Remember when conventional wisdom suggested that tough times require that we cut back on both training and advertising? Apparently, there’s been a change of heart and wisdom in this area brought about by increasingly unparalleled challenges.

While many have, indeed, reduced their training budgets, many others have actually increased training as they realize the true value of investing in their greatest assets in times of constant change and global competition. Several of our current clients have actually contracted year-long “boot camps” to insure that wise investment.

While that approach to training may seem radical to some, consider what’s happening on the advertising side of the business. Not only are many increasing their budgets but they’re also pushing the envelope as never before.

Consider the fast food industry … Carl’s Jr. for a start. This 68-year-old American fast-food restaurant chain is located mostly in the Western U.S. and West Coast regions. It’s owned by CKE Restaurants, which also owns and operates the Hardee’s, Green Burrito, and Red Burrito restaurant chains. I thought I had seen everything when Carl’s Jr. hired Paris Hilton to cover herself with soap suds and crawl all over a luxury car to increase your appetite for its Spicy BBQ Burger. While it didn’t sell many burgers, the commercial brought Carl’s Jr. a great deal of free publicly from all forms of the media trying to report the outrage of consumers from coast to coast.

Now, we witness Burger King hiring rapper and producer “Sir Mix-a-Lot” (Anthony Ray) to sing “I like square butts” to promote a BK burger deal and kids meal complete with SpongeBob toys. If you watch closely, you’ll see the dancers doing the “I like square butts” moves dressed like SpongeBob, complete with tube socks and square backsides in a parody of Ray’s 1992 Grammy Award-winning million seller.

I realize I’m a “Boomer,” but I struggle to see the wisdom here in promoting “big butts” from burgers in today’s health- and diet-conscious society. However, industry insiders are claiming the attention-getting commercial has less to do with burgers than it does with brand identification. Apparently, you have to increase your shock value today as the public is constantly being overwhelmed by reality shows dedicated to rehab, marrying perfect strangers, and plastic surgery. The media again contributes greatly by reporting on the national outrage with this inappropriate marketing to young SpongeBob fans.

Finally, enter KFC (formally Kentucky Fried Chicken) … a proud member of the growing YUM! family. This is the world’s largest restaurant company consisting of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, A&W, Wing Street, and KFC—36,000 restaurants in more than 110 countries and territories and more than 1.4 million associates!

You might call this shovel-ready public relations. KFC recently spent $3,000 to finance the repair of 350 potholes in Louisville. Once filled, they sprayed each spot with the message: “Re-freshed by KFC.” The chalk ads will fade out in about a month. KFC is planning to continue this project in many other major southern cities. Will it increase traffic and sell more chicken? Who knows. It’s difficult for some to make the connect between pot holes and original recipe chicken. However, this campaign is generating a lot of free nationwide publicity in the hopes of once again building a brand. Time will tell. If it works well, keep an eye on the other family members as they may try something just as radical.

Note however, that leaders in every industry are making an effort to “think out of the box” (or bucket) more than ever before. It’s something to consider in this very competitive environment.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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In our creativity keynote presentation “Tennis Shoes & Blue Jeans” (Back-to-the-Basics Approach to Creativity and Innovation),we share an interesting anecdote that decisively confirms the point that creative ideas aren’t always original.

Each and every person reading this article has been the benefactor of two very creative minds who knew how to borrow, tweak and succeed in such successful ways that the entire world has been impacted. Sadly, far too few people are aware of these historically documented facts.

Many are aware of the fact that Henry Ford developed the “assembly line” and, in doing so, changed the face of manufacturing forever. Or did he? It’s true that Henry developed the automobile assembly line, but where did his idea actually come from? You may be surprised.

The honorable Mr. Ford never hid the fact that his inspiration for assembly-line production came from a visit he made as a young man to a Chicago slaughterhouse! In his autobiography, My Life and Work (1922), Ford revealed that he studied the stock-yards “disassembly line” and simply reversed the procedure. Chicago packers used an overhead trolley in the process of dressing beef. Watching this activity led Ford to the division-of-labor principle he would later adopt to produce automobiles.

