“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
From a two page BMW ad spread in Automobile Magazine:
“The ability to say no to compromise is a rare thing these days. Many companies would like to be able to say it, but so few have the autonomy to actually do it. As an independent company, BMW can say no. No, we will not compromise our ideas. No, we will not do it the way everyone else does it. No, we will not factor designs down to the lowest common denominator. No, we will not sell out to a parent company who will meddle in our affairs and ask us to subject our cars to mass-market vanilla-ism. “
“Because we can say no to compromise we can say yes to other things — such as building our vehicles with 50/50 weight distribution for superior handling and control, despite the fact that it costs more to build them that way. It’s thousands of little things like this that separate BMW from other car companies. By maintaining our autonomy and ability to say no, we can make sure great ideas live on to become the ultimate driving machines.”
The power of NO. This was a controversial ad at the time. There was a lot of commentary by the pundits about the boldness of this approach. Great ads, connect with the zeitgeist, and speak a truth to us that resonates within the popular culture. There is and has been a trend toward individualism across our culture and this hit the make because it gave us a reason.
When I think about Tahzoo, where we’ve been and where we’re headed, I thought this Ad was spot on for us. We get to say NO so we can focus on the quality of our work. Over the past two years, we’ve eliminated many poorly performing accounts, passed on work that wasn’t in our sweet spot, and focused back on winning and keeping fortune 500 accounts. The best part of competing with the big firms is that we get to stake our claim, extol our value proposition, and position ourselves to do the best work.
I am thrilled about our pipeline. We have some amazing opportunities, that if we execute properly, will be groundbreaking work for Tahzoo. I know many of you have been working hard writing position papers and proposals, Thank You.
We’ll continue to sell and grow, we are shooting for 50% growth this year. However, we’ll use the power of NO, to make sure we have only the best clients, the ones that are as committed as we are to innovative work.
Let’s go be great!
Brad