’s just that someone else acted before we did.

Look around you—unlimited resources. Get creative, brainstorm, think positive, take action and make a difference!

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

You might want to sit down for this one. This story is a cross between creativity and change. A powerful combination to be sure! Millions of dollars in ads, just as many tickets and fines, and far too much time and effort have fallen short in the never-ending campaign to get us to buckle our seat belts—a short and simple act that can and does save lives every day!

The increased probability of surviving a car crash hasn’t persuaded enough South Carolinians to buckle up, so the state’s highway patrol has turned to a more reliable incentive: Chick-Fil-A coupons.

The South Carolina Highway Patrol recently started rewarding free chicken sandwich vouchers to seat-belted drivers in three counties around Charleston. So far, officers have distributed 1,200 coupons.

But the coupons aren’t reserved for do-gooders. Officers typically size up drivers for seat belt use when they’re pulled over for moving violations, which means a South Carolinian caught speeding could end up with points on his license, a hefty fine, increased insurance premiums and a hand-breaded boneless chicken breast on a buttered bun.

Officers are also giving out coupons at seat belt checkpoints, and one officer reports he’s gotten into the habit of rewarding coupons to drivers who pull into gas stations with their seat belts buckled.

The program seems to be working: Local police officers say drivers, obviously aware of a seat belt’s worth, are now demanding Chick-Fil-A coupons when stopped.

The Highway Patrol hopes to take the program statewide next year.

South Carolina has lost 394 people on its roadways from not wearing their seat belts. Now citizens know the South Carolina Highway Patrol wants you to wear your seat belt, and Chick-Fil-A wants you to eat more chicken. It’s obviously a win-win-win situation, and it appears to be working. Congratulations to everyone involved.

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

So many times we have the potential to solve the problems and/or challenges which face us daily. We simply don’t tap that potential by taking just a moment to pause and consider our many options. It’s also important to realize that common sense can often be as creative and productive as a higher education. Here’s a perfect example:

Son Helps Father Plant Garden

An old man lived alone in the country. He wanted to plant a tomato garden, but it was difficult work and his only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man described the predicament in a letter to his son.

Dear Vincent,
I’m feeling bad. It looks like I won’t be able to put in my tomatoes this year. I’m just too old to be digging up a garden. I wish you were here to dig it for me.
Love, Dad

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Dad,
Sorry I’m not there to help, but whatever you do, don’t dig up that garden. That’s where I buried the BODIES.
Love, Vincent

At 4 a.m the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding a single body. They apologized to the old man and left. The same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the best I could do under the circumstances.
Love, Vinnie

Note: It’s amazing how a little critical thinking can not only solve a problem but eliminate manual labor in doing so!

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Talk about creative thinking. Here’s a prime example. How would you like to get paid anywhere from $300 to $900 a month for simply driving your own car to work, to church, to your kids’ soccer games or any of your other normal destinations? It’s happenings all over the country at this very moment.

Of course, you know there’s got to be a catch to such a sweet deal. However, this one is quite simple while, at the same time, can easily be a deal breaker. It is, in fact, a no-brainer. You’re either going to love it or hate it—jump at the opportunity or laugh at the suggestion of something that, to you, is out of the question.

There’s a special segment of the advertising industry today offering what they call “brand driver” promotions. They actually pay regular people to affix vinyl decals to their cars—decals that, at first glance, appear to be painted on the vehicle.

These decals are known as “auto wraps” and they typically consist of the logo of a particular company or brand. Or, the “wrap” may have a message, like the “Follow Me to Find Great Furniture Prices.”

This has been going on for more than 10 years but seems to be refined every year or so. For instance, initially, cars were leased, painted as needed and then offered to drivers along with a nice paycheck to be driven around town or on freeways.

This obviously was not very cost-effective so a new approach had to be devised. Soon they simplified things by merely offering to wrap a driver’s personal car with 3M vinyl decals which eliminated much of the previous hassle.

The only requirement is that a driver must log about 1,000 miles a month depending on the location of the car’s owner. Other factors considered include where you live, where you drive, the location of your commute, whether you have children, their ages, your favorite activities and what kinds of events you attend. Needs of the clients and their target audience are also factored into the decision.

Brand names such as Proctor & Gamble, Coke, Tang and Vault energy drink have adorned cars from coast to coast. They often request drivers who are stay-at-home moms, those who are active in their kids’ school, attend soccer games, church activities and other community events.