The slaughtered animals, suspended upside down from a moving chain, or conveyor, would pass from workman to workman, each of whom would perform some particular step in the process. The workmen were forced to conform to the pace and requirements set by the assembly line itself, producing a higher level of quality, more continuity, and a reduction in the time required to complete the process. If it worked with carcasses, it could work with cars. The rest is history.

Let’s fast forward from 1908 to 1959. A man by the name of Berry Gordy, working on the production line at Ford Motor Co. in Detroit, borrows this novel concept to create a proven method of producing hit music as well as hit stars.

Gordy founded Motown Records in a very modest wood-frame house in the middle class residential neighborhood in mid-town Detroit. He lived upstairs and converted the garage into a studio and called it “Hitsville, USA.” Today that same house is now a Motown museum.

Note the similarities between the Ford assembly line and the Magic of Motown music:

• All the songs were written in standardized format by a team of in-house songwriters.
• The same in-house band, The Funk Brothers, provided the same distinctive Motown rhythm for every hit.
• The same choreographers familiarized every artist with the characteristic Motown dance moves.
• The skilled team of make-up artists created the same Motown look for each performer.
• The same wardrobe staff made certain that every performer hit the stage in that very unique Motown finery.

Whether we realized it or not, as an audience, we had that very comfortable feeling of deja vu every time a Motown performer graced the stage. Little did we know that feeling had been engineered as precisely as Ford Mustang. As Ford produced its classic car models, Motown, too, created classics that will live on in the hearts of music lovers forever … The Supremes, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Martha & the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Diane Ross, Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, The Contours, The Marvelettes, The Ruffin Brothers (Jimmy and David), The Four Tops, The Isley Brothers, Gladys Knight & the Pips, The Jackson Five, The Commodores, Lionel Richie, and the list goes on and on.

Henry Ford borrowed from the meat-packers. Berry Gordy borrowed from Henry Ford. No one lost. Everyone gained.

Who will you borrow from? Keep your eyes peeled and your mind open. As you view life around you, consider how it can be “tweaked” for other uses and benefits. Consider the two examples above and how they, simplistic as they were, changed the entire world as we knew it. You, too, have that potential.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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This is our third installment in a series of articles sharing creative company names and signs. Traveling cross country can provide you with an idea of just how creative people can be as they strive to produce names that will catch the eyes of customers in hopes they’ll pause to investigate, like what they find, and hopefully past the word on to others.

Click on the following links to see the entire list: Search for Creativity and Creative Search Continues. Take a look and appreciate the creative juices which flow across our country.

• SHEAR PERFECTION (salon)
• HAIR WE ARE (salon)
• SHEAR INSANITY (salon)
• HAIRWAY to HEAVEN (salon)
• CURL UP AND DYE (salon)
• BEST LITTLE HAIR HOUSE IN DENVER (salon)
• U OTTER STOP INN (bar)
• FRANK N STEINS (beer, brats & hotdogs)
• E FISH n’ SEA (seafood)
• PIER PRESSURE (seafood)
• SEAS the DAY (seafood)
• PITA WRAPBIT (wraps – pitas – smoothies)
• UNLIMITED PASTABILITIES (pasta)
• JUAN in a MILLION (Mexican food)
• PITA PAN (pita shop)
• FedUp (deli)
• MEAT U THERE (meat market)
• LOX STOCK & BAGEL
• JUST FALAFS (good mood food)
• LETTUCE EAT (sandwich bar)
• NIN COM SOUP (soup & sandwich)
• THAIPHOON (Thai food)
• THAI TANIC (Thai cuisine)
• MOON WOK (Chinese take-out)
• WOK & ROLL (Oriental food)
• WOK THIS WAY (Oriental food)
• BREW HAHA (coffee shop)
• THE HUMAN BEAN (coffee shop)
• A BREWED AWAKENING (Espresso shop)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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We sometimes overlook the fact that creative thinking can be used at every level of our existence. In fact, the more often we exercise that important approach to problem solving, the better we become at it.

