Look below for a view of  what it used to look like:
And that blank stare you see? The clutter made it hard to focus. But when there’s nothing on my desk I have to decide what’s the most important thing to work on now. I can’t fool myself into thinking I’m doing something important when I’m working on what’s merely urgent (or worse!). When there’s only one thing on my desk I know what I have to work on. When there’s two things on the desk (or more) I’m distracted.

You may also be able to see I’ve got ZERO emails in my inbox (the monitor on the left). I realized I was using it as a holding tank and doing so was cluttering up my mind. I’m using gmail so I just selected them all and archived them. That way I can find them with search if I need to, but if I don’t ever need them then I don’t need them. As mail comes in I’ll check periodically and empty the box every time. I’ve never been a huge fan of labels (folders) for email but I’m starting to find them useful. I now have one called “later” for stuff I want out of my inbox but don’t want to take the time for now.

A Mind is a Terrible Thing To Clutter

You do realize that multi-tasking is a myth don’t you? You can’t really do two things at once, you just flip from one to the other in very small bits. Like talking to someone on the phone while you’re having a different conversation with someone in the room. You don’t really hear them both at the same time. You just ignore parts of each conversation that (hopefully) you can infer when you switch back.

I’m trying to be more conscious about what I work on – meaning I’m deciding based on what’s important not what’s urgent (or distracting) unless I decide distraction is important for the time. It’s similar to the GTD process of emptying your inbox on a regular basis.

Applying this to a TODO list

I’ve started using Asana for my TODO / Project list. I like it because I can assign tasks to projects and see them that way. But in another view I can see all my tasks in a single list (called your inbox) This needs to be emptied regularly as well. The way Asana prioritizes tasks, you go to your inbox, and decide when you’re going to work on each task. You can assign it to TODAY, Upcoming or Later. I realized that the reason I kept so many things in my in box is I didn’t want to forget about them. The “Later” category is great for that. I can keep my Today list clean and not loose those wonderful ideas that I love (which often turn out to be not so great but that’s a post for another day).

It’s kind of like the concept of a WILL-DO list rather than a TODO list.

I see this post has gotten away from me.

It’s devolved into a productivity discussion – which isn’t bad – but that’s not the bigger thought that inspired me to write. The bigger thought is

The difference between zero and one is huge!

Much bigger than the difference between one and two or even one and one hundred. You see this in lots of arenas. When a startup goes from zero sales to one – it becomes a company instead of just a prototype factory. That’s why so many small shops stick the first dollar on the wall. They don’t do that with the 2nd or the tenth or even the millionth dollar.

Zero mistakes is a great place to be. So is zero late shipments. Factories post how many days they’ve gone with zero injuries – not how many days since they’ve had one.

And the difference makes the one important as well. The only one is much more important than the best of two.

Takeaway:
I’m not sure what’s the best takeaway for this post. But it’s a new year. A year I hope will be marked by a one followed by lots of zeros in my bank account. Maybe starting with zero things on my desk and in my inbox will help.

Stage 1 Clueless

I don’t mean stupid. Just that buyers at this stage don’t have your company or your product on their radar screen. If your purchase is a car, and like most people you go years between buying one, then you spend most of your life not thinking about new cars at all.

Stage 2 Curious

At some point it becomes time to consider a new car. You’re not ready to buy but you’re starting to pay attention. Maybe this stage was initiated by your car making some strange noise for the umpteenth time. Maybe you’ve had a couple kids since you bought your last vehicle and the car seats are starting to be annoying in your two-seater. Maybe some car company finally made something you’d like to buy and some ad really jumped out at you. But for some reason you’re now curious. Starting to look at models, features, prices etc.

Stage 3 Serious

Buyers at this stage have a budget and a time frame in mind. They’re in deal making mode, looking for the right place to purchase. Still doing some research but a different kind of research than those at stage 2. In the car scenario, you’ve narrowed down the type of car, the approximate price range, you know if you’re going for new or used and you’re starting to look for the place to buy it. Your research is helping you decide on what features, what make and model and maybe even what color. This stage carries on through the negotiation till you reach …

Stage 4 SOLD!

You’ve now plunked down your money and driven your vehicle off the lot. Congratulations. You’re now clueless about cars again, not to mention tires, service centers, and oil change locations. But you’ll go through the stages for those items soon enough.

