Archive for the ‘#hni’ Category

November 10, 2010

“if you want to be more successful, you have to take a leadership position on something that matters”

So this is my latest #Evil­Plan for my client, HNI Insu­rance.

I drew the car­toon above.

What I’m going to do is recom­mend to the CEO, Mike Nata­li­zio to get it made up into a stack of sig­ned, limi­ted edi­tion prints. Say, 30 or 50 of them.

Then get them framed.

Then send them off as gifts to the the 30 or 50 most influen­tial peo­ple in the truc­king busi­ness. As a con­ver­sa­tion starter.

“Let’s talk about the issues, People.”

The truc­king busi­ness is full of messy issues [e.g. peo­ple dying in road acci­dents every day, which HNI is in the front line of], so why not address them more openly, more forthrightly?

Like it says in “Tri­bes”, by Seth Godin, the way to suc­ceed is to be a leader.

HNI hired gaping­void because they wan­ted to be more successful.

And I’m saying right back, OK,  if you want to be more suc­cess­ful, you have to take a lea­dership posi­tion on something that matters.

Which means having a “smar­ter conversation”.

And these prints would be their ope­ning salvo.

None of this is roc­ket science, all that’s requi­red is that a deci­sion be made.

A deci­sion to be a lea­der. A deci­sion to have a smar­ter conversation.

Not roc­ket science.

Easy.

[PS: We’ll see what Mike says. At time of pos­ting this, Mike hasn’t seen the car­toon yet. I’m sur­pri­sing him! Heh.]

[The Smar­ter Con­ver­sa­tion archive is here.]

November 5, 2010

the red bit

A cube gre­nade I just did for our ciient, HNI Insu­rance.

A lot of HNI’s truc­king clients ope­rate with pro­fit mar­gins of around 2%. Ouch.

I like the car­toon just because it’s bru­tally in-your-face and to the point. No mes­sing around.

Of course, the easiest way for their clients to inc­rease their mar­gin, is to lower their risk. Which is where HNI comes in. Ker-chiing.

[More HNI car­toons here etc.]

October 29, 2010

wicked problem #47: the lucky trucker

So I just did this car­toon for my client, HNI.

Basi­cally, the truc­kers that are most pro­fi­ta­ble for any truc­king com­pany are gene­rally the most hard to insure. The ones who score highest on safety make less make less money for the com­pany… and then you’ve got these Feds coming in with “CSA 2010″, making it even more com­pli­ca­ted. Lucky truckers…

The car­toon by itself, is not that interesting.

The fact that HNI are the only peo­ple in the insu­rance industry willing to talk about it in the open, are willing to have a “Smar­ter Con­ver­sa­tion” about it, is inte­res­ting.

At least to me…

September 29, 2010

do more

I just desig­ned this cube gre­nade for one of my clients, the insu­rance bro­ker HNI.

As always, it’s basi­cally something to be down­loa­ded [from here], prin­ted out and hung up round the office. A “con­ver­sa­tion star­ter” etc.

Most insu­rance com­pa­nies want to sell you a lot of insu­rance, the more the merrier. One part of HNI’s shtick is, well, “More” is not always the most help­ful thing for the client etc.

The guy in the car­toon looks so unhappy simply because the very thought of actually “Doing” something actually frigh­tens a lot of peo­ple. Which is why the world is filled with so many clock-watchers.

Though this was desig­ned for HNI, if the mes­sage has any value to your busi­ness, feel free to print it out as well, thanks.