I have finally gotten around to posting the review of the book “Collapse of Distinction” by Scott McKain.  This is part of the Thomas Nelson – Book Review Bloggers program

The title and subtitle grabbed my attention right away, the subtitle is “Stand out and move up while your competition fails”. When I started reading it I went into the book and thought is this only going to be a book for business or will it be able to be applied to church as well.  I think the concepts and principles in the book are valuable in both cases.

McKain does a good job in describing how business’ struggle with sameness. The pitfalls of being the same as everyone else. He also tells you what to do about it. How to stand out, to become distinct.

One of the first things that caught my attention was when McKain wrote that many business’ focus on not losing to the competitor.  He says that we should be focusing on the customer instead. What the customer really wants.  I believe we can give lip service to this and say we are customer driven or focused.  But I think this book gives good insight it making that a reality rather then just a good statement on the company website.

The customer must get the sense or the experience in dealing with your business or church that they have received exceptional value in that experience.  Or a compelling experience.

McKain describes three levels of business or professional differentiation:

1. Sameness
2. Differentiation
3. Distinction

He also goes into detail on 4 cornerstones

1. Clarity
2. Creativity
3. Communication
4. Customer-Experience Focus

I am in the midst of starting a new business venture and I plan on reading through this book again and building in concepts of this book into my business from the get-go. I recommend this book to any business leader, church leader…especially those that are just starting out.

Haven’t been posting to the blog recently. Things have been busy, and I always remember when I am calling it a night. Got to get into a regular blogging routine again. Of course, I am always twittering http://www.twitter.com/regbertrand

BMX Racing is been busy to start the year. This year we hosted for the first time at Ottawa BMX a Pro Clinic. Nick Goertzen ABA #1 ‘A’ Pro held a two day clinic.

Currently, we are down in Horseheads NY at the Empire State Nationals. This is the first time we have been to a National Series race for the ABA.

I have also started a course that should last 4-10 weeks, since it is correspondence there is just a minimum timeframe of 2 weeks and max of 10 weeks. I plan on doing it in about 5 weeks. It is a business course on becoming a licensed mortgage broker. I have been doing the modules at night.

I am going to be launching a website in the near future for the business and some other social media elements. I have a draft of how I want to have everything connected and flowing together from Twitter, Facebook, websites, email etc. it is in a mind dump in my moleskin.