When you think about it, having your car “wrapped” can easily provide you with a monthly income that can easily cover your car payment, gas and oil, and any necessary maintenance to keep your car on the road—in short, you end up with a free car.

On the other hand, many people simply can’t picture themselves being seen behind the wheel of a car covered with corn flakes, tennis shoes or dog food. To each his own but you must admit this approach to advertising is cutting edge and certainly thinking out of the box!

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

I’m often told how lucky I am to be able to travel as much as I do … airports, hotels, town cars, convention centers. It does sound exciting … to those who don’t have to do it every week. Trust me when I tell you how quickly the routine can grow old and tiresome!

One of the monotonous rituals a traveler must deal with involves the simple shuttle bus which takes you from your parked car to the terminal. That’s the easy part of the necessary ritual. The challenge emerges when you return from your trip … often tired, suffering jet-lag and simply wanting to return to the comfort of your home after a long and demanding trip.

In most of your larger airports, you have a choice of several places to park … each with their own fleet of shuttle buses. You’re immediately given a parking slip to tell the returning driver where your car is parked. Your job of course is keep that slip in a safe place until you return as losing it will mean cruising every aisle of the massive parking lot in search of your car. Another annoying challenge arises when you have to remember what your shuttle bus looks likes as so many of them seem to look alike. Hop the wrong bus and you add embarrassment to inconvenience!

Well, one company has obviously mastered the task of TLC (“Thinking Like the Customer”). The company calls itself The Parking Spot … an obvious reminder of where you left your car. It got even more creative customizing its shuttle bus as an obvious visual reminder for its patrons.

Each shuttle by is a rolling Parking Spot. How could you possibly NOT recognize that bus! And yet what’s more simplistic than a cluster of giant spots splattered against a bright yellow background!

The Parking Spot is the leading near-airport parking company in the United States, getting its start at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental airport. Since then, The Parking Spot has grown to 19 locations at 12 airports serving 10 metropolitan areas. It enjoys a solid, loyal customer base and much of it can be attributed to its creative approach to a mundane service!

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Bear with me on this one. It may just make a major difference in your future. Would you like to be a millionaire … several times over?  If so, don’t be too quick to judge in the future. You just may pass up an opportunity to achieve stature you never believed possible!

I want to ask you a series of questions and I want you to pause after each to note exactly what you’re thinking and feeling. This will be crucial later.

What if I came to you and asked you to partner with me in a venture that would guarantee us financial success for the rest of our lives?

What if I told you it had to do with developing a cartoon character that would later lead to a television series that would be broadcast around the world?

What if I told you the TV series would lead to a successful movie that would appear world wide?

What if I told you we’d boast cameo appearances and voice-overs in the TV series and movie by such notables as Will Ferrell, Ricky Gervais, Robin Williams, Craig Ferguson, David Hasselhoff, Victoria Beckham, Alec Baldwin, Amy Poehler, Charles Nelson Reilly, David Bowie, Davy Jones, Dennis Quaid, Ernest Borgnine, Gene Shalit, Gene Simmons, Johnny Depp, Marion Ross, Mark Hamill, Pat Morita, Ray Liotta, Scarlett Johanson, Tim Conway, Sir Mix-A-Lot, and “Weird Al” Yankovic to name a few?  Not bad, huh?

What if I told you we’d enjoy merchandising and marketing tie-ins with products and companies such as Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Kellogg’s cereal, video games to boxer shorts, flip-flops, pajamas, t-shirts, slippers and radios?

What if I told you our popular merchandise lines would be sold at Hot Topic, Claire’s, Waldenbooks, Borders Books, Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, RadioShack, Target, KB Toys, Big Lots, Wal-Mart, Shopko, Meijer, Kmart, Sears, JCPenney, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, T.J. Maxx, Toys “R” Us and Ames stores in the United States as well as the Zellers, Wal-Mart Canada and Toys “R” Us stores in Canada, and a limited selection of merchandise in Australia at Kmart Australia and Target Australia?

What if I told you we’d have kids meal tie-ins at McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King, and KFC world wide … and even a Slurpee named after our lead character in 7-Eleven convenience stores?

By now you should be thinking seriously about quitting your day job! I’ll spare you the details about the theme parks, CDs and DVDs, the NASCAR stock cars, the water parks, MP3 players, video arcade games, board games, digital cameras, a DVD player, books and magazines, Facebook Page and Twitter account, and a flatscreen television.

