Ready to Take Your Business Up a Notch? You might think you're doing your best in business. But sometimes extreme measures are the only things that'll help you grow.

The wind sounded like a hurricane, thought Jim Cope as he stared nervously at the green and brown patchwork quilt spread out far below him. Usually, his feet were firmly planted on the ground in Walnut Hills, California, where he runs his landscaping business. But within seconds on that day, Cope, 46, would plunge in a parachute to the landscape below.

You still have a chance to back out. Nobody has a gun to your head. Cope reminded himself that he was jumping tandem--with a partner attached. And I know he doesn't want to kill himself. Emotions swirled through Cope. This is the test. Are you going to do this? Then the landscaper leapt out of the plane, tumbling across the sky.

Even in the best of times, entrepreneurs have gone to extremes, hoping to improve their businesses. But these are strange, often turbulent times, and as the 21st century continues to evolve, entrepreneurs who want to evolve with it will frequently find themselves going to the edge. Are you ready?

Of course, to take your company to the next level, you don't have to make a 10,000-foot jump to Earth. Cope employed an extreme coach to help him manage overwhelming situations, but your idea of extreme might be toiling tirelessly to finish a 14-day project in three.

So take a deep breath, and consider how your company might inject jet fuel into some of its practices. After all, extremes aren't just limited to wacky sports or caffeine-spiked sodas.

Extreme Customer Service
The ultimate customer service is "the ability, when faced with adversity, to still be able to serve the client," says Richard Buckingham, author of Customer Once, Client Forever: 12 Tools for Building Lifetime Business Relationships. Untold numbers of entrepreneurs were faced with adversity September 11, 2001, and David Volpi, 47, was one of them. His Tampa, Florida-based company has a little over 100 employees, but he thinks of it as having a staff of 20,000: His 3-year-old AdvanTech Solutions is a human capital management company that manages tasks for other entrepreneurs.

With airplanes grounded immediately after the terrorist attacks, Volpi couldn't even use his own charter jet to get paychecks to all his clients' employees on time. Considering the circumstances, they probably would have forgiven him. But Volpi has 100 clients in Texas and 40 in North Carolina, and, he says, "at least 50 percent of these employees don't have electronic deposit. They still need that actual paycheck."

The checks were expected Friday. With planes still parked at 4 p.m. Thursday, Volpi made the decision. Four employees "quasi-volunteered," he says, to drive the checks to their destinations. Two employees departed from Tampa, another left from Texas, and another left from North Carolina. "It was like a relay team," says Volpi.

The checks were passed off from one employee to another in Macon, Georgia, and Biloxi, Mississippi, around 2 a.m. When Volpi's team delivered the checks on time, "My people were treated like they had walked on water," he says.

No wonder. Extreme customer service these days is rare. "There's a quest in business for profits and a tendency to not focus on customer service," says Buckingham. "Clients become interchangeable. But you shouldn't be in business to make money; you should be in business to further your customer service goals, and in doing that, you'll make money."

Extreme Public Relations
The 1992 publicity stunt dubbed "Malice in Dallas" of which Kurt Herwald, 47, was a part is still spoken of in reverent tones among media experts. Herwald is CEO of Chandelle Solutions Ltd., a Greenville, South Carolina, company specializing in turnaround crisis management. But a decade ago, Herwald headed Stevens Aviation, a South Carolina corporate aviation company with the slogan "Plane smart."

Then one day, Southwest Airlines began using the slogan "Just Plane Smart."

One of Herwald's employees fired off a friendly letter, jokingly suggesting that instead of suing Southwest, Herwald should arm-wrestle Southwestern's flamboyant CEO, Herb Kelleher, for rights to the slogan. Kelleher loved the idea, and Herwald was blindsided by the volume of phone calls from journalists, eager to know when this arm-wrestling match would happen. At first, Herwald wasn't so sure it would. Corporate aviation is a conservative industry. But Herwald came around, later realizing, "People have more of a sense of a humor than you'd give them credit for."

Prior to the match, Southwest produced films of Kelleher training on a diet of Wild Turkey and cigarettes. In an auditorium packed with 4,500 Southwest employees and passengers, the opponents geared up in a boxing ring. After much fanfare, Herwald, then 38, finished off his 61-year-old opponent in about 30 seconds.

Then both men announced that they would each keep their slogans. Indeed, Herwald admits: "It was fixed." But it had been fun, and it showed that entrepreneurs can solve problems without going to court.

The publicity was jet fuel for both companies: At least 450 newspapers ran the story, including The Wall Street Journal; Tom Brokaw interviewed Herwald; even the BBC got into the act. Within three years, "we went from a $28 million company to doing over $100 million," says Herwald, who in part credits their growth plan, but adds: "A little bit of celebrity in the industry never hurts."

What will hurt is trying too hard to manufacture publicity. "You need to be aware that on any given day, hard news can blow you away," says Mike Mulvihill, executive vice president at Carter Ryley Thomas Public Relations & Marketing Counsel in Richmond, Virginia, which managed public relations for Herwald a decade ago. "You can do everything right in planning a publicity stunt, but you can't control what happens in the world. If there are major fires, murders, accidents or plane crashes, you're toast."

