“Are you ready to be transformed?”
That’s the warning shot Bruce Springsteen greeted his audience with at a recent show I attended. Not “are you ready to have a good time?” or “it’s great to be back in South Florida,” but an unspoken promise to deliver a life-altering experience. The ultimate concert ROI in six words.
Apparently, “The Boss” didn’t sign off on ‘underpromise and overdeliver’ in his own company.
Springsteen is many things — global icon, a generation’s Dylan and, apologies to the late James Brown, the hardest working man in show business — but he’s also, as the nickname implies, a powerful businessman. One whose performance has stakeholders clamoring for more, even after more than 40 years on the job.
While some see Springsteen’s success as an unduplicatable phenomenon, the CEO of the E Street Band actually provides a nightly tutorial for professional services providers about the mindset that should be brought to their own business interactions. Attitudes that have the potential to attract, reward, thrill, and retain audiences of importance:
- Have fun at your job and don’t hesitate to let others see it
- Never lose your sense of wonder
- Don’t be afraid to stretch from your comfort zone, or fail
- Meticulously prepare, and then don’t hesitate to ad-lib
- Age means nothing . . . you can either deliver the goods or you can’t
- Don’t leave anything in the proverbial tank
A ‘rock star’ continuously works to surpass the highest expectations of his or her audience, but you don’t need to play guitar or entertain millions to be one. Just follow The Boss’s lead.
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