How to Use This Information

A company needs sales to survive. If your company is alive, it has. Congratulations. But at some point as the company grows, you realize you need repeatable sales. An actual process. Something you can use to train and manage sales people and to increase sales. That’s where these 4 stages come in handy.

First Identify the Stages

Realize that every prospect is at one and only one stage at a time. The stages are mutually exclusive but progress is not always linear – it can loop. So learn what people do differently at each stage. There will be things they say (or don’t say) things they do or don’t do at each stage that are different enough you can identify them. The details vary with each industry, product and even type of customer. So this exercise must be quite customized to be helpful. For example, if I’m at the clueless stage about cars, the only thing I’m doing is looking at some commercials on TV that I can’t get away from and maybe I’ll think about some environmental breakthrough I’ve read about if it applies to cars.

But when I’m curious, when a new purchase in 6 months or so away, I’m starting to be more active in my research. I’m talking to my wife about it. I’m looking up things on the web. I’m paying more attention to ads on TV and other places.

At stage three, serious, now I’ve narrowed down the price and if not the exact make/model. I know if I’m going for a compact SUV or a mini-van. I’m looking at what feature are just nice and which ones I really need. I’m searching for a dealer or looking on-line for a seller.

Whatever you sell there are things customers do that differ for each stage. This is complicated by the fact that there may be different types of customers for your product (who do different things at each stage) and if you have a complex B2B sale there are people in different positions who may act differently from each other at the same stage. This makes the process of identifying the stages more complicated but not impossible. In fact, the more complicated it is, the more important it might be so you don’t waste your time and money.

It may be that you can’t tell by strictly being passive, but a certain set of questions (what’s your budget, what’s your time frame, who else are you talking to) will let you know the prospect’s stage.

Second Develop a Plan for each Stage

Once you know how to determine what stage the prospect is at, you need to determine the best thing for you to do at each stage. There are certain questions you ask at the beginning and others you only ask at stage 3. There may be informational or entertaining things you send my way if I’m just curious, but negotiations you do when I’m serious. You need to know what to do differently based on what stage I’m at.

If you do the wrong thing at the wrong stage, things will not go well. You may turn me off when I’m ready to buy. Or you may annoy me when I’m doing research and I’ll never come back. Or you may not close the deal when I’m ready to make a purchase. The point is that what you do at each stage is different. And my response to your actions will show you if I’ve moved to the next stage or not. If I haven’t then you can’t either.

Marketing or Sales

In general, the things you do for a buyer at the start of the journey (Clueless and Curious) tend to be marketing activities and the things you do at the end (Curious, Serious, Sold) tend to be sales activities. Where the line is actually drawn differs by industry, product etc. But Marketing and Sales should work together as different parts of the same journey. This is why I like the position I’ve heard about recently: Chief Revenue Officer. Marketing AND Sales report to the CRO.

What about Social Media and the Web?

These are tools, but they don’t change the buyer’s journey. Just like a well-placed item at a supermarket checkout can make me go from clueless to sold in seconds, so can a website or even a tweet. Well maybe a tweet. But in any case only if it’s done for the right product, to the right customer, in the right context. In a more protracted sale, building a relationship with me when I’m clueless might be cost effective with a blog or facebook page in ways it never was in print. Then when I become curious or serious we already know each other. But just like any tool, it’s there to do a job. In this case it doesn’t change the nature of the buyer’s journey, but it may help you understand your prospects and react to them better.

Takeaways:

• Think like a buyer and learn what stage your prospect is at.
• Develop a different plan for each stage.
• You now have a sales process that you can use to train and monitor sales people with.

I visited Zuccotti park on Sunday (Oct 16, 2011) and it brought back memories of marching against the Vietnam war in the 60’s – and yes, despite the fact that I remember the 60’s I really was there. In once sense the message was the same – Power to The People. A group feeling cheated and wronged were trying to change the course of those in power. But there were differences as well. Here are some random thoughts about those differences.

Conversations

I hear a lot of complaints that OWS (Occupy Wall Street) is unfocused and needs a more succinct list of demands.  I disagree. I think the lack of simple demands engenders a lot of conversation. And conversation was one thing that impressed me on at Zuccotti park. People were talking to each other. For the most part, the protesters were engaging others – media, tourists and just curious folks in conversations about what they believed. And the lack of a consistent message kept those conversations going because everyone I heard talk was there for a slightly different reason.