Now let me tell you a little about the character that’s going to produce this overwhelming financial windfall. It’s got to be a cartoon character that everyone, young and old, can respect and relate to. So how about this?

The cartoon series would be set in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in the fictional city of Bikini Bottom and on the surrounding lagoon floor.

The main character would be a sea sponge, but in shape and color his body more closely resembles a kitchen sponge. His name would be SpongeBob SquarePants, and he lives in a pineapple under the sea! Perfectly logical, right? Look at this photo of SpongeBob. Does anything about this character make sense?

Well, by now I’m sure I probably would have lost your interest because you would have decided that I was out of my mind … due to the fact that no one on earth would believe anything I’ve said thus far and certainly wouldn’t be interested in a character like this.

Well, everything mentioned above has happened and continues to happen every day. This unbelievable character, his outlandish friends and neighbors, and extraordinarily successful series was created by artist, animator and former marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg, and is produced through his production company, United Plankton Pictures Inc.

It is currently Nickelodeon’s highest-rated show, the most distributed property of MTV Networks, and among Nicktoons Network’s most-watched shows. Although its original network is Nickelodeon, SpongeBob is now broadcast around the world. It is the second longest-running Nicktoon, next to the Rugrats.

SpongeBob’s has friends and associates:

• His neighbor and best friend is a pink and highly idiotic starfish named Patrick Star, who lives under a rock.
• Another neighbor, Squidward Tentacles, is a highly arrogant and egotistical octopus.
• Another friend is Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel that lives in an underwater dome.
• His house-pet is a snail named Gary who meows like a cat.
• All of these characters are citizens of Bikini Bottom, an underwater city.
• SpongeBob works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, a fast-food restaurant.

As some of you may know, I could go on and on describing this phenomenon, but I think you get the point.  Everything about this character, series, and movie screams nonsense and failure … yet it’s experienced nothing but success.

• It has become equally popular with adolescents and adults alike.
• This year they’re producing a prime-time 10th Anniversary documentary special.
• Nickelodeon will air a 50-hour marathon of SpongeBob’s antics.
• The Movie was made for $30 million and earned $140,161,792 world wide.  

So why discuss this phenomenon on a business blog? Very simple. In today’s very challenging, competitive business environment, you’d better be willing to be creative, innovative, open-minded and willing to rule out absolutely nothing when it comes to products, services, and strategies. You’d better be willing to take calculated risks and expand your current comfort zone. Don’t be too quick to dismiss radical thinking similar to that which produced SpongeBob SquarePants! Times have changed. You’d better be willing to do the same!

Personally, I’m not attracted to SpongeBob SquarePants. I don’t understand the concept, have passed on his TV series, would more than likely opt out of his next movie, and won’t buy a lunch box with his picture on it. However, 20-20 hindsight convinces me that I certainly would have liked to invest in his career ten years ago.

Are you searching for your SpongeBob?

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Business Week magazine recently shared a comment made by IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano who said: “The way you will thrive in this environment is by innovating—innovating in technologies, innovating in strategies, innovating in business models.”

Innovation is no longer about merely creating new products. It is about reformulating business processes and creating entirely new markets by striving to meet untapped customer needs. As we watch the Internet grow at incredible speed and witness globalization taking place much faster than predicted, new ideas are inevitably emerging in every industry at breakneck speeds. Today, the real challenge is in the selection and execution of the right ideas, bringing them to market and doing so before your competition does.

Twenty years ago, innovation focused on technology and the control of quality and cost. Business Week says that “today it’s about taking corporate organizations built for efficiency and rewiring them for creativity and growth.” What’s really exciting is the fact that innovation doesn’t have to have anything to do with technology, which means we should be tapping the potential of every member of the organization in search of creative ideas.

Here are a few key facts to keep in mind when pursuing a creative/innovative culture:

Many times an accident has led to tremendous success. Be aware, re-evaluate, re-frame.

• The friction match was invented in 1926 by John Walker, a chemist in England. The discovery was accidental. Walker was actually trying to produce a readily combustible material for fowling-pieces. His first match was a stick which he had been using to stir a mixture of potash and antimony. When he scraped it again on the stone floor to remove the blob on the end, it burst into flame.
• In 1926, a man named Epperson left his glass of lemonade on a cold windowsill. When he returned, the liquid was frozen with the spoon stuck in the middle. After he ran water on the glass, the ice came out with the spoon still frozen in the center. Epperson named his discovery the “epsicle.” The name was later changed to “popsicle.”

