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Two-time Nobel Prize winner Dr. Carrel of the Rockefeller institute performed an amazing experiment to test his theory that if you gave a cell the nutrients that it needs to survive and the ability to eliminate waste, that a cell would live forever.

In this experiment, he took average chicken cells and immersed them in a solution containing all the nutrients that it needs to survive and then changed that solution every day, thus, eliminating the cells’ waste on a daily basis. What is most interesting to note, is that the average chicken lives about 7 years –yet, these cells lived for 29 years. Had it not been for the poor memory of a lab assistant who forgot to change the polluted solution one night, who knows how long this cell might have lived, maybe another 29 years?

I believe there is a good analogy here, and that is, that the vital elements necessary for a healthy life, are similar to the vital elements necessary for a healthy business. I like to call it, ‘three to thrive’; Oxygen = Cash flow, Nourishment = Emotional (moral), Physical (training) & Intellectual (education), Elimination = Fire the Fat.

Oxygen – Cash flow
Obviously, any entrepreneur knows that cash flow is one of the most critical elements in running a business. Run out of cash and you essentially run out of air. Some important things to think about in regard to cash flow; know your cash balance right now, stay on top of receivables, project your cash flow out six months and always, always be closing new business.

Nourishment – Emotional, Physical & Intellectual
Emotional Nourishment– hear is a new thought, feeding your employees emotionally with respect, appreciation, empathy and honest heartfelt (you do have a heart don’t you!) emotional bonding and connection. People are emotional beings and thrive on attention and affection.

Physical nourishment  - Just like a pro-athlete that heads out to practice every day even though they know the game inside and out– they need to continually practice and drive home the basics. Absolutely nothing beats the act of physical training. How often do you send out the sales force for a sales refresher course with a new sales-trainer or your creative staff for that new Deek McClellan Adobe seminar? If you want the best workers, you have to keep them physically fit in their respective fields of endeavor.

Intellectual nourishment  - keep your staff highly challenged intellectually. Send them to seminars to learn about best practices and new business models. The worst thing that you can do is let your people get brain-rot from doing the same thing over and over. Get them thinking about new ideas and see what possibilities arise.

Elimination – Fire The Fat. This is really easy - fire the fat. You know who they are. These are the underachievers, the people that you have been making excuses for for the past few years. They are polluting your environment and costing you time and money. Fix it. 
 
If you have a question for the Maniacal Marketer, please send it to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . Christine Regan is the president of Redlake, Inc, www.redlake.tv, a marketing and sales agency in New York.

© Intellectual Asset Management, LLC 2006