This contrasts sharply with my recollections of the “peace” marches in which I participated in the 1960’s. We were marching for peace against the war, but our rhetoric and behavior was anything but peaceful. We chanted slogans at people rather than talk with them.

Concern

The people in Zuccotti park showed a lot of concern for others. The place was cluttered but clean, their own sanitation department was organized to keep it that way. Even  flower beds were fenced off and people were respectful of that.  This contrasts markedly with my recollections of anti-war protestors looting stores and vandalizing property back in “the day”. I saw a man with tattoos all over his face reach down with a rag in his (bare) hand to wipe up dog urine while keeping others from stepping in it.

On what appears to be the “official” OWS site, they are talking about first aid just 1 minute into the 7 minute video.

Amenities – a strange word to use in a situation like this, but I can think of none better – ranged from a food line where anyone who wanted to could get a meal to a people’s library. There were probably a dozen buckets holding over a hundred books and even chairs set nearby so folks could read. Someone was even handing out blank calendar booklets

COPS

There were cops. Lots of them. But mostly I saw them just standing around. The only people I heard them admonish were the tourists. They had put up barriers to distinguish the park from the sidewalk and if you were on the sidewalk side, you had to keep moving. If you wanted to stop, you had to move inside so as not to block the walk way.

I’ve seen the videos and read reports of beatings and arrests. So I know terrible things happened. But none of the occupiers (or cops for that matter) seemed to hold a grudge the day I was there.

Violence

I saw none.  I know there had been some by authorities against the protesters. But there’s much less violence from either side than I remember from the 60′s.  I’m aware of the front-page picture of the man tackling a cop.  but I’m also aware that seems to be the exception rather than the rule. When I marched in Washington DC against the war, protestors openly looted from local stores and trashed the place, and it was almost expected we’d get tear gassed – and we did. The tone was far from peaceful when I marched but it was on Sunday.

Outcome

I hope it’s a renaissance – a re-ignition  of the idea that our society functions best for those at the top as well as the bottom when the top and bottom are not so far apart. Even the IMF seems to think so. Hell, Eric Cantor is even pandering up to the idea. I doubt he’s sincere but one of the things that happens when people stake out a claim like OWS is it moves the conversation in that direction.

]]> http://thesmallbusinesscoach.com/blog/2011/10/18/occupy-wall-street-like-the-60s-only-better/feed/ 0 http://thesmallbusinesscoach.com/blog/2011/10/15/when-not-to-hire-a-business-coach-and-when-you-should/ http://thesmallbusinesscoach.com/blog/2011/10/15/when-not-to-hire-a-business-coach-and-when-you-should/#comments Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:49:51 +0000 John Seiffer http://thesmallbusinesscoach.com/blog/?p=719 Shadow Coaching

Surgeon Atul Gawande has a great article in New Yorker about hiring a coach to help him become a better surgeon.

He doesn’t call it this, but what he’s describing is “Shadow Coaching”.  A shadow coach watches you (or shadows you) as you perform some activity and later gives you pointers and tips to improve your technique. This is the kind of coaching sports coaches do; also acting coaches, singing coaches, etc. Almost any kind of coach that improves performance works this way.

Why does Shadow Coaching work?

It’s useful because a coach has a different vantage point than you do (physically as well as emotionally) and can see things you cannot. A shadow coach also needs an understanding of the topic and the ability to teach things you would not have known. In Gawande’s case his coach was also a surgeon, and able to perform in the operating room. But this is not required in a coach. I doubt that 200-some pound, 50 year old Bela Karolyi (pictured above) could do any of the things he coached his 80 pound teen age girls to do in gymnastics competition, yet they won Olympic gold.

How can a Shadow coach help a CEO?

They can improve your performance in the following areas

• Running meetings
• Interpersonal communication (one-on-one meetings and calls)
• Public Speaking (with employees, the public and the press)
• Decision making (A coach won’t tell you what the best decision is – that’s what a consultant does, but they can help you improve the decision making process.)
• Time Management
• Reporting (helping you get the right reports and provide them to others)
• Interviewing

What to look for in a Shadow Coach

• Familiarity with your skill set. They must know as much or more than you about what you’re trying to accomplish. This can come from personal experience or other forms of learning. But beware of super stars who can do but not teach.
• Chemistry. They must be able to give advice, correction and encouragement in a way that you are able to receive.
• Ability to see patterns and consequences. You want a coach who can (for example) teach you how to eat better, not just cook you meals.