Innovation can result from necessity. Consider its long-term possibilities.

• The “huddle” in football was formed because of a deaf football player who used sign language to communicate and his team didn’t want the opposition to see the signals he used and in turn huddled around him.

Consider additional uses of current everyday resources.

• Coffee was used for centuries as a medicine. It was only in the 16th century that it began to be drunk socially in Arabia and Persia.

Be open to modifications, unexpected opportunities, or additional uses other than initially planned.

• Jeans were originally made in 1850 by Levi Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant to the U.S. He originally intended to use his cloth for tents and wagon coverings. However, a miner who complained that ordinary trousers quickly became frayed and tattered on the diggings gave Strauss the idea of making hard-wearing work trousers.

Innovation can and will occur in a wide variety of ways if you’ve created a culture of encouragement and support for creative thinking. Great ideas can and do come from every level of the organization when such a culture does exist. What was once considered a nicety is today a necessity. Are you sending that message to your staff?

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Remember when conventional wisdom suggested that tough times require that we cut back on both training and advertising? Apparently, there’s been a change of heart and wisdom in this area brought about by increasingly unparalleled challenges.

While many have, indeed, reduced their training budgets, many others have actually increased training as they realize the true value of investing in their greatest assets in times of constant change and global competition. Several of our current clients have actually contracted year-long “boot camps” to insure that wise investment.

While that approach to training may seem radical to some, consider what’s happening on the advertising side of the business. Not only are many increasing their budgets but they’re also pushing the envelope as never before.

Consider the fast food industry … Carl’s Jr. for a start. This 68-year-old American fast-food restaurant chain is located mostly in the Western U.S. and West Coast regions. It’s owned by CKE Restaurants, which also owns and operates the Hardee’s, Green Burrito, and Red Burrito restaurant chains. I thought I had seen everything when Carl’s Jr. hired Paris Hilton to cover herself with soap suds and crawl all over a luxury car to increase your appetite for its Spicy BBQ Burger. While it didn’t sell many burgers, the commercial brought Carl’s Jr. a great deal of free publicly from all forms of the media trying to report the outrage of consumers from coast to coast.

Now, we witness Burger King hiring rapper and producer “Sir Mix-a-Lot” (Anthony Ray) to sing “I like square butts” to promote a BK burger deal and kids meal complete with SpongeBob toys. If you watch closely, you’ll see the dancers doing the “I like square butts” moves dressed like SpongeBob, complete with tube socks and square backsides in a parody of Ray’s 1992 Grammy Award-winning million seller.

I realize I’m a “Boomer,” but I struggle to see the wisdom here in promoting “big butts” from burgers in today’s health- and diet-conscious society. However, industry insiders are claiming the attention-getting commercial has less to do with burgers than it does with brand identification. Apparently, you have to increase your shock value today as the public is constantly being overwhelmed by reality shows dedicated to rehab, marrying perfect strangers, and plastic surgery. The media again contributes greatly by reporting on the national outrage with this inappropriate marketing to young SpongeBob fans.

Finally, enter KFC (formally Kentucky Fried Chicken) … a proud member of the growing YUM! family. This is the world’s largest restaurant company consisting of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, A&W, Wing Street, and KFC—36,000 restaurants in more than 110 countries and territories and more than 1.4 million associates!

You might call this shovel-ready public relations. KFC recently spent $3,000 to finance the repair of 350 potholes in Louisville. Once filled, they sprayed each spot with the message: “Re-freshed by KFC.” The chalk ads will fade out in about a month. KFC is planning to continue this project in many other major southern cities. Will it increase traffic and sell more chicken? Who knows. It’s difficult for some to make the connect between pot holes and original recipe chicken. However, this campaign is generating a lot of free nationwide publicity in the hopes of once again building a brand. Time will tell. If it works well, keep an eye on the other family members as they may try something just as radical.

Note however, that leaders in every industry are making an effort to “think out of the box” (or bucket) more than ever before. It’s something to consider in this very competitive environment.

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

In our creativity keynote presentation “Tennis Shoes & Blue Jeans” (Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation),we share an interesting anecdote that decisively confirms the point that creative ideas aren’t always original.

Each and every person reading this article has been the benefactor of two very creative minds who knew how to borrow, tweak and succeed in such successful ways that the entire world has been impacted. Sadly, far too few people are aware of these historically documented facts.

