Recently we visited Sydney in Australia, a favorite city of mine, and Mexico city, as a family. In both cases we were underwhelmed. Why? Not because they were bad places or not enjoyable, not at all. We love both of these cities, but they were just... well, ordinary.
Dubai, on the other hand, is anything but ordinary. Everywhere you look they are trying to do the biggest, fastest, most innovative, most advanced.. whatever it is.
In a word, Dubai is not ordinary, it is extra-ordinary. Everything about it is extra-ordinary.
- A ski slope in a shopping mall!! (My 5 year old son has trouble understanding that snow is not always in a building)
- The tallest building in the world
- Man made islands shaped like a map of the world
- And they are achieving the delicate balance between the ancient traditions of the region and the inrush of new and exciting traditions from the outside world.
Extraordinary indeed. So much so that it compelled me to write about it. (And I do write about it regularly)
We see this in business also. The customer service I once received from Amazon.com was truly extraordinary, the free phone calls that Skype enabled were extraordinary, Google is probably the most extraordinary company in history!!
And.. people talk about it don't they, have you ever seen an ad for Google? Ever? Nope... because others told you about them, until the news started telling you about them, until the noise from everyone telling you about them was so loud that you just had to check it out and move away from your comfort zone at Yahoo...
Are you extraordinary?
Are you such as extra-ordinary consultant or company that your clients feel compelled to talk about you to their peers and partners?
Is your blog so extraordinary that most of your readers come because they are referred by others?
Are referrals a principle source of business for you? Dan Roams book, The Back of a Napkin is extraordinary, I hope my own work in progress is also extraordinary.
If not then how can you do more, be more, and deliver more value to your clients?
Add multimedia to your presentations. Take formal training, get a professional to do-over your slide decks.
Boost your courses, inject more lessons, more interactivity, more psychological motivational stuff, build tension, get the people leaving there with a real sense of accomplishment and achievement.
Make sure your documentation is not only brilliant but also concise, to the point, relevant and more than they could have dreamed of!
You only get this chance to be extra-ordinary, if you blow it then it is no good promising to do better next time.
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