These are all commodity-focused issues. The old conceit of a retailer was that if you offered the right products at a fair price in a convenient location, you’d do fine if you watched your expenses. Today, the issues are totally different.
Doug needs to leave for a very simple reason. He’s been branded. Everyone at the company has an expectation of who Doug is and what he can do.
We have a choice about where to aim the lens of our attention. We can relive past injustices, settle old grudges and nurse festering sores. We can imagine failure, build up its potential for destruction, calculate its odds. Or, we can imagine the generous outcomes we’re working on, feel gratitude for those that got us here and revel in the possibilities of what’s next.
Doug has hit a plateau. He’s not going to be challenged, pushed, or promoted to president. Doug, regardless of what he could actually accomplish, has stopped evolving – at least in the eyes of the people who matter.
Key fact: in 2003 pharmaceutical companies spent more on marketing and sales than they did on research and development. When it comes time to invest, it’s pretty clear that spreading the ideas behind the medicine is more important than inventing the medicine itself.
Flynn Berry wrote that you should never use the word “opportunity.” It’s not an opportunity, it’s an obligation. I don’t think we have any choice. I think we have an obligation to change the rules, to raise the bar, to play a different game, and to play it better than anyone has any right to believe is possible.
One way to figure out a great theory is to look at what’s working in the real world and figure out what the various successes have in common. With.
If you have any comments at all about the store, please call me at home.
If religion comprises rules you follow, faith is demonstrated by the actions you take.
Start Your Journey Before You See the End.
Low price is the last refuge of a marketer who has run out of generous ideas.
This is a powerful book – Tiny is mighty. Sharon Rowe’s simple shift in thinking is a profound idea, precisely what we need to hear.
The best marketers are farmers, not hunters. Plant, tend, plow, fertilize, weed, repeat. Let someone else race around after shiny objects.
We’re so obsessed about the risk of shining brightly that we’ve traded in everything that matters to avoid it.
Like the fox, we’ve been trained to stay inside the fence, because inside the fence is where it’s safe – until it’s too late.
We assume that what makes us comfortable also makes us safe.
Those places that felt safe – the corner office, the famous college, the secure job – aren’t. You’re holding back, betting on a return to normal, but in the new normal, your resistance to change is no longer helpful.
There’s still a safety zone, but it’s not in a place that feels comfortable to you. The new safety zone is the place where art and innovation and destruction and rebirth happen. The new safety zone is the never-ending creation of ever-deeper personal connection.
Organize your project, your life, and your organization around the minimum. What’s the smallest market you can survive on?
Alas, there isn’t a pain-free way to achieve your goals.
Art isn’t a result; it’s a journey. The challenge of our time is to find a journey worthy of your heart and your soul.