Many are aware of the fact that Henry Ford developed the “assembly line” and, in doing so, changed the face of manufacturing forever. Or did he? It’s true that Henry developed the automobile assembly line, but where did his idea actually come from? You may be surprised.

The honorable Mr. Ford never hid the fact that his inspiration for assembly-line production came from a visit he made as a young man to a Chicago slaughterhouse! In his autobiography, My Life and Work (1922), Ford revealed that he studied the stock-yards “disassembly line” and simply reversed the procedure. Chicago packers used an overhead trolley in the process of dressing beef. Watching this activity led Ford to the division-of-labor principle he would later adopt to produce automobiles.

The slaughtered animals, suspended upside down from a moving chain, or conveyor, would pass from workman to workman, each of whom would perform some particular step in the process. The workmen were forced to conform to the pace and requirements set by the assembly line itself, producing a higher level of quality, more continuity, and a reduction in the time required to complete the process. If it worked with carcasses, it could work with cars. The rest is history.

Let’s fast forward from 1908 to 1959. A man by the name of Berry Gordy, working on the production line at Ford Motor Co. in Detroit, borrows this novel concept to create a proven method of producing hit music as well as hit stars.

Gordy founded Motown Records in a very modest wood-frame house in the middle class residential neighborhood in mid-town Detroit. He lived upstairs and converted the garage into a studio and called it “Hitsville, USA.” Today that same house is now a Motown museum.

Note the similarities between the Ford assembly line and the Magic of Motown music:

• All the songs were written in standardized format by a team of in-house songwriters.
• The same in-house band, The Funk Brothers, provided the same distinctive Motown rhythm for every hit.
• The same choreographers familiarized every artist with the characteristic Motown dance moves.
• The skilled team of make-up artists created the same Motown look for each performer.
• The same wardrobe staff made certain that every performer hit the stage in that very unique Motown finery.

Whether we realized it or not, as an audience, we had that very comfortable feeling of deja vu every time a Motown performer graced the stage. Little did we know that feeling had been engineered as precisely as Ford Mustang. As Ford produced its classic car models, Motown, too, created classics that will live on in the hearts of music lovers forever … The Supremes, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Martha & the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Diane Ross, Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, The Contours, The Marvelettes, The Ruffin Brothers (Jimmy and David), The Four Tops, The Isley Brothers, Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Jackson Five, The Commodores, Lionel Richie, and the list goes on and on.

Henry Ford borrowed from the meat-packers. Berry Gordy borrowed from Henry Ford. No one lost. Everyone gained.

Who will you borrow from? Keep your eyes peeled and your mind open. As you view life around you, consider how it can be “tweaked” for other uses and benefits. Consider the two examples above and how they, simplistic as they were, changed the entire world as we knew it. You, too, have that potential.

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

This is our third installment in a series of articles sharing creative company names and signs. Traveling cross country can provide you with an idea of just how creative people can be as they strive to produce names that will catch the eyes of customers in hopes they’ll pause to investigate, like what they find, and hopefully past the word on to others.

Click on the following links to see the entire list: Search for Creativity and Creative Search Continues. Take a look and appreciate the creative juices which flow across our country.

• SHEAR PERFECTION (salon)
• HAIR WE ARE (salon)
• SHEAR INSANITY (salon)
• HAIRWAY to HEAVEN (salon)
• CURL UP AND DYE (salon)
• BEST LITTLE HAIR HOUSE IN DENVER (salon)
• U OTTER STOP INN (bar)
• FRANK N STEINS (beer, brats & hotdogs)
• E FISH n’ SEA (seafood)
• PIER PRESSURE (seafood)
• SEAS the DAY (seafood)
• PITA WRAPBIT (wraps – pitas – smoothies)
• UNLIMITED PASTABILITIES (pasta)
• JUAN in a MILLION (Mexican food)
• PITA PAN (pita shop)
• FedUp (deli)
• MEAT U THERE (meat market)
• LOX STOCK & BAGEL
• JUST FALAFS (good mood food)
• LETTUCE EAT (sandwich bar)
• NIN COM SOUP (soup & sandwich)
• THAIPHOON (Thai food)
• THAI TANIC (Thai cuisine)
• MOON WOK (Chinese take-out)
• WOK & ROLL (Oriental food)
• WOK THIS WAY (Oriental food)
• BREW HAHA (coffee shop)
• THE HUMAN BEAN (coffee shop)
• A BREWED AWAKENING (Espresso shop)

Harry K. Jones is a professional, motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.