The City of Influence / Stewart 42-43

43 In business, you don't always receive notice before the roof caves in.

Sticks represent performance. When people realize that their business isn't going to survive competing solely on price, they usually start looking for ways to separate themselves from their competition. Those that choose to build with sticks understand that a loyal customer will pay more for an experience they can trust.

14 of 21 Suggestions for Success /H. Jackson Brown...

21 Suggestions for Success /H. Jackson Brown,Jr.

1. Marry the right person.

2. Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.

3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

5. Be forgiving of yourself and others.

6. Be generous.

7. Have a grateful heart.

8. Persistence, persistence, persistence.

9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.

10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.

11. Commit yourself to constant improvement.

12. Commit yourself to quality.

13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power, or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.

14. Be loyal.

The Pursuit of WOW/Peters 259-260

260 Getting good at any damn thing takes work; getting artful takes hard continuous work.

When we see that to learn we must be willing to look foolish, to let another teach us, learning doesn't always look so good anymore...Only with the support, insight, and fellowship of a community can we face the dangers of learning meaningful things. Peter Senge

Consultative Selling/Mac Hanan 31-32

32 Unless you know the norms that a customer manager uses to make decisions and address them head-on in your PIPs, you can never achieve a one-to-one acceptance ratio of PIPs proposed.

The City of Influence / Stewart 37-42

42...We're hoping they'll like our work enough that we'll gradually be able to increase price. ...That's a risky way to build a business.

...wasn't going to survive much longer if they continued competing on price alone.

13 of 21 Suggestions for Success /H. Jackson Brown...

21 Suggestions for Success /H. Jackson Brown,Jr.

1. Marry the right person.

2. Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.

3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

5. Be forgiving of yourself and others.

6. Be generous.

7. Have a grateful heart.

8. Persistence, persistence, persistence.

9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.

10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.

11. Commit yourself to constant improvement.

12. Commit yourself to quality.

13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power, or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.

Consultative Selling/Mac Hanan 30-31

31 In Consultative Selling terms, customer relationship management (CRM) is the management of a continuous stream of deltas moved into a customer's operations. No matter how many other ways suppliers relate to their customers, improving customer profits is the single most important transaction that can occur between them.

When you average your added values on an application-per-operation-per industry basis, you come out with your norm for your ability to add value to that operation in that industry with that application: your normal value.

...."According to our norms for the optimal layout for a print shop of your volume and type of production," 3M can say, "your current layout is depriving you of up to $1 million in profits every twelve months of operation."

Norms are the consultative penetration tool. All consulting professionals work from norms, whose metrics represent their track record--their single most important possession and the foundation of their reputation.

Here is the standard of performance for this critical success factor in this business function or business line, it says. How do you compare? If my norms are better than yours, ask me how I can bring you closer.