It’s also important to note that anyone and everyone can and should put forth an effort at being more creative in our attempt to overcome obstacles and solve problems. In fact, here’s an example to prove that fact.

A high school principal was alerted by one of the janitors to a persistent problem in the girls’ bathroom. Apparently, some of the female students were leaving lipstick kisses on the mirrors. The janitor had left notes on the bathroom walls requesting that the girls cease this practice but to no avail. Every evening the janitor would wipe the lipstick off the mirrors, and the next day even more kisses would reappear. It soon became a bit of a game.

The principal usually took a creative approach to problem solving. Therefore, the next day he asked a few girls from each class to meet with him in the bathroom.

“Thank you for coming,” said the principal. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that there are several lipstick kisses in the mirrors in this bathroom.”

The girls immediately grinned at each other.

“As I’m sure you know, modern lipstick is cleverly designed to stay on the lips, and therefore the lipstick is not easy to clean off the mirrors. We have therefore had to develop a special cleaning regime, and my hope is that when you see the effort involved you will help spread the word that we’d all be better off if those responsible for the kisses would use tissue paper instead of the mirrors in the future.”

At this point the janitor stepped forward with a sponge squeegee, which he took into one of the toilet cubicles, dipped into the toilet bowl, and then used to clean one of the lipstick-covered mirrors.

The janitor smiled. The girls departed and never again were lipstick kisses found on the mirrors. That, my friend, was creative thinking!

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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I must assume that the majority of our readers are familiar with anagrams. In the rare event that you’ve never heard the official definition, here it is: “A word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase.” For example, Elvis to Lives.

Anagrams have been around forever and, while I find them entertaining, I’m fascinated with the thought of their origin. According to some historians, anagrams originated in the 3rd century B.C. (285-247 B.C.) with the Greek poet Lycophron who lived in Alexandria.

Think about the culture at that time. Consider this Greek poet and the millions of creative minds to follow that actually considered the challenge of dissecting a word or phrase to reconstruct still another word or phrase that actually related to the original thought. The success of those attempts represents the capabilities of the human mind.

I find it sad, indeed, that we can’t seem to channel that tremendous mental potential to solve so many of the horrendous challenges facing our country today: current National Debt, mortgage crisis, healthcare costs, education trade balance, pork barrel spending, jobs, social security, and so many others.

What we can do is strive to channel that potential to confront the many challenges in our own workplace and communities. In the meantime, enjoy the results of those who focused on anagrams.

• Listen = Silent
• The Eyes = They See
• The Hilton = Hint: Hotel
• Dormitory = Dirty Room
• Postmaster = Stamp Store
• Astronomer = Moon Starer
• Schoolmaster = The Classroom
• Protectionism = Nice to Imports
• Slot Machines = Cash Lost in ’em
• Western Union = No Wire Unsent
• Clint Eastwood = Old West Action
• Eleven Plus Two = Twelve Plus One
• Christmas Tree = Search, Set, Trim
• The Morse Code = Here Come Dots
• Snooze Alarms = Alas! No More Zs
• Statue of Liberty = Built to Stay Free
• The Country Side = No City Dust Here
• David Letterman = Nerd Amid Late TV
• A Domesticated Animal = Docile, as a Man Tamed It
• The Public Art Galleries = Large Picture Halls, I Bet

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Our local newspaper ran a story yesterday about one of our area McDonald’s outsourcing the drive-through window. Now that takes a minute to digest, doesn’t it? On the other hand, I guess it was inevitable. Let’s see how it works.

Apparently, you pull up to your local drive-through window and place your order as usual. Seconds later, you pick up your order at the next window.