When NOT to hire a Shadow Coach

• If you aren’t willing to change your technique. This is particularly difficult in the areas how you relate to people but it’s correspondingly powerful.
• If you don’t know what to do next or how to prioritize. Then you need strategic coaching.
• If you don’t have the time to analyze, practice and improve some aspect of your performance
• If your shadow coach can’t see you in action frequently enough. “Enough” varies with your situation. Sometimes once is enough.

Strategic Coaching

This is the term I use for a less specific, but often more powerful type of support. A strategic coach is your confidante, your sounding board, your cheer leader and the one to kick you in the butt when needed. A strategic coach helps you achieve success (as you define it) in a broader sense than a shadow coach will. In fact one of the first things a strategic coach should do is help you put specific descriptions to your definition of success.

Why does Strategic Coaching work?

Strategic coaching also works because the coach has a different vantage point than you do, but in this case the important distinction is more emotional and intentional than physical. In fact it’s common for strategic coaching to work by phone with no face to face interaction at all. A coach can keep the big picture in mind and not get as distracted as you are in the day to day emergencies. Probably the single most useful thing a strategic coach can do is keep you focused on the important things and not allow you to get consumed by the merely urgent.

How can a Strategic coach help a CEO?

• Helping you define measurable goals
• Helping you keep your actions aligned with those goals
• Seeing inconsistencies in your thinking (let’s face it well all have some)
• Coming up with improvements in your ability. Ironically a coach (unlike a consultant) may not have good suggestions. But if their (lousy) suggestions help you come up with a better plan, they’ve made a significant contribution.
• Asking the right questions
• Pulling out the best parts of yourself

What to look for in a Strategic Coach

• One who is willing and able to help you see the hard truths
• One who is familiar enough with your situation to ask the right questions. This familiarity need not be as specific or detailed as that of a Shadow coach, but must be useful.
• Curiosity. Ironically if a strategic coach is not learning from you, if they know too much, they may try to force you into a mold that worked for previous clients doesn’t work for you
• Chemistry. They must be able to give advice, correction and encouragement in a way that you are able to receive.

When NOT to hire a Strategic Coach

• Insanity. I’m using the definition attributed to Einstein: Doing the same thing over and over yet expecting a different result. Do not hire a coach if you aren’t willing to change what you do and how you do it on a daily basis.
• When you need someone to solve a problem for you. Consultants do that. Some coaches are both. But a coach who is not a consultant will help you improve – not do work for you.
• Too busy. Ironically, this is often the pain that causes people to reach out to a coach. But if you aren’t willing to stop and work on ways to change then hiring a coach won’t help.

Consulting

In working with CEO’s there’s often a fine line between coaching and consulting so I thought it useful to give consulting a short mention here. My working distinction is this:

A consultant brings in  expertise that you didn’t have. A coach helps you maximize the expertise you already have.

Another way to say it is a coach is more focused on asking the right questions while a consultant provides answers. In my experience, CEOs of small to medium size companies want both. They want a coach to help them become better at what they know how to do, and at times they want a consultant to bring in some expertise that they have not yet developed.

Takeaway:

• Hire a shadow coach to help improve HOW you do something
• Hire a strategic coach to help improve WHAT you’re doing
• Hire a consultant to give you answers or ADVICE when you need it

The next morning, the fog is gone, the sun shines bright and you see where you really are. You are indeed on top of the mountain, just not the mountain you wanted to be on. Off to the north is a higher mountain – the one you really wanted to reach. But between here and there is a valley. You have to go down to reach the higher peak.

How did you get here?

You focused on making every step count, but the fog kept you from seeing where you were truly headed. You never took a step down but ended up on the little peak.

This is called the “Local Maximization Trap” And entrepreneurs fall into it all the time without even knowing it. Why?

Because Entrepreneurs are good at what they do.

Entrepreneurs are smart, thrifty and opportunistic. That means we’re “scrappy.” We can make it where others can’t. And it leads us to take maximum advantage of our situation. That usually means making sure each step is a step up. We cut costs, work longer, drive harder, and surround ourselves with a team that does the same. We squeak out every bit of production from our equipment, our facilities, and our people. We have our eye on the bottom line and it works. Then one day, the fog lifts and we find we’ve reach a local maximum.

