You need to have sufficient resources against your priorities. Your eyes have to be open every day.
The choices we make define our future.
Failure to make the tough but necessary choices means slow painful death.
I believe in classic ideas. They are timeless. They are forever. There are many fads in management.
Our most exciting discoveries come from studying anomalies. The once-in-1000 occurrence is worth getting detail on.
The Golden Rule works. It really does. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Kindness begets kindness.
People underestimate the power of the Internet. For some consumers, it is the source of all information. Younger adults are on their phones more than they watch television. They don't read newspapers. It is their real world. It is not a set of virtual lenses.
If you innovate broadly, focus on the customer experience, and deliver everyday a great product, you will gain share.
I admire many entrepreneurs. They bring energy, excitement, youthful enthusiasm. What they lack in process, they make up for in gumption.
Respond to your customer's dissatisfactions with precision and power.
Take an expansive view of the consumers needs and expand beyond your current boundaries.
Deliver infinite growth having your customers talk about you, exclaim you and tell their friends and colleagues about you.
Own one idea. Complete it. Map the current model of purchase and usage. Change how it is done so at least some part of the market uses only your product. Extend from that core user to a much broader universe. Describe your concept in a very short, "six-word story" - a la Ernest Hemingway: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
Too many companies are happy to have workers to dread working. They have the wrong attitude because they have the wrong leadership.
You make money when you get visitors to go through the entrance at capacity.
Many companies routinely do things that are not important. They fail to prioritize. They get involved with details that don't matter.
My best clients tell stories that inspire. They tell stories about situations that you can identify with.
I like to take CEOs into consumers' homes to see the "real world." CEOs have privileged lives with big incomes, lots of help, access to just about anything they wish. The average consumer lives on $53,000 a year and has daily tradeoffs and compromises that must be made. I took a CEO into a trailer park so he could observe first-hand - and understand - how consumers use his product.
The most effective CEOs have a primary source for tracking their markets. They meet with their teams frequently enough to keep innovation flowing, to reduce and focus costs, to be energized. They create a tight agenda and they set high goals.
Time is a big enemy. Companies have a tendency to drift and to do what was successful yesterday. CEOs need to set a high goal, enforce a time-based output scheme and stay connected all the way down in their organization. They have to do this sincerely every day, everywhere.
Woo your biggest fans. This rule says concentrate your efforts at understanding on the 2 percent of consumers that personally drive 20 percent of sales and invite their friends and colleagues to enjoy you.
Transform your employees into passionate disciples. Teach. Create apostles. Give people a calling, not a job.
People need to be inspired. They need to hear and believe a story. If you want them to be self-motivated, you need to engage them.
Find out what schismogenesis means. Schismogenesis is anthropology. It says relationships between people are not stable. They are either moving up or moving down. The same is true for brands. You need to understand where you are.
Epidemics of "bad" voice can kill your reputation overnight.