So how’s that different than the way we’ve always done it? Well, you place your order as always, but the person taking your order is now located in another city in another state. In the case of our local McDonald’s here in Michigan, we’re talking over high-speed data lines to a call center professional with “very strong communication skills” in North Dakota … over 1,100 miles away, 16 hours if you’re driving. This same process allows our order taker to communicate with those preparing the food at the next window here at our local restaurant … all within seconds. We, as customers, have no idea that our order has traveled four or five states away and bounced back before we can even start driving to the pick-up window.

For you, the customer, there are several advantages:

1. Note the fact that you had your order in seconds rather than 10 minutes.
2. You’ll also experience fewer mistakes in your order.
3. Your hot food will be hotter and your cold food colder.

McDonald’s benefits from this new strategy as well. In the fast-food business, time is money. In fact, shaving a mere five seconds off the processing time of an order is significant. Test restaurants have reported the ability to process an additional 30 cars per hour, substantially reducing labor costs. They also discovered that when employees have to take orders over the drive-through microphone and deliver food at the same time, they start making a lot of mistakes. This new system has reduced mistakes considerably, resulting in fewer complaints.

Thus far, this new unorthodox procedure has produced very positive results and more than paid for the additional technology costs. If this trend continues, this outsourcing strategy could be implemented system-wide. If this occurs, you can certainly expect call centers to sprout up all over the country as many fast-food competitors follow suit.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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A few weeks ago I shared a list of creative company names and signs in an article titled Search for Creativity. Since that time I’ve received several contributions to this on-going list to add to those I’ve continued to discover myself.

In our “Get Back in the Box” creativity presentation, we constantly remind attendees to be on the look out for examples of creativity everywhere they go. They’re all around us. We pass many of them daily but seldom recognize or acknowledge them … kind of a “functional blindness.” The reason is simple. We don’t respond or appreciate these examples because they’ve become part of our daily environment and simply blend into our subconscious rather than inspiring us as examples of what can be achieved if we’ll simply re-frame on occasion.

Take a look and appreciate the creative juices which flow across our country.

• HIS and HAIRS (salon)
• HAIR FORCE ONE (salon)
• SUNNY & SHEARS (tanning and hair salon)
• C U LATTE (coffee shop)
• LATTE DA (coffee shop)
• A SALT & BATTERY (fish and chips)
• JAMAICAN ME HUNGRY (Caribbean cuisine)
• PLANET of the GRAPES (wine and spirits)
• EN THAI SING (Thai food)
• MUSTARD’s LAST STAND (hot dog stand)
• FRANKS for the MEMORIES (hot dog shop)
• THE COD FATHER (traditional fish and chips—We’ll batter anything!)
• PIZZA D’ACTION (pizza shop)
• LETTUCE SOUPRISE YOU (soup and salad)
• IT’S ABOUT THYME (restaurant)
• GARDEN of EAT’N (restaurant)
• FU’s RUSH INN (Chinese food)
• MOON WOK (Oriental food)
• THAI ME UP (Thai food)
• HOLLY, WOOD, & VINE (flower shop)
• ENCHANTED FLORIST
• GET PLASTERED (contractor)
• ALL STRINGS CONSIDERED (knitting store)
• KNIT HAPPENS! (knitting store)

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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Remember, as a child, watching futuristic cartoons where every family had a robot zipping around the house acting as a maid, butler and/or baby sitter? Well, apparently the future is NOW and the robots have arrived … just in time for the baby boomers to witness those fantasies become reality.

Over the next 30 years, close to 78 million baby boomers will be retiring, and this will obviously severely stress caregivers, the medical system, and many community services. Our new family friend, uBOT-5 as the robot is called, will now allow elders to live much more independently.