Rick’s Local Maximum

Let me give you an example of one of my clients. We’ll call him Rick. He runs a manufacturing operation, started by his Dad 50 years ago. He’s been at the helm for a number of years, but still calls on Dad for advice on a regular basis. They get along very well. The company actually grew in the past few years despite the recession. They did $5.8 million in business last year and are closing in on 6.5 million this year. 12% growth.  Profit is climbing as well.

Rick wants to build his company to $10Million in sales and he thought he was on track. At 6.5 million he thought he was two thirds of the way up a $10 Million dollar mountain peak, with nothing but climbing ahead.  That’s where the green star is in the picture.   But he was wrong. He’s really on top of a localized peak – where the pink star is.

He’s actually such a good entrepreneur, that in fact he’s floating in the air above that peak. What I mean is he’s on top of a hill that’s maybe 6.3 million high and he’s milking almost 6.5 out of it. He’s that good. He can jump but he can’t fly. He’s going to have to go down to go up.

How do I know this?

I recently did an Orchestra Analysis of Rick’s company. What’s an Orchestra Analysis? It’s where we consider the company as an orchestra, with the CEO as conductor. We look at all the “instruments” in the company and see what notes they’re playing. There are a set number of instruments every company needs. What’s surprising to many people is that every company no matter how big or small needs all the same instruments. They just play louder or softer, or faster or slower in some companies than others.

To do an Orchestra Analysis we plot what notes all the instruments are really playing against the notes they should be playing to make the music the conductor wants, and see where the differences lie. Here’s some of what we found in Rick’s company.

When we looked at his sales operation we found most of the instruments were sitting idle. Rick doesn’t have any outgoing sales operation. He’s doing some advertising and giving quotes as the RFP’s come in. That’s how he’s growing. This is one reason he’s optimized his profit – his local maximum – because his sales costs are very low. But that has two serious ramifications. One is he’ll need to spend money building a real sales organization, one that reaches out, if he wants to grow. It also explains why even though the past few years have been good, profit in years before that has been erratic. He’s been at the whim of the market and not able to see changes coming in time to adapt.

There were other indications of a local maximum as well. His manufacturing space is maxed out. This also increases profit but limits growth.
Most critically, there is no in-house training program to develop line employees or
managers. This lowers his costs in the short term, but it keeps Rick trapped on the shop floor and not able to get out and move the company to the next level. That’s probably the biggest thing keeping him from growing the company the way he wants.

And the final indicator of a local maximum? Rick is turning down business, because he can’t fit it into the production schedule. This is a direct result of lack of investment in floor space, and developing employees.

At first he was turning down business he didn’t really want – C and D level customers. Loosing C and D customers is always a good thing. But he’s turning away some A’s as well. He estimates he turned away $200,000 in sales and $50,000 in profit so far this year. That’s a local maximum.

Local maximums aren’t all good

They can be – if you’re maximizing the right things and that’s where you want to be. But you can reach a maximum that feels like a pit if you’re maximizing the wrong things. You can maximize profit, for example, at the expense of cash flow; or market share at the expense of profit. That’s why before you do an Orchestra Analysis, figure out what song you want the orchestra to play.

In Rick’s case, he’s been closing in on this maximum for a while. Right now he’s maximizing profit, but that hasn’t always been the case. His frustration is that he’s maximizing his short term situation but sacrificing the sense of accomplishment and the money he sees in having a $10Million dollar organization.

Local maximums happen when you’re good at what you do and you move ahead one step at a time, without a good map of the territory. It’s not necessarily a bad thing if that’s the peak you want to be on. But in Rick’s case it’s not high enough. Here’s what I recommend if you’re in a similar situation.

Make a Map

Instead of moving ahead one step at a time, develop a map of where you are and where you want to be. Figure out how deep the valley is between the two. In Rick’s case that means figure out what kind of sales force he needs and what it will cost to develop one. Define what his training program should look like for managers and line employees. Understand how long will it take before he sees results from this. And decide what he should do about the lack of space, machinery and room in the schedule.

These things will all take investment. That’s what I mean by going down before you go up. He needs to have the resources, and the will, to cross that entire valley. If you don’t know how big it is, you can’t be sure you’ll make it to the other side. That’s why a good map is so important.

