Back in February we announced the formation of the Little Engine Ventures Book Club. Just now I mailed out books #49 and #50. I have to say this has been one of the more fun business experiments I’ve done. I don’t know yet what, if any, impact it actually has on our goal to be the best small business owners we can be. That’s a much longer feedback loop than 5 months. But personally it’s been an awesomely short feedback loop.
The 50 people that have received a book have done so basically because we had a meeting that didn’t suck. We felt it moved both us and them forward on our respective goals. So many meetings are pointless wastes of time or even counterproductive. Doing a lot of meetings is just part of the deal getting something like LEV off the ground. Each one of those 50 people Daryl and I have met with have saved us from a sucky meeting. Thank you! We hate unproductive meetings so much we wanted to thank those people. Our way of expressing that thankfulness is sharing knowledge via books. If all we did was express a sincere thanks to those people, then we were more than happy to spend a little cash to do that.
But there’s been some surprising things that have happened as well. People send really thoughtful thank you notes after they receive the book. Many by email and text but a few with handwritten notes (yes, people still do that!). A few sent us one of their favorite books to read. Then a couple of you just went over the top. One guy sent a private label bottle of bourbon. Another an artisanal, all-Indiana food basket.
So let’s keep it going. I want to hit 100 books sent by Thanksgiving. Let’s save each other from another sucky meeting. No need to send bourbon. It’s delicious but it’s gonna take us a bit to get through the bottle we already have. What’s something you could do in your business to thank someone today? What has an an employee, a key vendor, or a new connection saved you from? That’s the real way to reciprocate this book club thing.