What can Carl Sewell teach us about business

I just finished reading Tom Peters’ new book titled The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE. It is fundamentally very similar to his previous books, and by that I mean that it is fun to read and enlightening. (By the way, the book is derived from a blog, which means the structure doesn’t follow a typical plot line.) One of the most interesting stories for me involves Carl Sewell from Dallas:

Carl Sewell, based in Dallas, owns a string of car dealerships, including a Cadillac “store” in Dallas.
Carl bought a … streetsweeper. The first thing a prospective customer sees of Sewell Village Cadillac is the road in front of the facility. Hence, Carl decided to take what his customer would see upon arrival–the street!–out of the city’s hands and into his own hands; it’s fair to say that “Project Clean Street” is a non-trivial element of his brand.
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As Tom notes in the above book: “The appearance is a non-trivial part of the overall assessment of the “substance” — in fact, a part of the substance.” I could not agree more. This is why my parting suggestion for this post is: Sweat the details.

Remarkability by Walt Disney:
“Do what you do so well that people can’t resist telling others about you.”