Takeaways:

• If you’re at a local maximum decide if you’re happy there or not. It might be fine.
• Don’t move forward till you have a map of how deep the valley really is and the resources to make it all the way across.
• If you’re not at a local maximum, with a good map you may be able to avoid one altogether.

We were fortunate.  Also grateful for the funding and diligence of pro-active tree trimming around power lines that has been going on for years in this area.

So why does it matter to you?

Because of these facts.

• By the time it hit Connecticut, Irene wasn’t even a hurricane, just a tropical storm. Wind speeds and rainfall were below predictions – even predictions made just 14 hrs before landfall. So the national media reports that things were better than expected.
• Flooding, however is at record levels.  People who lived thru hurricane Gloria (1985) said they’d never seen flooding like this.
• As are the number of people without electricity – over 50% of the homes in the state lost power. Many will be without it for days.
• Vermont and even Montreal (which according to one meteorologist  have never had a tropical storm) did worse than expected.

Side note about Montreal. My wife went to Montreal on Friday to bring our daughter home after her summer there. They had planned to make the trip back on Sunday but as that was when Irene scheduled her visit they had to choose whether to come home on Saturday or ride it out up north and come back on Monday. They chose to arrive Saturday before Irene did. The right choice as it turned out; because damage to high rises which had been a concern for NYC never panned out there. But several windows were blown out of a high rise in Montreal – a building my family drove right by on their way home.

Better or Worse? So What’s My Point Already?

The point is that large scale trends can be irrelevant to specifics on the ground without being wrong. If your house did fine in Gloria (a REAL hurricane) but got flooded by Irene (JUST a tropical storm) the fact that, by some numbers, Connecticut did better than predicted doesn’t really matter to you.

That means that national or global economic trends of recessions, tight lending by banks, layoffs etc. may not be applicable to your business. Things may be better for you or worse depending on the specifics of your situation.

For example, most of my current clients are doing better than the national averages in recent months and are having trouble hiring. One whose business as always done better than his local competition is having hard times and seeing his numbers dwindle and is having to cut staff. We’re starting to track different data points to learn the causes of these things and how to exploit them.

Takeaways:

• You can’t extrapolate from large scale trends to your business.
• The smaller or more local your company is, the more this is true.
• Changes in large-scale trends SHOULD make you take a more detailed look at the data you’re collecting to see what’s really going on for you and how you can capitalize on how you’re different.

If you have a website; if you write for websites; if you design websites, take an hour and watch this.

I know. It’s a whole hour. But it’s worth it.

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/images/multifiles/articulate/webclinic-07-20-11/player.html

And by “Nothing All Day”, I don’t mean you’re lazy or hanging out at the beach playing angry birds. What I mean is that the stuff you do all day is not, for the most part “CEO work”. It’s usually what is done in a large company by sales people, or production folks or HR or accounting.

There are 2 reasons for this.

CEO work is Important but not Urgent.

This is a trap. The more time you spend on important work, the less often emergencies pop up. If you don’t force yourself to block out time for the non-urgent then you’ll always be chasing your tail.

CEO work is not required full time.

This is true for all but the very largest companies. Think of CEO as a function not a job. Like cleaning your house. It’s a function that needs to be done, but you don’t need a full time janitorial staff. So there’s nothing wrong with you doing sales, solving production problems, or any of that others stuff. In fact there’s a lot that’s right with it.

What you shouldn’t do is neglect the CEO functions your company needs because they are not urgent.

CEO as Orchestra Conductor

Think of that metaphor. The conductor makes none of the music. A small band (4 or 5 people) doesn’t need a conductor. Everyone plays an instrument – but someone chooses what song to do next, and when to schedule rehearsal. You’re probably mid-way between the two. You are the conductor but you also play an instrument (or several).

Takeaways:

• Let everyone know when you speak as an instrument player or as conductor
• Schedule time to function as the conductor or the whole orchestra will get out of time.

Seth Godin writes a post with a similar conclusion, though Seth adds some more profound insights – as he usually does.

One interesting line from Seth is “At some point, a healthy and fairly paid community is essential if you want to sell them something.”

Think about it. How well would your company survive without a market that had the money to buy your products, the time to shop for and enjoy them, and the leisure to pay attention?

See my newest post at Open Forum by American Express.

Learn HOW and more importantly, WHY to measure what happens in your company.