In which case, abort. "You have to be sensitive to what's going on," says Mulvihill. "You don't want negative publicity."

Extreme Hiring Practices

Ask Adam Honig about his former business partner, and at age 35,Honig sounds like a war-weary veteran. All he will say is the guywas a jerk. He must have been pretty bad, because today Honig'sWestborough, Massachusetts, company, Akibia Inc.,has an official "no jerks" hiring policy.

No slackers need apply either. It has been said that your oddsof getting into M.I.T. are better than of working for Honig, whohas built the 4-year-old consulting firm specializing in CRMservices into a $17 million firm. Honig has created a six-stephiring practice that includes the interviewee giving a 20- to40-minute presentation based on a case study and meeting with apanel of eight junior and senior staffers. If even one of thoseeight thinks you're a jerk, you're a goner.

"We define a jerk [as someone] who seems uncooperative,selfish or nonteam-oriented," says Honig. "We hirereally, really nice people." He adds that customers appreciateit, too.

ExtremeTeamwork
In the summer of 2001, Robert LoCascio, CEO of New York City-basedLivePerson,was inspired when he learned that within days, President George W.Bush would vacation in Crawford, Texas. LivePerson is a real-timeInternet communications tool; the company, which made more than $7million last year, has technology many businesses use to chatonline with their Internet customers.

If LivePerson managed to arrange an online chat between thepresident and the citizens of the world, publicity for his companywould soar--as would sales, thought LoCascio. But it would takeextreme teamwork. LoCascio had just three days to get LivePersonset up at the Coffee Station, the only restaurant in Crawford--aproject that would normally take two weeks.

With Bush planning a month's vacation, it might not seemlike LivePerson needed to make a mad rush for Crawford. "Butwe didn't want to miss the president--especially by oneday," says LoCascio, who wasn't exactly being briefed bythe Secret Service on Bush's schedule. Meanwhile, with thecompany hoping to go public soon and not yet making a profit,LoCascio wanted to do something dramatic, now.

And so LoCascio and four employees gave up their weekend plansand put in 15-hour days; meanwhile, the entire staff of 45 was puton alert. There was a second phone line to be installed (in ruralCrawford, not as easy as it sounds), a computer kiosk to be set up,programs to be written and video to be installed--and a LivePersonemployee was sent to Crawford to mobilize support to get thetownspeople, as LoCascio puts it, "jazzed abouttechnology."

Bush never did drop by, but LoCascio is still beaming: He onlyspent $2,500 on the project, and 100 media outlets mentionedLivePerson. Site traffic increased by 150 percent, and sales wentup 10 percent. A few months later, the Internet company posted itsfirst profits.

Deadlines can be very motivating, says Christopher M. Avery,Ph.D., author of Teamwork Is an Individual Skill: Getting YourWork Done When Sharing Responsibility and president ofPartnerwerks, a team-building consulting firm inTexas. But it was also important that LoCascio was in thebattlefield with his staff. Think of the staff's needs as muchas your own, advises Avery, explaining: "You expect youremployees to be on your team, but are you on their team?"

Extreme PersonalDevelopment
You think reading Who Moved My Cheese? is enough to propelyour company to the top? Sometimes, you need more. Which is how JimCope found himself hiring Rich Fettke to be his extreme coach. Fettke isa business or life coach--but to the extreme. He specializes intaking groups of executives and entrepreneurs to places likeYosemite National Park to scale mountain cliffs.

Nobody gets hurt--safety equipment reigns supreme--but the ideais that his clients discover something about focusing, courage andthe benefits of working with a team, reports Fettke, author ofExtreme Success: The 7-Part Program That ShowsYou How to Succeed Without Struggle Often the lessonlearned, says Fettke, is, "If I can climb up a 50-foot cliff,I can dial up an executive sales vice president."

But for entrepreneurs who need more--and Fettke takesindividuals climbing Mt. Diablo, an almost 4,000-footer in NorthernCalifornia--there's always bungee jumping or even skydiving.Enter Cope, who went mountain climbing the day before leaping outof the plane. "I've had a hard time relaxing," hesays. With five employees, Cope is doing more marketing, sales,payroll and employee relations than planting flowers and trees, hesays. "Margins are low, so if you screw up just a little, youdon't make money," says Cope, whose Cope Landscaping iscurrently an $800,000 business.

And so, like many entrepreneurs before him, Cope felt it wastime to go to the extreme. For Cope to cope with stress, he wouldhave to place himself in a controlled stressful environment, likejumping out of a Cessna. "I think it improved my ability tothink under pressure, and to face my fears," he says. "Ifyou can attempt something that makes your guts scream'Don't do it!'--that can help you take your business tothe next level." And isn't that what all entrepreneurswant?

Geoff Williams is a writer in Cincinnati. Contact him atgwilliams@cinci.rr.com.