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a robotic assistant that fits right into the family while performing a number of very critical tasks, such as:

• dialing 911 in case of emergencies
• reminding clients to take their medication
• helping with grocery shopping
• allowing a client to talk to loved ones and health care providers
• allowing concerned family members to access the robot from any Internet connection to visit their elderly parents
• allowing family members to navigate the robot around the home in search of Mom and Dad in the event they may not have heard the phone ring or may be in need of assistance
• allowing the family doctor to perform virtual house calls direct from his/her office or hospital

The design of this particular robot was actually inspired by the human anatomy:

• An array of sensors acts as the robots eyes and ears, allowing it to recognize human activities, such as walking or sitting.
• It can also recognize an abnormal visual event, such as a fall, and notify a remote medical caregiver.
• Through an interface, the remote service provider may ask the client to speak, smile or raise both arms, movements that the robot can demonstrate. If the person is unresponsive, the robot can call 911, alert family and apply a digital stethoscope to a patient, conveying information to an emergency medical technician who is en route.
• The system also tracks what isn’t human. If a delivery person leaves a package in a hallway, the sensor array is trained to notice when a path is blocked, and the robot can move the obstruction out of the way.
• It can also raise its outstretched arms, carry a load of about 2.2 pounds and has the potential to perform household tasks that require a fair amount of dexterity, including cleaning and grocery shopping.
• The uBot-5’s arm motors are similar to the muscles and joints in our own arms, and it can push itself up to a vertical position if it falls over.
• It has a “spinal cord” and the equivalent of an inner ear to keep it balanced on its Segway-like wheels.

This type of robot isn’t exactly a new concept but, for the first time, they are both safe enough and now inexpensive enough to add tremendous value in the everyday home environment.

Creating this single masterpiece in a lab setting would cost about $65,000. However, manufacturers claim they can mass-produce these mechanisms for a couple of thousand dollars. That may still sound expensive to some until you realize the fact that a part-time, human in-home caregiver can cost more than $1,500 PER WEEK. Two weeks of that kind of care would buy you your own personal uBOT-5!

That’s certainly a fair price to allow Grandma to take the robot’s hand, lead it out into the garden and have a virtual visit with a grandchild who is living on the opposite coast. Our new found companion can now eliminate the isolation which can easily lead to depression in the elderly.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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A few days before this year’s Super Bowl, I wrote an article (Super Bowl Prices Force Creative Thinking) focusing on the creative thinking needed to cope with increased prices for this year’s spectacle.

Super Bowl XLIII attracted 98.7 million viewers, making it the most-watched of all time. The game ranks behind only 1983’s M*A*S*H* finale as TV’s top telecast.

Having to come up with $3 million for a 30-second commercial inspired Miller Brewing to create a ONE SECOND spot which not only saved millions of dollars but gained tremendous exposure for its creative efforts.

Believe it or not, someone may have topped that endeavor. This year chipmaker Frito-Lay offered a $1 million prize in its Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” program to anyone who could produce a commercial that could win the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter real-time consumer rating (a 10-year-old consumer opinion poll). Most major advertisers cough up approximately $2 million just to produce an average 30-second commercial. They then pay an additional $3 million for the privilege of airing that spot during the Super Bowl. Total = $5 million.

The winning commercial was created by a couple of unemployed, non-advertising but aspiring film maker brothers from Indiana. They spent less than $2,000 on their commercial which was filmed at their local YMCA by a cast and crew made up of their friends! Their spot featured a man using a snow globe as a crystal ball. He lobs it through the glass on a vending machine after predicting free chips for the office. A colleague then predicts a promotion, but when he lobs it, it hits his boss in the crotch.

Here’s the kicker … this wasn’t just a pretty good commercial. This was chosen by viewers to be the best commercial! The unemployed brothers beat out 51 big-budget advertisers, creating the highest-rated commercial to air during the Super Bowl. The cost again—a mere $2,000. Now compare that to the average production cost of $2 million per 30 seconds paid by such big names as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Bridgestone, Anheuser-Busch, Disney, Sony, Toyota, Kellogg, and so many others.

The moral of this story is simple. Times are obviously tough today … in every aspect. And, by all media accounts, things are going to get worse before they get better. And yet this year’s biggest and most expensive sporting event has produced two, yes two, examples of what can be accomplished with a little creative thinking. A one-second commercial and a dirt-cheap commercial have each set a precedent that will surely start a trend for those coping with tight budgets. Both can be attributed to creative thinking. Let’s not forget a couple of thoughts that have been around for decades and yet aren’t always remembered or practiced:

1. When the going gets tough, the tough get going!
2. When tough times appear, people tend to fall into three groups:
   • Those who wish things would happen …
   • Those who allow things to happen …
   • Those who make things happen …

Where do you fall?

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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In our “Get Back in the Box” creativity presentation, we constantly remind attendees to be on the look out for examples of creativity everywhere they go. They’re all around us. We pass many of them daily but seldom recognize or acknowledge them … kind of a “functional blindness.” The reason is simple. We don’t respond or appreciate these examples because they’ve become part of our daily environment and simply blend into our subconscious rather than inspiring us as examples of what can be achieved if we’ll simply re-frame on occasion.

Let’s narrow a category to demonstrate this point. Focus on your local mall or shopping center and the many stores you walk by every day. The majority will utilize a storefront sign in hope of enticing those passing by to enter, shop, remember and return … maybe even tell others about their discovery.

The signs themselves may be large, small, oddly-shaped, colorful, or maybe even flashing neon. It must communicate what the store offers as far as products or services and then lure you to explore further. An even more subtle way to capture our attention lies in the name chosen to represent the business. Many choose to use a play on words to sell everything from pet supplies to coffee to lawn care. Many are clever, others not so much. The key lies in whether we remember that name. If we laugh—fine. If we groan—not so bad either as long as we’re curious, interested and will remember that unique name.

During one of our recent seminars, participants decided to test this theory without leaving the building. Since we were in New York City, they found a great resource in the yellow pages section of an obviously large phone book. Their efforts generated a very interesting list, and I have added to that list during my visits to other cities of various population.

Take a look and appreciate the creative juices which flow across our country.

• PIZZA MY HEART
• THE LAWN RANGER (lawn care)
• LOAD & LOCK (public storage)
• UNBE-WEAVE-ABLE (wig & hair pieces shop)
• TITLE WAVE (bookstore)
• THE SPOKESMAN (bike shop)
• LORD of the FRIES (hand cut fries)
• DUKE of OIL (oil change shop)
• SOFA SO GOOD (furniture store)
• THE MERCHANT OF TENNIS SOLE- MAN (shoe store)
• WILLIAM the CONCRETER TWICE-SOLD TALES (used book store)
• WRAPSODY (professional gift wrapping service)
• CARDIOLOGY (card shop)
• PRINTS CHARMING (copy shop)
• JAMAICAN ME TAN (tanning salon)
• BIN THERE DUMP THAT (disposal system)
• SPEX IN THE CITY (optometry store)
• SPECS APPEAL (optometry)
• BRIEF ENCOUNTERS (underwear)
• NEW YORK STOCKING EXCHANGE (lingerie)
• LUV2SHOOTU (photographer)
• DEEPLY KNEADED (therapeutic massage)
• THE JOINT (a chiropractic place)
• LUMBAR YARD (chiropractor)
• CANE & ABLE (mobility healthcare)
• CARL’S PANE in the GLASS (window repair)
• COUNTER REVOLUTIONS (cabinet maker)
• FLORIST GUMP (florist)
• MRS. SIPPY’s COFFEE LICKITY SPLIT (ice cream shop)
• COMBING ATTRACTIONS (hair salon)
• PETS AND THE CITY (pet store)
• INDIANA BONES and the TEMPLE of GROOM (pet care salon)

We’re going to keep searching for additional creative business names and will post them when we get a good list. You do the same and send us anything you find interesting. This is an excellent creative exercise for your staff as well. Give it a shot.

About Harry K. Jones

Harry K. Jones is a motivational speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of professional speakers who provide custom-designed seminars, keynote presentations, and consulting services. Harry's top requested topics include change management, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork, and time management. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2629 or fill out our contact form.

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